Transcripts For CSPAN Public Affairs Events 20161121

Tonight, activists and scholars discuss the obama legacy on civil rights. 2016a dubois looked at the election and racial conflicts in the u. S. Heres more. I think we have been handed a next ray. We can see all of the an. Ray we can see all the cancers in the body right now. That is a shocking, destabilizing part. Levele not achieved the of hope and change, the shift in public discourse, the sense of unity as a country that president obama articulated so beautifully in 2008. But i think that we may be missing something really important about that. I obviously personally believe that others have done an amazing job in pointing this out the primary obstacles to hope and change, as we now see, our white fragility and white supremacy. That is on the table and it is out for everyone to see. We can see the trump supporters. We can see the Tea Party Movement in 2010. Race, see the issues with violence, and policing. We cant do surgery without that xray. Took thet probably country too long, maybe even the president too long, to be able to identify these things when folks in this room knew that already, right . Just some of the remarks from an event thing at president obamas civil rights legacy. You can watch the entire program tonight on cspan two. Journal,s washington live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Aming up tuesday morning, reuters washington columnist will discuss the picks for the Trump Administration and what it will mean for future economic policy. And then Philadelphia Daily News editor, michael days will join us on his new book. Be sure to watch washington journal, live on tuesday morning, 7 a. M. Eastern. Be sure to join the discussion. Our featuredome of programs, thursday, thanksgiving day, on cspan. Just after 11 a. M. Eastern, nebraska senator ben sass on the foundinges, fathers, and america. Its not compelled by the government. By a speechat noon from tom harkin on the rise of obesity. In everything, from monster burgers with 1420 calories and 107 grams of fat, to 20 ounce pepsis, feeding an epidemic of child obesity. Then, the founder of wikipedia talks about the beginning of the online encyclopedia and the challenge to the access. Once there is 1000 entries, i know there is a Small Community with five to 10 really active users, another 20 to 30 who know a little bit and they think of themselves as a community. And an inside look at the years long effort to repair and restore the capitol dome. Reflects onna kagan her life and career. Thesis, whichnior was a great thing to have done. It taught me an incredible amount. It also taught me what it was like to be a serious historian, sit in archives all day, and i realized it wasnt for me. Followed by justice thomas, at 9 00. Genius is not putting the two dollars in aor two a 20ce, it is putting idea in a two dollar sentence with no loss of meaning. President obama will percent the medal of freedom to 21 recipients, including michael jordan, bruce springsteen, sicily tyson, and bill and melinda gates. Watch on cspan, cspan. Org, or listen on the free cspan radio app. For the next hour and 15 minutes, a book tv exclusive. We visit tucson, arizona, to learn more about its unique history and literary life. For five years now we have traveled to u. S. Cities, bringing the book seen to our viewers. You can watch more of our visits on cspan. Org citiestour. We begin with leo baron and his book, patton the battle of the bulge. Important inely world war ii. It was his last gasp on the western front. His last chance in trying to change the course of the war. Russians were knocking on the door to germany. The americans and the brits were coming up from italy and the south. The french were coming in from the west, through france, belgium, the low countries. Hiller was looking at the strategic situation and realized that he had to somehow change the equation. Being the gambler that he was, he decided to go and launch this huge counteroffensive, thinking that the allies wouldnt expect it. To a certain extent, he was right. That is why he did it. He launched a huge counteroffensive. He was able to achieve an operational level of surprise. His goal was to get to the city of antwerp. The allies got most of their soprano supplies through, but his plan was that if he could capture the fort, it would upset theallied timetable from west for months, maybe even a year. During that time what he was hoping for was that while the western allies work reorganizing themselves, he could swing his attention towards the russians coming in from the east. That is why the battle of the bulge was so important. It was his last chance to change the course of the war. Leading up to the battle of the bulge, we have to go all the way back to june 6. At that point you only had two major fronts. The russians coming in from eastern europe. The americans in the brits coming in from italy. As you know, there was a lot of ground that the russians had to take to get to basically the heart of germany. From thed commanders west, eisenhower, churchill, roosevelt, said that the easiest way to get to germany was through northwest france. , its the shortest distance. Month or, for about a so. The germans are able to keep the ies kind of logic there lodged up there, in northwest europe. But at the beginning of august the allied forces breakthrough. Operation cobra. Back to the race german border, with allies and way, pushingg the the germans all of the way back. In septemberbilize of 1944. The allies had outrun their supply lines. They were running out of gas. The fort of antwerp was so important. They had to open it. Patton was already pretty famous by that point. , heg back in his history , butnally went to the vmi then west point. He was one of the first tank commanders in the first world war. He moved up in the rank structure. By the time that world war ii already madee had a name for himself. That theys thought were going to land in a place called [indiscernible] and he was the fake commander of the army group. It was part of the deception. They were not landing at calle, but the germans bought it, hook, line, and sinker. The commander of the third being third army came into being on august 1, 1934. After the allies broke through in normandy, he basically just raced across france. So, he completely cap the germans off balance. Racing across france. If it wasnt for the fact that he ran out of gas, he would have ran all of the way to berlin. He caught the germans completely offbalance. Plansou read the german for the defensive in 1944, patton was very much on their mind. Plan, butthis great what was patton going to do . The guy that was in charge of the seventh army, general brandenberger, it was his job to contain patton. He was like you are not giving me enough stuff to contain this guy. Of the allied generals that we fear the most and you are not given me much to stop this guy. He was already in their minds, living in their heads. So, when the offense of kicked , he was to the south of the german offensive. It wasnt actually in his area of operations, initially. Because the germans did penetrate the allied lines, the plan was that they were going to have patton drive his army from the south to the north to basically cut the balls and half at the base of the bulge. I asked him you are facing east with all of these men. You have got all of these men with several divisions, talking well over 100,000 men. All right . We need you to turn them 90 degrees and had to the north. Which would have been difficult for most generals. It was even more difficult because it was on the fly and there wasnt a lot of prior planning and, by the way, the weather was terrible. Bad roads, heavy snow. Patent of course told Eisenhower Patton patch on , of course, told eisenhower that he could do it. One of them said no be silly, george, theres no way that i can do this. But he was like im going to do this, im going to head north and focus on the town. At this point the 101st Airborne Division were afraid they were going to be surrounded. They all recognized that passed ne was the key. In terms of making their way onto antwerp, they needed to have it. To be ont was terrible roads. Any place were you had a town that have a lot of roads, that seemed very important. To give it a historical comparison, it was a lot like gettysburg. So, his focus became you are going to turn your army around and we want you to basically get there, all right . And relieve the 101st that we are going to send in there to defend the city. He literally turned his army 90 degrees, headed north, and true to his word he kicked off his counterattack within 48 hours. He gets there, he breaks through on december 26, 1944. Kind of scene as like a turning point in the battle of the bulge. That pretty much starts to cut into the german forces. There is a lot of hard fighting for another three or four weeks. , he says er that ok, ive done this. We have reestablished and gotten back to the german border and in march, he bounces the rhine in march of 1945. Thats the term that he used. In the march of 1945, the allies had reached the rhine river. A significant obstacle. Huge river, very wide, fast current. Kind of scene for the germans as their last line of defense in the west. They knew that they were going to fight hard for it. There were all of these preparations to basically get across the rhine river. They have the operation to the north, the 21st army group. There was a lot of preparation. Sudden the germans for you to blow up one of the bridges, kind of simplifying it. The ninth Armored Division gets across the bridge. There is actually a movie about it. Patton sees whats going on. He gets across relatively easily. Now of course once they are across, its a race across germany. It from way of doing april and into may of 1945. It is really only a question of time at that point. If you look at the history of the u. S. Army, it is obviously a long and illustrious history. Casualties,nth of hands down, was basically december through january of 1944 , 1945. Northwest europe alone, 144,000 casualties. , killed in action, missing in action, wounded. Yes, there was all kinds of fighting going on. You are talking literally about an 80 mile front worth of combat. Its not like where you go, to a civil war battlefield, where you can pretty much walk the battlefield on foot one day. Would take several days, if you were walking, and several hours if you were driving. Generally seen as going from december 16 to midjanuary. So, you are not talking about one or two days. Third. Second, even though there was a lot of stuff that happened after. Pearl harbor, one day. It doesnt lend itself to a very small, compact book. Typically when you see books on the battle of the bulge, and even though im not doing and advertisement for free, these are great books. 