Transcripts For CSPAN Tonight From Washington 20110617

by karl rove to serve -- or to lead the catholic outreach for the bush campaign. and then he continued to advise the white house throughout the administration's tenure. in 2003, president bush asked dr. hudson to join the official u.s. delegation to the vatican for a celebration of john paul ii's 25th year as pope and the beatification of mother teresa. dr. hudson lives in fairfax, virginia, with his wife and two children. dr. hudson? >> thank you, gene. i don't know what governor barber meant by purity. i don't know if he was referring to pro-life issues or pro-marriage issues. but i do know this. that our nominee must be pro-life, must be pro-marriage. [applause] the nominee won't win the catholic vote, which we must win, to remove president obama from the white house. and it's not a matter of purity . it's a matter of principle and prudence. >> that's right. >> it's principle to demand a pro-life, pro-marriage candidate because it's the right thing. it is what people want. in our leadership. and it's prudent because it's a winning approach. the reason why we were able with our catholic outreach in 2000 and 2004 to bring 15% more catholic voters into the republican party voting for the republican candidate in contrast to 1996, was because we had a candidate who had convictions that appeal to catholic voters. and those convictions began with an unapologetic yet compassionate position on life and marriage. people don't -- generally don't know who catholic voters even are. i mean, generally speaking, the press, and even party operatives concentrate so much on the strong evangelical presence in the republican party. the catholics kind of get second thought. i understand that. i understand that because it's a very ziffle thing to understand the dynamic of a voting group who 40 years ago was very loyally democratic. but since the 1960's has been slowly migrating out of the democratic party and either coming into the republican party or becoming an independent swing voter. and any political scientist who studies presidential elections will tell you that the catholic vote has become the most significant swing vote in our national elections. there are a lot of catholic voters. there are 67 million catholics registered in parishes around the country. 20 million of them attend mass regularly. and those are the voters who we went after in 2000, 2004. we did our research. and we found that it is mass attending catholics who are most likely to be attracted by our candidates if they are pro-life and if they are pro-marriage. and what's really important to understand is these millions of catholic voters are found primarily in these 15 battleground states that must be one in order to take the white house back. what do catholics care about? catholics care about the strength of our nation, our families, and especially our children and their education. as i've already said, they're pro-life, pro-marriage, and they're pro-america. they're social conservatives who believe in the exceptional nature and history and destiny of our nation. but they also understand that a bad economy hurts the family and that a bad economy has to be attended to, but not without standing up for life, marriage, and the family. that's not purity. as i said, that's principle. and that's prudence. one thing that republicans need to understand about catholics, you don't go to catholics the way you go to evangelicals. you don't use the same tone. you don't use the same approach. catholic goes to any parish on sundays, and you'll find catholics don't like to be preached to like this. you don't see that. coming from the priest in the pulpit. i used to be a baptist. i'm a convert. so i know both sides. catholics like to be spoken to in a different way. they don't like to be preached at. they don't like that high, moral tone. it puts them off. they have the same moral compass, just a different style. and so g.o.p. candidates who are so used to talking to religious conservatives in a certain way have got to calm down when they come to catholics. and they've got to understand what appeals to the catholic voter. finally, and this is the bottom line, that all republican candidates, if they want to attract catholic voters, they must include a catholic outreach as parted of their grassroots coalition network. they have to make it a priority and not an after thought. not something they hand off to the freshman intern who happens to be a devout catholic. but someone -- they hand it off to someone who knows what they're doing. and is informed by the kind of success we've had at the presidential level, but you've had here in louisiana with a couple of notable politicians like the one who was up here just before we came on. so the gop will win the white house in 2012 if it wins the catholic vote. thank you. >> dr. hudson, a follow-up question, if i might. one of the criticisms that we hear very often is that bishops are not concerned about some of the issues that have been addressed by this panel but rather issues like immigration, national health care. how do you answer or how do awe dress that concern? >> you know, the catholic church teaches that there is no exceptions allowed when it comes to the life issue or the meaning of marriage. i