600 pages, its not like you are just going to im going to read the battle of the bulge. Whereas, like i said, civil war battles, one day, two days. Ofm that perspective it kind timid eights potential readers. Its just a huge battle. Its a massive scope that is hard to take in in one book. I think thats maybe why it is not as written about as other battles. Veterans,talk to the i have found that in some cases when i talk to them, they say they had it worse in the desert and they are like are you kidding me . You were fighting the german army or the chinese army. Having that perspective gave me a bit of an in. I get some of it. Just great, talking to these veterans. Just had these incredible stories. Some of the most humble men. I cant say enough about them. This is hyperbole, but what they did was amazing. I have no problem calling them the greatest generation. I had started in 1974. I had written several books of poetry at that point. Name from thehe letter. He was a notorious mass murderer. On death row. My interest was p e, of course. For all the wrong reasons my interest was piqued, of course. For all the wrong reasons. I wanted to meet a monster. He invites me out to death row, to prison in florence, 70 miles from here. I had certainly never been in the death row part of prison. It was eerie. It was a Long Division down the center of this long room and it had wire above it. ,nd then there was a counter and something you could slip the paper through. There were guards i couldnt figure out why there were some in some places and not summon others, but i figured it out. When they brought him in, he was so notorious a mass murderer of guard came and he stood right beside him. I was there, the guard stood beside him. He became very angry on a subsequent visit, saying that the guard had stepped on his foot was very angry about it. So, we worked in the visitation area of death row, which was rather difficult. Through slide his work the great to me and i would market up and slide it back to him. That is where we work. He wanted then for me and another inmate, they wanted me to set up workshop. He said there was a lot of interest. The first time that i walk in to the first workshop with my assistant, who is also a very famous writer now. There were 30 people in the room. I thought what am i going to do . Kyle tom was a fishing writer, so that was fortunate. Fiction writer, so that was fortunate. Poets, iwould keep the sent to the fiction numbers to tom. I had to get the numbers down somehow. The way that it worked was that , and often i would bring in examples of good writing. In that facility i could bring books. I cant in the federal. I would get them to read what i had written. They would write during the week, what they had written. During the workshop. Everybody would critique it. Just orate. They would say i like that line, and so on. I would critique it. Then they would take it back and work on it. They would bring it back and read it again and so on. , myng all of those years wife was a superb typist. When i got to the point when i thought it was publishable, i would bring it out and she would type up nice manuscripts. Then they would send it out for publication. I would provide them with the addresses in the magazines and stuff. A good many of them published. It was a lifechanging experience for them, to see their name on a piece of work in a magazine. In 1970. To prison thats where i met richard shelton, in a unit here in called south of tucson, santa rita. He was teaching a writing workshop there. Richard he was chosen teacher of the year. Hes a biologist. He taught biology. And he ran away with a 14yearold student. When asked why, he says stupidity. Which is probably about as accurate as you can get. I was writing at the time and interested in learning more about it. Always wanted to be a writer. Came into his workshop with some published work. I shared it with the group. Applauded, guys thought it was great. Richard shelton was shaking his head. Richard he tells these stories about how critical i was. In, it aurned palm would be turned in and i would say things like its a terrible waste of a poem would be turned in and i would say things like its a terrible waste of punctuation. Things like that. Richard he would push me. He would say that there is more than reaching about species profiles. He kept pushing me, i guess you would say. I started making these connections between what i was seeing, what was going on with me, and the other men on the yard. Men who would make pets of the ground squirrels. And make this connection between in a place where its actually pretty brutal. The prison yard is a microcosm of the world. But the writing workshops were a release from all of that. You understand that in the prison, inmates make distinctions about things like the nature of your crime, the color of your skin, mostly the color of your skin. Its just a crazy racism that goes on. In the workshops, that all fell away. We can examine each others writing. It doesnt matter what color you are or what your crime is. What was important was the writing. It was like a way to get off the prison yard. It was a way to get away from all of that craziness that went on outside the classroom. Richard i have been in some danger, but not really. I think its exaggerated. I tell the story with the guards, the guards at florence hats,opper hats cowboy cowboy kneehighs, cowboy boots. I had to cross through the yard, out one block long, with knowing men. The guards would be up about 35 and they all had tripod weapons. Many of them were old. Retired deputy sheriffs. I thought if a fight breaks out near me, they are going to start shooting and im just as likely to get shot as anybody area im wearing cowboy hats, cowboy boots, and levis. I would stand out, so that they would know i was not an inmate. Then i was coming in one night and they had a kiosk on top of the wall. It was a pair of it that they that look down parapet they could look down into. In the cowboy hat and i guess they couldnt see my face. It was dusk. There was a point at which i would stand by the iron gate that was always locked. I would stand in front of them and holler a guard or key. They would let them a basket from of above and had a big old key on it. I would put that in and open the gate. It was heavy and iron. I would go through and push it back to the whole and into the and into thee basket. That night i got there and i hollered for the guard but it didnt have a key in it. It had little packages of white outer. This is how the guards supplemented their very bad salaries. Dealing heroin. That scared me to death. When i saw that and saw what was, i thought im in real danger now. They are up there with guns and enough. Ust discovered there was nothing i could do, i didnt have a key. I thought that if i turned it around they would give me in the back. The best thing i could do was just nothing, play stupid which wasnt hard for me. So, i just stood there and pretty soon they realized their error. It came back down with the key in it. I have got to get in, anyway, but can i get out . Guyse way out a number of walked with me. They didnt know why, but they walked with me to the gate. I was acting like an absolute idiot, to impress the after i got out, i had to cross the parking lot. The lights were very bright there. I was scared. But i never told anybody at the time. I never told anybody until my book came out way five years later. 