mean, this has come consistently down through the centuries from folks like john paul ii and benedict. and the bishops have reiterated that in numerous documents. the trouble is that when they begin to turn up the volume on issues like immigration and health care, that it causes confusion among many catholics because catholics know they can make different choices on those issues. they don't have to agree with obama care and be a good catholic. and obama care, after all, funded abortion. they realize they don't have to support the dream act to support compassionate treatment of immigrants. they have other options which they can embrace and still be good catholics. so there's a confusion involved when the bishops speak on a variety of issues. it's up to catholics to be able to sort through what is obligatory and what is not. >> excellent. in louisiana, right-to-life catholics and pro-life protestants have worked closely together on any number of social issues be they marriage, faith, family, adoption, pro-life. what is it going to take, congresswoman, for us to have that kind of cooperation around the cubtry -- country, or what are your concluding thoughts with regard to today's discussion? >> it seems the country is in no mood for phonies these days or half-hearted promises. i believe that the people of this nation are looking for people who will lead, they will be comfortable in their skin, speaking about all the issues, and be perfectly frank. and i think that the social issues as has been said so well by the people up here on panel with me, will play a big role in this presidential election and others. and i think it's incumbent upon us as leaders in social organizations to make sure that the voters know exactly where these candidates stand. and that's why the pledge and things like this are so important. again that a candidate does not give lip service to the issues that are so close to our heart, so important with our core values but yet they will really lead on the issues that are important. and, you know, when i ran for office and when i was in congress, i thought, you know, this life issue used to be that they said the right made it a litmus test. the left has certainly made the life issue a litmus test. and, indeed, it is. because if you do not care about the most vulnerable among us, you don't care about people in general. >> well said. christopher? same question or concluding thoughts. >> when we talk about working together, we have to speak the right language to each other. we do have to nuance and understand that we need to speak clearly and communicate the truth of marriage, the importance of life, the effects that those have on our communities and on our country in a way that's understood. and when we work together, we do, as we started off, we have to be humble and talk to each other in the language that's listened to. as we do that, we will get more voters. and as the candidates understand that more voters are pulling this way, they will move that way as well. >> excellent. i'm not a gambling man. if i was, i'd vote on the white horse in the last race. but what do you have in concluding thoughts? >> i'll tell you what, gene. the day when catholics and evangelicals really pull together is the day when we become unbeatable. the numbers are there. but most of all the passion is there. politics is about passion. i remember when i was a philosophy professor in teaching aristotle's politics, i thought i knew something about politics. what i found out is i didn't know that politics on the ground was about passion, energy, commitment. that's what the obama people had in 2008. i had four people knock on my door for obama. nobody for mccain. we can ignite the grassroots. if we convince the grassroots that we're going to protect our kids and our families and protect the meaning. marriage. >> ladies and gentlemen, why don't you help me thank our panelists. if i hear you correctly, what you're telling me is that there are potentially no innocent bystanders, only those who can be potentially guilty of standing by. let's not let that happen in the road to 2012. sign the pledge, citizens pledge, as well as the presidential pledge. embrace and engage the issues of marriage and family. and let's not forget we must engage our faith community as well. let's thank our panelists again and thank you for your patience. [captions copyright national cable satelite corp. 2011] >> thank you for staying with us today. we'll be back tomorrow with even greater speeches and more to come. so y'all go ahead and enjoy the governor's bash and have a great evening. thank you. >> as you just heard, the 2011 republican leadership conference will continue tomorrow here in new orleans. saturday's speakers include perspective candidate buddy roemer, texas governor rick perry, tennessee representative marcia blackburn, and george p. bush, the grandson and nephew of the former presidents, and the r.n.c. chair. our live coverage will start at 12:50 p.m. eastern on c-span and also on c-span radio. and on tuesday we'll bring you live coverage of the official presidential announcement of former utah governor and former ambassador to china, john huntsman. that will be tuesday, 10:30 a.m. eastern, litch on c-span, c-span radio, and also on c-span.org. >> c-span launched