25 years later. And so they let me go. They figured i was so stupid i do not know what that was. And i really impressed them with my stupidity in every way i could. Yeah, i was scared then. There were other times. I was a little scared during the riot but not much, because they took good care of me, the inmates took good care of me. I guess they were expecting a riot. I was not it we were sitting around this long table in a room with no windows, and the door had those bars, and i heard something that sounded like a car backfiring. That is what i thought it was. They make their own guns because they had the license plate factory. They made license plates and could also make their own guns. They were called zip guns. They are not very accurate. They do not have very much range. But they were deadly. Suddenly i heard that noise, and all i could hear was the scraping of the chairs on the concrete floor as the guys stood up, and two of them went to the door and held that bar so nobody could get in. The others gathered around the inside around me. We heard noise, gunshots, firing carrying on, sirens, and something hit the door, a gas canister of teargas. We could smell it. Several times, people try to get as in the door, but they held onto it. People pounded on the door. Evidently, the riot moved in the prison from sort of northwest to as the southeast. It ultimately passed by. They tried to get in, and the guys in the workshop did not want them to know i was in there, because i could have been taken hostage. So they protected me. Eventually it was over, and two men were killed. Two inmates. And the guards eventually came and pounded on the door and identified themselves. I went out and they took me out, and the men went this way and i went that way. I did not even have a chance to say thank you. Prison is a breeding ground for crime. That is a sure way to get somebody to commit a second crime, to send them to prison. And that prison should be, at its best, an opportunity for people to turn them sums around. And there are ways to encourage that, ways to make it happen. The arts are one of those ways. I think a lot of people think they are no good. And that is not necessarily true, nor does it mean they will always be no good. I think that sometimes each of us is the worst person to judge himself. You need some judgment from outside. I guess maybe there are some people, some inmates, who are misunderstood, just as there are people on the outside who are misunderstood. But i think most of the illegal activities, whatever they were, were based upon some other needs. When i asked the men that were in the workshop, i asked one time for them to list for me the causes of crime. They listed mostly social issues. Poverty, the prevalence of drugs, bad parentage, on and on. And these were social issues. And then i said, there is one more, isnt there . Nobody could guess what it was except ken, and he said stupidity. Here is a man who is brilliant, welleducated, successful who says he spent 12 years in prison because of stupidity. Well, he was not misunderstood. There was something lacking in him that he got when he grew older. And the man with whom i worked originally, the mass murderer, changed enormously when he turned about 40, and it all fell away and he became normal. He could love and feel pain and other peoples pain. He had been a psychopath, but he ceased to be. He stopped fooling people. He confessed to all his crimes, even some they had not proved. He began to care for people and, unfortunately, just as he became a whole human being, he was murdered. I dont know, i think they are misunderstood. I think if you are raised in poverty with bad parentage, particularly if you are a male minority person, the chances of you going to present are very, very great. As your chances of going to prison are very, very great. I do not think it means that you are more evil than the next person. I think it means that your spirit got beat up somehow. And that you did things that you would not have done under other circumstances. Well, it is a big subject. Lots of books have been written about it. I think being in the yard, it shows a sort of relationship with inmates you do not find in most other books. Independent voters are important in some ways and seemingly fairly inconsequential in other ways. Turns out that independent voters, by and large, do support one of the two major parties. About 93 of independents will tell pollsters when asked that they do prefer democrats or republicans, and they tend to vote very consistently for those parties. Independents who lean toward the democrat almost always what for the democrat. Independents who lean toward the republican almost always vote for the republican. So it seems as though independents are not that important. I have asked political scientists what they have thought about them for about a decade, but my coauthor and i decided to take another look at independents and decided to see if they were engaged in politics. We found that independents are much less likely to participate in certain activities, for example, putting up a yard sign in the yard, and awareness sticker, or telling friends who they will vote for. They want to appear independent, so they do not do those things. Sony comes to participating in activities, that is important because they do not do that. We have seen independents steadily increased over the past century. Pew and gallup are seeing more independents than they have before, an alltime high at we now have more americans that identify as independent than either of the other two parties. It is the most frequent identification and polls. About 40 of americans say they are independent, and the remaining 50 is split about evenly between democrats and republicans. Why this has been happening steadily over time, one thing we focused on is the role of negativity in politics. As we have seen all attacks become more negative in the United States, the social desirability against democrats or republicans is increasing. Americans do not want to be associated with fighting and bickering and personal attacks. With media in particular, it is said that independent are swing voters, and they are not. They are not even ideologically moderate. Many of them are very conservative are very liberal. It is not necessarily true that independents are up for grabs. The question that really motivated this book is some a why would someone say they are voting for a party . That is what drove us to start this. We found that there is a social desirability against partisans, almost a consensus among the American Public now that independents are more appealing than democrats or republicans. We have done surveys, and we found people think independents armor more attractive, trustworthy, more likable. They generally prefer to live around independents, work around independents. If you are trying to make the best impression around other people, the best way to do that is to say you are independent, even around strong republicans are strong democrats. They will also admit that independents are more the aspirational ideal, that is the people should strive to be. People talk about this higher ground. They will say i am above all the fighting and bickering. I do not want to support the lesser of two popular. So people do see the independents as the noble choice among these, kind of, negative stereotypes that we have with democrats or republicans. We also asked people what message they would get to the president as independents, and they want compromise. They want people to work together, bipartisanship. It is what they say. We wanted to see of that was true with a series of experiments in which we asked both democrats, republicans, and independents how they would react if theyre on representative compromised their own values for the sake of bipartisanship. We found we found out all groups would be very upset if that happened. So the word copper mines compromise tends to be something the other party should be doing, not sunday their own party should be doing. I think one of the biggest mysteries right now is if there are so many independents, if the independent label is seen as so socially desirable, why do we not have a successful thirdparty . Probably the biggest reason for that, well, there are some structural reasons having to do with the Democratic National committee and Republican National committee. They do have a lot of power in american politics. But americans are also very tied to the party labels. Independents, although they may not identify with a particular party, have spent their lives voting for the same party over and over again, for the most part. It really is hard to break away. The rely heavy on flex ability when looking at candidates. One of the Biggest Challenges a candidate like gary johnson has two face is the electability factor. People do not want to feel like they are throwing their vote away on a candidate who is not going to actually win. That was Bernie Sanders biggest hurdle as well, and for the most part, he managed to overcome it. That will always keep a third party done in the United States. I think the rise of donald trump and the success Bernie Sanders is largely a function of the appeal of independents. Bernie sanders is an independent, in that he is officially an independent. Donald trump really has no connection to either of the two parties. So i think both of those candidates really allowed americans to support a candidate that was not squarely in either party. So donald trump, i think, can think independents largely for his rise because he was seen as nonpartisan in a lot of ways. Barack obama has really enjoy the same benefit. He cast his campaign is sort of this post partisan campaign. Mccain and palin tried to do the same thing, rogue, maverick. So i think the independents have seen the benefit i think candidates have seen the benefit of independents and the independent message. Now donald trump has sort of lost that allure. I think the important application of the book is that the dissatisfaction with the parties is consequential. It means that more and more americans are going to withdraw from participating in politics, and that will leave our political system in the hands of a small number of people who might be more extreme than the average voters. As democrats and republicans become less socially desirable, more americans may disassociate and will not go knocking at doors and talking to their friends about voting for a particular candidate. Those lower levels of engagement are problematic. It leaves candidate selection and our democracy itself in the hands of those who do not necessarily represent the rest of us. There were a number of misconceptions about arizona and its history, and one of them is that all the mexicans here are immigrants from mexico. But like the onton people say, we do not cross the border, the border crossed us. And long before arizona ever became a part of the United States, it was a part of, first spanish, and later, mexican