a new easy-to-navigate website for politics in the 2012 presidential race with latest information on the candidates, twitter feeds and facebook updates from candidates and political reporters, and links to c-span media partners in the early primary and caucus states. visit us at www.booktv.com -- at spebspeb -- c-span.org/2012. >> page one, producer and director andrew rossi looks at the changing newspaper industry and takes an inside look at the "new york times" through the eyes of the staff. >> i came into it without a grand sort of sense of what the solutions are for traditional media. i came in with a desire really just to observe. >> he'll talk about his new documentary sunday night on c-span's "q & a." >> today white house communications director dan pfeiffer faced tough questions at the netroots nation conference. disappointment was expressioned in president obama's first term. in remarks he expressed frustration with decisions and discussed the election of 2008. mr. pfeiffer discussed the economic policies, don't ask, don't tell, and the bush era tax cuts. from the convention center in minneapolis, this is an hour. >> many of you know her as angry mouse. please welcome kaili joy gray. >> thank you. >> for all of its history, netroots nation has brought our country's leaders into the room for great conversations about politics and the progressive change we have all been working hard to accomplish. i'm thrilled to be your representative on stage for another in a long line of important conversations. today with white house communications director dan pfeiffer. for the past week i have been getting feedback from the netroots community, through facebook, twitter, and blogs like daily coast about your questions for the administration, the questions i'm asking mr. pfeiffer today come from you and are a reflection of the issues you care about. my colleagues and i will be gathering questions from you today in real-time. here's how you can participate. at each of your tables, you'll find index cards and pens so you can write your questions for dan pfeiffer. just raise your hand, and someone will come by to pick up your card. if you don't have cards at your table, just raise your hand and they'll bring you one. you can also send your question via twitter. before i ask mr. pfeiffer to join me on stage, let me just say that he is here without limitation on subject matters. so ask away. so with that housekeeping out of the way, let me introduce you to dan pfeiffer, white house communications director. [applause] thank you for joining us here with the professional left. would you like to make any introductory comments before we get started? >> yes, of course. first, thanks for having me. i'm very excited to be here. when it was announced that i was going to speak today, the "huffington post" wrote -- [indiscernible] in some ways that's probably true in the sense that i know there's levels of frustration with some of the decision that have happened in this white house. there's frustration in the times that the pace of change has exceeded everyone's patience, including our own. but i also know that beyond that without a lot of people in this room here today barack obama would not be president of the united states. it was people in this room who knocked on doors in the freezing cold of iowa so we could win that caucus. it was people in this room who were standing there in the stadium during the convention to celebrate barack obama, an african-american, -- barack obama becoming the first african-american nominee of a major party. it is the people in this room who helped put together the largest grassroots campaign in history so that we could win that quen shall and historical election. and it was people in this room who helped us do a lot of things in the first two years in the white house. helped us pass health care. even though it wasn't a bill that everyone, including the president, wanted it means 30 million americans will get health care. people in this room helped bring the war to iraq to an end, send 100,000 troops home. people helped repeal things like don't ask, don't tell. say all of that not to try to get credit or sort of nostalgic, but to be grateful for it and to know that that's the foundation for some of the big fights we're going to have coming up. we have seen in recent weeks with the plan that paul ryan put forward, with the performance the candidates had on stage during their debate on monday night of a very different vision for this country than the people in this room have and people the president has and the democrats in congress have. it's one that includes massive tax cuts for the wealthy, ending medicare as we know it, privatizing social security, repealing health care, repealing don't ask, don't tell , doing all of those things. and we're going to have a lot of fights together. and i hope we can work together to do those things. i don't only mention that in the context of the presidential election. that's for the campaign. we're going to have a lot of battles in congress as we fight to make sure -- my hope today is that i can have an open and honest conversation with everyone here if there are things that this president has done that you disagree with or are frustrated by, i will address those and try to give you the best understanding of why he made those decisions or why what we all want to happen hasn't happened yet. so i look forward to having that conversation. >> well, thank you again for joining us. before we get started, did you bring your long form birth certificate with you? [laughter] >> i promise, i was born in this country. even if jerome kersey won't believe it. >> as you may know, we were soliciting questions all week from the community. and one of the main questions that came up over and over and over again that people are most concern the with is about jobs. so i just wanted to read you a comment that we got from brook in seattle at daily kos. what does the president plan to do about people like me who have been unemployed for more than three years and aren't getting any unemployment benefit? does he have a jobs plan for people who are over 50 and already have multiple college degrees, other than telling us to go back to community college for retraining for jobs that aren't there? what jobs are we to retrain for when nobody over 50 can even get an interview? we have already run through all of our savings and 401k plans, don't own houses or property, and don't have rich relatives what are you going to do for us american citizens who have been abandoned in the 21st century? what do you say to brook in seattle? >> well, what i would say to brook is that her story is certainly not unique. the president gets these stories like this in letters every day. they're tragic. and people like brook and people he thinks about when he gets up every morning and when he he's going to bed every night. if there was something we could do, wave a magic wand that would fix this, we would do it. what we need to do are several things. one is we need to keep growing the economy. that's going to include doing things like investing in infrastructure, investing in education, research and development, high-tech jobs in the future like biosigns, and things like that. and it also means doing some things that are sitting in congress right now that could help people including passing an infrastructure bill, the infrastructure bank which has bipartisan support which leverages private capital to get infrastructure things done. it requires making sure that when we're going to have a pending fight on unemployment benefits in this country that we work together to ensure that the republicans who have been fighting us almost every step of the way for the last two and a half years don't get their way. what we're going to have to do for everyone is get the economy moving on a large scale. there's no question that with a republican majority in the mouse -- house, this is very challenging. >> earlier this month you actually wrote on the white house blog that the president will be the first one to tell you that we will not rest until every american who is looking for a job can find one. does this mean we can expect a job still from the president? >> what you can expect is the president has put forward a number of initiatives that -- to create jobs for people that have not been acteded on yet. including the infrastructure bank, including a proposal that would put people in high skill, low skill, and medium skilled jobs. a wireless program in this country. clean energy and infrastructure. additional tax incentives for small business so people can start small business and hire people like brook. and you can expect that there will be more ideas along in a front. we're going do everything we can. we're going to push for them. and we're going to work with democrats and republicans in the congress and see what we can get passed. >> so the president is not going to be proposing a job -- >> can you expect additional initiatives to create jobs. we'll keep looking for additional ones. whether that will be in one bill or a series of proposals, that's still to be determined. but there will be new initiatives. >> with a 9.1% unemployment rate, why wouldn't we have a jobs bill? [applause] >> i think it is a false -- we have a number of proposals that create jobs that have been sitting in congress that have not been acted on yet. primary being blocked by republicans. we're going to have additional ideas and proposals to create jobs. as a said, that is challenging given where the republicans are . >> so one of the things that keeps coming up from the administration -- and i understand that it's difficult with an obstructionist party and with some democrats when are not as supportive as we would like them to be is that it's hard to get things done that the president talked about when he was running for the presidency. if it's impossible to get these things done or almost impossible to get these things done, unless he has a super majority in the house and the senate, and even when he did he said it was still next to impossible to get these things done, what difference does it make whether we re-elect them? >> i'll give you several reasons why it makes a difference. it's not impossible. it's challenging. we got a historic amount of things done in the first two and a half years. is it everything everyone in this room wanted done? no. but we passioned the recovery act, the don't ask, don't tell. we made it so the f.d.a. can regulate tobacco. >> don't ask, don't tell, you're still firing people for