sonora. So tucson was really the northernmost community in the province, and later, the state of sonora. So there are mexican families here who have been here 7, 8 generations, including some that were with the original group of soldiers who came up here in 1776 and actually founded the community of tucson. The u. S. Has always been a very racialized society, and back east, we tend to think of blackwhite relations. But as this area became part of the United States after the mexican war and then with the Gadsden Purchase in 1854, all of a sudden, white americans had to deal with mexican people. And the mexicans, they did not consider the mexicans to be white, so they thought that they were inferior to them. They did not quite know where to place them in the kind of racial hierarchy that existed in the country at that time. You know, they were not slaves, they were not african or africanamerican, but they definitely were not white. You know, sometimes they were referred to, for example, as a race of mongrels, this sort of mixture between native people and europeans like the spaniards. So almost from the very beginning, there were these patterns of where the anglo newcomers tried to dominate the mexicans who were already living here. Now it was not quite as bad as it was in parts of california and texas, primarily because from the 1850s until the 1880s, there were not a lot of anglo settlers here. Arizona was seen as this kind of dry, desolate, apache infested hell hole on the way to california. So a lot of people were not attracted to settle here. In fact, for about a 20year period, most of the anglo newcomers were adult males. Very few anglo women came in. So many of those males married mexican women and into mexican families and also started businesses either with mexicans who had been here for a long time or also with mexican entrepreneurs who were moving into the area from sonora or chihuahua. For about a 20 have in your period, for a 20year period, it was the sort of biracial, bilingual society, but it all changed very quickly once the Southern Pacific Railroad came in, because all of a sudden, you know, you could bring in outside goods, more settlers arrived to ranch or mine. More anglo women arrived. So tucson very quickly became a segregated community with mexican families being pushed out of the old presidio downtown area by anglo businessman, and they moved either south or west. As more anglo settlers moved in, they moved north and east. This de facto ethnic racial segregation really took hold here. It is as if they had disappeared from the face of the earth in the newspapers beginning in the 1870s. No coverage of mexican businessmen, no coverage of mexican artists. The only thing you might get was two mexicans got into a knife fight on saturday night in a bar. And that really persisted well, it still persists in many respects. It is interesting, you know, i wrote history of arizona, and the First Edition came out in 1995. Second edition came out in 2012. It was in honor of the centennial of arizona statehood. And what i saw them was, when arizona became a state, there was this widespread antimexican movement. Interestingly enough, back then, it came from the west the left rather than the right, and it was anglo, angloirish miners, and Union Organizers who wanted to keep mexicans out of the mines because those were the best paying jobs. They tried to get these antimexican measures in the u. S. Constitution and in the arizona constitution, and later, when those were either turned down, they tried to pass similar measures in the legislature. And then when i went back to revise my history, i realized that we were living through a similar period of antimexican sentiment, only this time it was coming more from the right, beginning in the late 1980s with the englishonly movement, a series of laws designed to make english the official language of arizona, a mandate that only english would be spoken in Government Agencies and public facilities. And then with, you know, explosive surge in mexican immigration in the 1990s and early 2000s, this sort of antimexican, antiimmigrant hysteria, you know, rose and rose and rose. And we got bills like sb 1070, which garnered national attention, which tried to force Municipal Police departments to request immigration papers every time they stopped a mexicanlooking person for a Traffic Violation or whatever. And we were going through another period of antimexican political agitation that was pretty successful in the sense that many of those antimexican measures were passed into law. I think that antimexican sentiment was really fueled by, you know, anglo newcomers to arizona, many of them retired and moved into the state in the 1980s, 1990s, who had no understanding of arizona history, no understanding of arizona and mexicos deep ties with one another, ties with commerce, ties of family, ties of culture, ties of history. And looked at all mexican people, including u. S. Citizens, as these, you know, kind of brown immigrant hordes from the south threatening u. S. Sovereignty. And it was a complete misreading of arizona history and who we are in arizona. When arizona was making that transition from being a frontier to being part of the United States, in agriculture, on the railroads, even in the logging industry, the majority of the workers were mexican and mexicanamerican. And that is true for all of the western United States. The western u. S. Would not have been built without mexican labor. So i would like them to get a deeper, richer since of the role that mexican people played in the history of the state and in the history of the country. Tucson gets about 11, 12 inches a year of rainfall. It is not that prominent. It is a bimodal pattern. In the wintertime, there will be long drawnout storms from the pacific. Sometimes we get these wonderful monsoons that come up from mexico, the sea of cortez, and they bring these big violent storms with the thunderheads, the thunderstorms, the lightning, and maybe drop an inch or two in just an hour, and that is when the flooding really happens. It is wonderful. When you live in arizona, you dont run and hide from this kind of weather. We like to get out in it. So it is a desert but one of the greenest of deserts. I came here when i was nine years old. My mom brought as out here, all five of us. I am the oldest of five. Pretty much immediately fell in love with the desert. I mean, you know, this was the mid1960s and we lived on the north side of town. And i was free to just come and go all i wanted. Take my bike, i would be gone all day just exploring washes, the drainages, exploring the desert, learning about the desert, figuring out what all these strange animals and birds were. I guess it was probably, moving here was where i began to be a naturalist. My parents had been wanting me to do a guidebook for arizona. There was an idea that it should be 52 weekends, 52 destinations, something that somebody could use to go to a place at any particular time in the year. I had written a guidebook before, and i thought well, i was not too excited by the idea, actually. I had this idea, it was coming up on a centennial, 2012, the 100year anniversary. I thought, well, why not turn it into more of an adventure . Can i actually see arizona or how much of arizona can i do in one year, the centennial year . Take the idea of the 52 destinations and go somewhere different every week. And that appealed to me more. Make it a fun project. Find out what it is about arizona. How do we identify ourselves as arizonans . What is it about the state that makes us arizonan . And just go to these destinations around arizona and just talk to people about the place we live, a great place to live. We are starting on the place of tucsons birth, the presidio, a reconstructed presidio in downtown tucson. Presidio san augustine, and this is where on august 20, 17 75, at this irish mercenary, hugo, an irish man, moved the presidio from tuback to tucson, and this is what we claim as our birthplace and birth to, august 20, 1775. 240 years ago. Was not sure i could actually accomplish Something Different for an entire year every week. Bisbee and moved to douglas. I stayed at a hotel on friday 13, and it is haunted just like about every hotel in arizona is haunted. I spoke with someone and she said, you know, these hotels are all haunted and historic. She said, i think it means the plumbing is bad. She was done with historic. She wanted something more modern. I would bounce a lot of things off of her. We are opposite in a lot of ways. So went to douglas and tombstone, of course, and a wonderful historian there took me around the town and talked to me about wyatt earp and who he really was. He called him a gambler and a pimp. Wonderful guy, mark weisburger. Dressed up in all the typical period clothing, the hat. He had this wide brim hat he wore. He kind of put down hollywood for changing a lot of things. He talked about the hat brim that is all rolled up with the hollywood construction because the directors wanted more light on the actors faces. He says they never would have done anything like that. The idea was to find out, you know, what is arizona . What is it about and i learned some amazing things, especially about this part of arizona, the southern portion, what is called baja, arizona. A friend of mine, and arizona poet laureate, says that it is not borders that separate us, our borders are wherever you are joined. Some of who we are in arizona is our connection to the countries and the peoples and the cultures surrounding us. This is the famous el charro in tucson, the oldest Mexican Restaurant in the u. S. And this is where i came for the famous chimichanga. The story behind it, a hilarious story, in 2012 when i was researching this area of arizona, the legislature was actually trying to decide whether they should have a state food as one of our states symbols. And el charro and another Mexican Restaurant in phoenix had stories about the chimichanga. They looked kind of similar. The founder of el charro said she invented here, said she was rolling up burros one day and one accidentally fell into the hot oil, and she shouted Something Like, chimichanga. That is the story to it it was probably more of a swear word they came out as to me china. Anyway they came out as chimichanga. Anyways, these are the stories ago along with el charro. The other restaurant has a similar story. They both wanted to make the chimichanga the state food a ash of arizona. Of course, i had to come here and have the chimichanga, the place where was supposedly invented. And i did. The chimichanga led to this crazy idea of chasing all the symbols of arizona. Arizona has 12 symbols. 12 official symbols, things like the cactus blossom, the state flower, the state tree, the state frog. We have a state neckwear, which is the bolo tie. I actually have one with me. The bolo tie i should be wearing it. What is the natural habitat of the bolo tie . There is this place in wickenburg, and there is this guy there that claims he invented it, the bolo tie, that one day he was out riding his horse and his head blew off and he cannot retrieve it, but he managed to get the hat band. He threw it over his neck, and people liked the look. So he said, i can do something with that, and he created the arizona symbol necktie, the bolo tie. It is a neat way of saying, hey, arizonans, we have this really cool thing that was created right here in our state, and is says something about who we are as arizonans. You know, i had driven through a lot of these towns before. I never really bothered to stop and some except maybe for gas. When i got to kingman, i found out there was a rum distillery there, and arizona rum distillery. Ok, how do they make rum in arizona . Where do they get the molasses . The owners gave me a tour of the place, and it was like stateoftheart. And i learned about rummaking in arizona and that they are actually doing a really amazing job. They are winning awards, tying with bacardi. An arizona rum distillery tying their rum making with bacardi. Places like that. I had never been to another place, so i went there and found a native american men, navajo, who was willing to take me in his jeep to the canyon. Wonderful stories. I had never been to four corners, arizona. So we drove up there. I learned that four corners, arizona, is actually not in geographical four corners. They missed it by about Something Like 2000 feet or something. Just things like that. It was just a wonderful adventure, and it evolved into lots of storytelling, stories that people would tell me, and then my own research and stories i would find out about places around arizona. I think it is more about our connection, who we are as arizonans. It is not like, you know, we are not like what the media portrays. Were diverse, multicultural people who are just kind of thrown together in an extraordinary environment, the sonoran desert. And it is nothing, not like you go out in the desert and find headless people, and this is what everybody hears about. This is an amazing place with a rich culture. I want people to come out here and experience it and see it. It is not like what a lot of media portrays. The title of my book comes from remembering this neighborhood in a particular place. I write about urban renewal, and the 80 acres close to downtown that was destroyed. I refer to the area as la calle because it was the commercial hard for mexican americans. They patronized small retail, service shops, restaurants, and they had their own entertainment venues. The city destroyed 80 acres, the most densely populated area in the city of tucson and the state of verizon a. It would the state of arizona. It was also the area that housed the largest people of color, meaning the largest population of african americans, and mexicanamericans. So there is a racialized agenda in this project. Of course, mexican americans formed the largest population and had set up their own community that moved in a southward direction from downtown and had established what i call their own special reality where they get to live and celebrate their culture and be a maxed be amongst others like themselves. That is what i remember as a child. Of course, later, when looking at the documents, it was hard to recognize and to member that. Because most planning documents produced by the city of tucson did not really talk about the people. They did not talk about the vibrancy that i was trying to get to, because it is this cold, impersonal perspective. They had an agenda. They wanted to implement urban renewal, and they wanted to get that done. So in the documents, you hear reasons about why this is such a good project, that some of these houses are dilapidated, that some of these houses are socalled slums. So they are putting out a different perspective. So i had to go beyond the documents and interview people that lived there or had some to say about the whole program to inform me. I can depend on memory only so much, but i cannot use that as a source of information. But i can depend on memory to tell me that history and these planning documents, something is wrong, something is off. It was not the way that we were told her that they were trying to tell us that this area was, and if it was, if there were outside bathrooms, if there were people with those conditions, then wasnt it the citys responsibility for a community located right next to downtown to provide those services . It is almost like the city intentionally deprived this area of services in order to justify its demolition, its destruction. This is an example of sonoran housing. You can tell the people lived close together, and this is representative of most of the type of architecture that dominated in la calle. You can see some of the stoops where people would sit and talk to their neighbors, and they are in close proximity. The architecture is distinctive very sonoran, looks very different. All of these homes are made out of adobe, which was stigmatized in the 1960s. Planners actually meant mexicans when they referred to adobe. It has been gentrified and has new owners. And now it is cool in 2016. People like to live in adobe houses and are looking to live in these kind of houses. These homes are the most expensive real estate in tucson per square footage, more expensive than places in the foothills. But those of the changes that have happened in the last 50 years and the differences that people have regarding ingredients, materials such as adobe, which is now held in high regard and seen and valued as sustainable. Most of the people in that area were renters. Only 20 of the people who lived in that area, including businesses, actually owned their own homes. That can have dire effects in this election, 1966, because in arizona at that time in acting 66 at that time in 1966, the world bond elections, yes or no, and for these types of elections, only Real Property owners could vote. The majority of residents in la calle were not able to vote on this initiative. And you had people outside their community, the neighborhood, deciding the fate of these people who could not vote. So that is a great injustice. That statute has been changed. But at that time, what resulted was that only 4 of the population in tucson voted for urban renewal. It was those 4 that made the huge decision of leveling close to 80 acres downtown. We are on the side of the Tucson Convention center, the large performance space. Today is a holiday, labor day. So it is a weekend, a time when i remember there being a lot of people, a lot of activity. As you can see, it is a most they intentionally designed it to be an hospitable to be inhospitable, unfriendly. You will not find one drinking fountain on the complex. It is not an exaggeration to say this was designed to keep people away. Today we have more conscious urban planning, trying to change it and make it more inviting. In march, i was part of a group that brought a performance here, and we set up barrio stories and used the landscape. Thousands of people were attracted to barrio stories because we told the history of urban renewal from the perspective of people who lived in it and lived through it. It was an exciting project, an exciting time. Residents learn about it through the media, newspapers, and radio. There is not this huge resistance that we classify as traditional resistance. They did not protest. As a child, i remember my father reading the newspaper and being angry and slamming it down, but he did not go out and join some protest. There was not this organized protest, and that was a problem for me as i researched this. Because where was the resistance . I did find a group of women, mostly women, a committee that organized. They put up these little tables on the downtown street corners and gathered signatures for the petition to try to at least save what they considered and what was the most important location which was la placita, the main Public Square and Cultural Center for mexican americans. So the reason that, yes, ok, so all this is going down, and we understand that you have to tear this down, so they turn out to be the most vocal advocates for preserving certain areas. And they also are the biggest foes that raised issues around urban renewal and start questioning it, so i am lucky to have found those documents, very lucky to document this historical preservation. Because all people do not consider mexicanamericans and mess again american women to be mexicanamerican women to be in historical preservation. But here they are trying to find ways to preserve the special area. Of course, in the end, they do not succeed, but they are able to save a little kiosk or gazebo. That is certainly important historically, because it represents their efforts and represents the original la placita. It is the only thing in that area, the kiosk or gazebo, the only thing that was not moved from its original location. It is very symbolic today and is owned by the city of tucson. I am at the la placita village complex, the specialty Shopping Center, which was designed to replace the original communal space of la placita. It has a chainlink fence around it and is scheduled to be demolished any day now. It will be replaced with some units, and it will be interesting to see the results. This Shopping Center failed miserably, never attracted very much attention, never attracted shoppers, and never worked the way designers and planners intended it to. It never worked the way designers and planners said it was going to work. It looks dead right now, but it was dead even before the chainlink fence went up. So the City Planners and promoters think they can just tear it down and build something new that is going to change, that is going to function, that is going to draw people. They destroy most of that accept the kiosk or gazebo, and they think that that is going to attract tourists. So they make it look what they think is going to attract tourists, so you build this mexican plaza, but you remove the mexicans, so it fails miserably. This great plan that was supposed to solve the citys woes actually caused downtown to go into a big downturn. A caused downtown to actually decline. For 40 years, you had a dead downtown in tucson. In the last 10 years, it is gaining energy and is being redeveloped, reenergized. It is different than la calle. You have different constituencies that the developers and tourist promoters are trying to attract the but there is a different kind of Energy Taking hold downtown. I am hoping people that read this book will learn about history, the complicated nature of it, that sometimes we think of arizona in recent times, and it has been in the news for the last 10 years, of the attack on ethnic studies in the local school district, wow, this is new, but you have to contextualize this. Perio ofd been many antimexicans sentiment in arizona. This is just what people think is new, but urban renewal is an , antimexican american sentiments grounded in fear, the same thing we are experiencing now in 2016. A lot of that rhetoric has been used in previous decades. Urban renewal is an example of that, of making unwise planning decisions, targeting a group of people i justly, and theres lessons learned. Not the one that is into lessons, but i do think that we as a city are trying to ,edevelop the downtown area that we can maybe look to the past and see what ingredients worked in the past, maybe pick up on those. Maybe what i described in terms of walk ability, sustainability, those ideas will be implemented into this new version of downtown, 21st century downtown. Our visit to tucson, arizona, is a book tv exclusive. It today to introduce you to cspan cities tour. For five years now, weve traveled to u. S. Cities, bringing the book seen to our viewers. You can watch more of our visit citiestour. N. Org on president ial transitions and what challenges all incoming president s face. At 6 30 p. M. Eastern here on cspan. Tonight on the communicators, commissioners Robert Mcdowell and robert cox on how the fcc could change under the Trump Administration and a look at the issues it could be facing. What is the future of the internet going beyond Net Neutrality . What does it mean with Artificial Intelligence . What about consolidation and commercialization . Itemso the settop box where there wasnt any unanimity or consensus from the democrats for starters is probably also not going to get off the ground. Watch tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan two. Activists and scholars will discuss president on civil rights. Here is more. President cant wave a magic wand and say civil rights, repair. That doesnt happen. The executive is constrained in very real ways. That at least gives me is that this Justice Department and Civil Rights Division has been busier than it has been in any administration prior, maybe except for johnson. It has been busy. Passess that congress constrain its reach in very, very real ways. Ill give you one example and then i will pass it on and hopefully we can talk more. There was a mention of Trayvon Martin in the last panel. Foras the correct decision the department of justice not to intervene in Trayvon Martin because the law is written in a way that makes it nearly impossible for them to intervene in that way. They have to show that at the time that zimmerman dealt the below, he was motivated solely by racial action. Watch entire program tonight at 9 00 p. M. On cspan2. Cspans washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up tuesday morning, reuters washington columnist will discuss potential picks for treasury and other economic posts in the Trump Administration at what they would mean for future economic halsey. Then, talk about the book, obamas legacy, what he hismplished as president as term comes to a close. Be sure to watch washington journal live at seven across eastern tuesday morning. Join the discussion. Fall of the transition of government on cspan, as donald trump becomes the 45th president of the United States, and republicans maintain control of the u. S. House and senate. We will take you to key events as they happen, without interruption. Watch live on the spend. Watch ondemand at www. Cspan. Org or listen on our free cspan radio app. Joining us now is adam brand, president and ceo of the Group Freedom works. Good morning. For those who dont know, how would you describe Freedom Works to people . We are a grass roots group. We take a very limited government approach. We are often identified as libertarian or conservative. In these days of the incoming Trump Administration, how does your view intersect with what mr. Trump would like to do . Theres things ive always dreamed of doing, if a regulation has 100 million in cost and has to be voted by article one support of the constitution, which is separation of powers between the executive branch and congress, and we support the 10th amendment, allowing the states to be laboratories of democracy. My great fear, of course, is power centralizing in washington. It doesnt matter if its republican or democrat, but if power is centralized in the white house, bad things will probably happen to the country. Im optimistic right now that we will be able to separate that power and diffuse that power a little bit in d. C. Thats a lot of the policies we will be working on. Host i want to read you a line from a story in the washington post. Mr. Trumps agenda which includes a big Infrastructure Program and preserving medicare and Social Security may find more support among democrats than republicans. Play that out as far as your point of view. Guest im waiting to see. The devil is always in the details when you get to this. When president obama pushed a stimulus package that included the shovel ready programs, we were against that because we look at that as just adding on debt for im not really sure what the return was. One of my problems with shovel ready programs is that if youre trying to build a new bridge across the ohio river, it may take up to three years of engineering studies and whatnot before you can turn the first shovel. I expect that infrastructure to be a little different. I expected to be part of a tax policy where there will be some repatriation of funds from overseas. We have trillions of dollars from American Companies because of our uncompetitive tax code. They are stashing trillions of dollars overseas. If you stage a 10 tax on that and bring it back and you raise 200 billion and you see an Infrastructure Bank, so it is not controlled by folks here in washington. The state ohio would have to show up with some cash as well to leverage that money to build that. I would not be as opposed to that as i am to running up the hundred billion dollars in new debt. When it comes to Social Security and medicare, the cbo says 90 of our debt and deficit going to the future is going to be driven by the entitlement programs. You do need to make some changes there. However, when youre looking at a world of 1 growth, those changes with Social Security and medicare almost impossible. Step 1 get to growth. That will open up the climate for potentially doing changes on Social Security and medicare. Host our guest talking about these various topics is adam brandon, joining us. If you want to ask questions, 202 7488000 for democrats, 202 7488001 for republicans, and 202 7488002 for independents. Trump has president elect promoted anything that in your mind would be a good way to grow the economy . Guest there are two things i hear right off the bat. When i talk to activism across the country, you hear about taxes and everyone would like to see a more streamlined tax code. That is the main thing to hear. You dont hear about the rates as much as you hear about regulation and the harm of regulation. Those people think i know what the tax rates are but regulation, that is hard to build a business off of. And these unaccountable eurocrats who will pass a mass of regulation. Bureaucrats who will pass a mass of regulation. If you could have three different tax rates between tax simplification and regulatory relief you will start to see a america at 3 growth by the end of the year. I hear regulation and the average Business Owner could you give us an example . An extreme example. It really affects people. Those working in West Virginia in the coal industry. And you look at different regulations on power plants that eliminated their entire industry. That is one example of regulations killing jobs. But then you look at other regulations that do a lot to raise consumer cost. Whether it is regulating the sugar industry so that you protect domestic Sugar Producers but what does that do . Candy producers and soda producers, they do not sugar but High Fructose Corn Syrup instead. All of a sudden, you have a new ingredient introduced and it impacts all of our lives. And it is because of regulation trying to protect our domestic sugar production. Consumption. It was started in 2006. He is now president and ceo. I originally thought i would be there for two years, and now, here i am. Questions from our viewers. Susan from our independent line. Go ahead. Good morning. Everyonencern is that mentions Social Security and medicare. Number one, i would like to know why Social Security has not been given a dedicated fund so that congress cannot spend our money. Congress, both sides, have taken has taken billions out of the Social Security fund. Secondly, same thing with medicare. Out of hours Social Security checks, we pay a Monthly Payment into our medicare. Whether we like it or not. And those of us who are retired, who have to work to make ands meat, we again have to pay into medicare. Medicare is doubled the thing. And the other thing medicare is double dipping. If the retired folks did not have to work, we are taking jobs away from the younger people. The caller brings up a lot of great points. Tohink she was referring something that outscored originally championed about the Social Security lock tax. That Social Security funds would be put into a fund for Social Security. If you look at the numbers and tables, it is not a joke. The Social Security fund is a bunch of ious the government has put out in full theres in West Virginia. Folders in West Virginia. The only reason the program will keep going as if future taxes come in. In the private sector, you call that a ponzi scheme. I feel for the caller and i understand her concerns. My parents rely on Social Security. My longterm vision is taking fixed Social Security and retirees have fixed medicare. And then people, younger folks come up below the age of 30, have the option to choose between Social Security and a version of a 401 k that they can save into. That will boost their Retirement Savings and security Going Forward. John from decatur, illinois is up next. Good morning. Legislators, lobbyists, go home when they get done serving their time . Why do they have to hang around and suck off the government. I really enjoy that comment. One of the things that i take up that i really enjoy that donald trump has said is that he talks about draining the swamp. I am writing a piece right now about what the swamp is. It is not technical it is not technically legally corruption but when you look at a congressman who comes to town and is here for a couple of terms and then they go and work for the lobbyists. Existsson that k street is because of the complexity of our government. For the advocate simpler system. Instead of a complex regulatory environment, you have clear rules and fewer regulations. And the idea being that in the complexity is where washington lurks, that is where the swamp is. Often you dont notice the changes and it is the lobbyists trading special favors. One thing i hope we cant support in the Trump Administration is draining the swamp. When it comes to changes in the tax code, if the is the client is the climate the same as in the 1980s . I am looking at how it was done in 1986. Everyone hears about the filibuster at 60 votes. You can also use a tactic called reconciliation. It is very complex. You can use it to pass votes with 51 votes. I am looking at how they did that in the past. Right now, if you are someone like me who looks at policies, and itu have the senate has enough of the majority in the house and the white house, you have to go for it right now. If you dont pass tax reform in this climate, it it may not be possible. For pauloes that mean ryan Going Forward . Thisieve paul ryan is interesting. Heading into this election there was a lot of speculation whether he would return as speaker. Donald trumps election saved him. Because on one side speaker ryan has the agenda donald trump wants to push and on the other side, he has the House Freedom caucus. Between there is where the speaker will be able to operate. Everyone is more comfortable with the fact that the speaker has to push this agenda forward and if he does not, he is going to have problems on one side or the other. 0 , 10 , 25 . Adaptingonald trump the house version . Matters. T think it a few weeks ago, everyone was predicting massive civil war on the conservative libertarian side where we would be battling each other. What you have seen is a unification. We have a few months to get a lot of things through. We have plenty of time to disagree on the details but on the big things that we agree on, simplifying the tax code for example, let us go and let us go now. Let us hear from edward on the republican line. My name is edward espinoza. I would like to ask you a question. Regarding funding for Infrastructure Projects in the country. There is partially funded Construction Projects across the country that are being shelved right now. Would it be a good approach for the government to go into these principalities and pull these Construction Projects off the shelves, fully fund them, and put people back to work . This would put hundreds of construction workers to work across the u. S. Without having to fully fund these projects. They are all over the place. What is your opinion on that . Thank you. I agree that if folks like you are not back to work, we will not have the country growing at 3 . The first Infrastructure Project you will see, and i think it is mostly privately funded, will be the pipelines across the middle section of the u. S. I believe with infrastructure the problem we are trying to avoid is that infrastructure decisions are being driven in d. C. If it is done through d. C. , there will be all kinds of special hands in the pot instead of what is the most important thing we need to do with these precious dollars. A path forward with the Infrastructure Bank where local principalities have to put their own skin in the game so it is not just a bridge to nowhere but rather we need this new bridge or vital piece of infrastructure to grow our economy. And it is not being decided by folks here. South carolina. Democrat line. Hello. Hello. Good morning and thank you for cspan. With the election of donald trump, i am hearing itple like your guest, and saddens me. The wealth of this country was fort on the backs of slaves 3004 hundred years of free labor and almost free labor. Greatly on some of the entitlements that your guest is talking about limiting. Because theghtened less power that the federal government has, has more power given to the states. That means that our Voting Rights are in jeopardy. Our living arrangements are in jeopardy. We cannot live and make the money that we are capable of because of what happened during , around the00s states rights issues. And again, thank you for cspan. Very glad to be able to tune in every morning to hear your discussions. Thank you, collar. Caller. For americas workers, they have not received a pay raise since 1999. I also think about the Current Administration and when it ends, we will be sitting on 20 trillion in debt. These numbers are not sustainable. It does not matter what race or where you live you have to start raising wages for everyone and you have to get the debt under control. Otherwise, the single greatest threat to our nation is the debt. That is why i believe pro growth is good for everyone. 3 ,he country is growing at that is when america will start to get the pay raise. A headline from politico. Putting deficit on the back burner. Is it a back burner issue . With the debt and the deficit, i mentioned the 20 trillion in debt. It is impossible to chip away at that unless you get back to growth. Historically, this country has grown at 3. 2 . We have just completed the first decade where we have not grown at 3 . What youre seeing is in the next two years, let us put growth first. Get back to 3 growth. Bush andhappened under reagan. And when they happened under john kennedy, taxes went down and revenues went up. That is when places like Freedom Works come into play because we will push these progrowth policies. Again,ney starts to flow you have to hold the line on spending. You have to have growth going up and spending is flatlined. After a few years, we will not have to worry as much about our debt and our deficit. Lakeland, florida on the independent line. Here is john. Hello. Alaska. There is no state tax and every resident in alaska gets a check because of oil. The United States has a lot of oil on federal lands. Tax ont they put a that . Loves surcharges. Why dont we put one on every Government Agency . That is my comments. I agree with the premise of what you are saying. We have a treasure of Energy Resources across this country. And not just in alaska but also north dakota and ohio. I believe there was just a new find a few days ago in texas. The idea that if we use those resources wisely there is a windfall of resources we could use for either fixing infrastructure or health care or whatever we decide as a country to use those resources for. But we do have to decide as a country that we are going to tap into them. We talk about Social Security. Maybe you could use some of the windfalls from that Energy Exploration to transition Social Security to a sustainable system. We have a viewer asking the question. Government spending is at 2 . How much new Government Spending did got to did president obama get . The irony of ironies. Industry oil and gas that is contributing an per year. 1. 5 if you look at our gdp numbers, almost all growth in the u. S. , and it is centralized in texas and north dakota, has come from the Energy Industry. Coming from ohio, while the Energy Industry was booming, we were pumping out steel pipe for that industry. If we do allow increased production of that resource, it has a knock up affect across the country. Fall city, washington on the democrat line. Go ahead. I would like to make a point. We have 21 trillion in debt but our assets in this country is 200 trillion. My point is this i have our assets going to private industry. Privatize, privatize. That is what the whole system is. All of the oil in north dakota, was given a way to private industry. That is what they are drilling on now. It used to be that the assets belong to two americans. To americans. Isthe greatest asset we have a strong economy. I think it is essential to get back to 3 growth. That is why i am excited about fundamental tax reform and am excited about regulatory relief because i do believe we will get back to 3 growth. Infrastructure, a publicprivate partnership. How does that work on a practical level . I dont know anyone i dont know if anyone knows how the plan will work. Hypothetically, you bring in the concept of skin in the game. Let us say the bridge costs 100 million. If you bring in 20 million down today, the Infrastructure Bank would make sure that the hundred Million Dollars goes out. By doing that Infrastructure Bank idea, you are putting projects that have an economically viable return. I was reading an engineering in the back of my mind i wondered do we need all of those bridges . Should we focus our resources on the parts of infrastructure that are critical. Maybe a bridge built in the 1920s is not necessary. I think about my hometown of cleveland. We have a not very nice airport but it is functional. It works every time i go home to visit mom and dad for than skipping. I would rather not build a new airport in cleveland but focus ifa collapsing bridge and that bridge closed it would have a nasty affect on a local economy. If mr. Trump gets his way and however structure is funded, would you advocate the continued funding through the highway bill . My problem with a highway bill is it comes out of places like washington. If you need a new bridge, for example, there are bike paths and i look to use them but they may not be the most may not be the best use of our infrastructure resources. Talking about the incoming donald Trump Administration. , you are next. On the republican line. Go ahead. Let us try maria. Maria is in westville, new jersey on the independent line. Thank you. I have three areas i wish your guest would address. The first one is mr. Trump in favor of auditing the fed . In the Defense Department with the black budget where there are a lot of foreign projects and things are hidden. The second area i wanted to know if you will insist with the trade agreements and infrastructure that we use American Steel, American Products and american workers. And also the drug industry from china. They inspect them every 12 years. And the third and most important is the stop act preventing congresspeople from profiting from information. My understanding is that eric cantor before he left put in a pervy so that families can still. Enefit put in a proviso it does sound like the president like President Trump is in favor of auditing the Federal Reserve. Of it. Er size the arrangements between the Federal Reserve and treasury make me very nervous when you have intergovernmental organizations moving this much money and they are not accountable. The pentagon. I have a lot of concerns over the way the pentagon does spend and account for its money. Military folks, they say there is waste, fraud, and abuse. It is not systemic but any agency can take a look in their books and find ways to better use their resources. When it comes to trade in the comment about using American Steel for the infrastructure isjects, i believe mr. Trump very serious about renegotiating a lot of these trade deals however we have to remember that we also want to sell our goods to foreign governments and we want to be in an equal trading field. If the American Government is going to be able to buy foreign goods, we want to make sure that Foreign Companies are buying our goods as well. In terms of inside information. It is stunning the problems here in d. C. And that is why i am all in for draining the swamp. Andhave to simplify things make clear the regulations and take away the incentive for their profit. There are so many decisions being made in d. C. That drive a business, that is a problem. Rather than Business Decisions being made on Business Decisions rather than political calculations. Transpacific partnership and how it may survive. They say that mr. Trump appears to have included a former chamber ofom the tpp commerce. He also talked about how the chamber of commerce is a lobby group. We have had our quarrels with the American Chamber over the years. My guess is that you will see instead of having one big trade dozenyou will see a different trade deals, one with japan, one with india, one with singapore. And that is how we will move forward. And that way you can find specific issues. You are blocking our milk exports in exchange for opening up another piece of the economy. Is it possible to renegotiate nafta . Anything is possible. There are four things the Trump Administration needs to do. Border security. That was the issue that launched his campaign. There has to be action on the border. Regulatory reform. Obamacare. And then taxes. He has to deliver on those four issues. Nafta renegotiation i see as four mainhose are the things i think you will see in the First Quarter of next year. You are on with our guest. Good morning. To you all of the time. I have a question. President obama is out. In. Ident trump is how will he help homeowners because of obama did not do anything. Female trying to save but they would not let me file chapter 13. Homeowners . He needs to bring back jobs. Call certain companies, someone from jamaica answers the phone. And yet people here need jobs. Conceptmes back to the of hitting the magic number of 3 or 4 growth is when you start seeing jobs. It is deceiving when you look at our unemployment numbers and they are low but when you look at Labor Participation, we are looking at lowest Labor Participation rates in the last 50 years. So many people are simply not looking for a job. Once you start getting growth back, you will see those jobs reemerge that bring in the Call Center Job back to the u. S. Specifically if the Call Center Job would come back but once you get higher growth rates, there will be a demand for more services and you will see people reentering the job market. Theere is gene from arkansas line. Outsourcing is a problem west of the u. S. Big companies are outsourcing stuff like crazy. Is there any way or do you think it would help the government if the government would force companies to pay the same wages workingwages for people for them on the outside to bring the jobs back here . They are sending jobs out of america because it is like slave labor. It is cheaper. If you make the Companies Say you are going to outsource the phone line system, if you make that company say, ok, you have to pay them the same wages or more what you would pay here in america then maybe they would send the jobs back here. What do you think . The sentiment there, i understand but when you ask employers why they send jobs overseas, labor is a percentage and it is not necessarily the driving factor. We have the highest Corporate Tax rate in the world. The highest Corporate Tax rate. If you look at the regulations that we have, we have a very aggressive regulatory system. If you hold the regulatory bureaucracy back and lower the rates so that our corporations face a similar rate in the u. S. That they do elsewhere, you take away most of the incentive to move overseas. Alberto is is where and he is calling on our independent line. You are on with adam brandon. This country has money for other people. Foreign aid money. They give asia 2 billion and israel gets 4 billion. What do you do with that money . Free education. Free health insurance. And we cannot even get obamacare over here. So much money in education also. That is not fair to the american people. To the collar, i dont want to go back to my same point we do need to get back to 3 growth and that is where people will start to feel the wages increase. Americans have not seen a significant pay increase since 1999. When you talk about foreign aid, i know it is hard for people to see infrastructure or Health Care Problems and then watch your nation sending billions of dollars around the world. I think that is why that is one of Donald Trumps main points. He will be pulling money back from projects in the united nations. Take care of problems here at home. If you go to our inner cities, they are in bad shape. , infix places in nigeria asia, when we need to fix communities in ohio and michigan. In the wall street journal, there are pictures of mr. Trumps key economic advisers. Larry kudlow. Wilbur ross. And peter navarro. Of that list, who do you like . That is a dream team list when you lay it out. Atorked with Stephen Moore Freedom Works but the other gentleman, these are all pro growth folks. They take a look at the economy and they will know what it takes to break out of this economic stagnation that we have. And that is one of the things that gets me excited. We really have an opportunity right now to get growth back. Welcome