being gay. [cheers and applause] >> in a historic vote, congress repealed that law which is something when a president running for election, no one thought we could get it passed through congress. >> ok. it's been passed. when are you going to stop kicking gay people out of the military? >> that bill has a certification process in place that is very close to being finished. >> so when can we expect gay people to stop being kicked out of the military? >> as soon as that process is done and as soon as we can possibly do it. as soon as we can have the orderly transition that was necessary. >> ok. speaking of the military, this week the white house releelsed a report on our activities in libya. and the report stated that the president didn't need congressional authority to go into libya because u.s. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces and they don't involve u.s. ground troops so basically it's a little war so we don't really need congress to give the president the authority to do this. in the 1950's, the united states sent a few military advisors to vietnam, and 20 years later we had tens and thousands of dead americans, the war was over. how do we know libya isn't going to turn into a bigger war? >> let's talk a little bit about libya for a second. when we went in, we went in a very limited way. and it was done through a multi-lateral coalition with a limited american presence, which is exactly the opposite of what we had done most recently in iraq. and the reason we did it -- we only would have done it under those circumstances, was because qaddafi had forces marching on ben ghazi where they had threatened to go door-to-door and massacre people. so we had a choice. it was not an easy choice. we could either let that massacre happen, sit on the sidelines, or do something about it. and the president chose to do something about it. and now we're headed in the right direction. now, to answer your question -- i'm not a lawyer. i'm not an expert in the world powers act. but what i can tell you is the way this is set up with our very limited role where we are primarily providing refueling and surveillance for nato forces, that this is consistent with what we did. so there's a provision in the war powers act. we are not in violation of that. we continue to consult with congress and work with them to get them to support this. it is not helpful to our efforts when members of congress, particularly the republican leadership, play politics with this to show some sort of divided coalition. and this is an example why it's politics. in 1999, speaker boner thought the war powers -- exactly what he's doing now, he thought the war powers was unconstitutional and not invoking in this way was not helpful -- >> the republican attacks on the president from the left are a little disingenuous at this point. >> i would give you that, yes. >> but i think it actually raises an important question, which is, should the president, any president be able to wage war without the authority of congress? absolutely not. you should be able to be involved in a limited supporting role in military conflicts. where there are no u.s. troops on the ground. the troops are not engaged inconsistent? of hostility. anything beyond that, absolutely. >> you are guaranteeing as that this will not become a bigger war? but the president made that during -- >> the president made that guarantee. >> i would like to ask you about a different kind of war. the war on women. [applause] we are seeing an unprecedented number of attacks on women, the state and federal level. everything from contraception to health care to food stamps, drug testing of when in receiving welfare in florida, women in congress, including nancy pelosi, are talking about a war on women. i want to know if the president agrees with nancy pelosi and our new dnc chairwoman. is there a war on women? >> there is a sustained efforts from the republicans to undo a lot of the progress. the most prominent example was the effort to defund planned parenthood. the president told the house republicans that if they wanted to defund planned parenthood, they would have to shut down the government over it. we see this in indiana. the governor would illegally defund planned parenthood. the president is very concerned about all of these efforts. >> yes, but we also saw during the health-care debate, when it comes down to it, -- the president said that accepting the an amendment which punishes poor women in this country was an acceptable status quo and we need to put that aside for the bigger picture. i will ask again, is there a war on women? >> let's talk about health care. [laughter] [inaudible] the amendment was the law of the land. >> it is renewed every year, it is renewed every year. [applause] >> if we tried to reform it, there would be no help perform. it was a very simple choice. you have two options. it is not an easy choice, but you have two options. that is the choice you have to make. the war on women is not a phrase the president has used. >> nancy pelosi has. >> yes, she has. but there is no question that the very same thing that concerns of nancy pelosi concerns the president on the same way. >> he has not said anything about it. is he planning to speak out on the issue? >> he has talked about the efforts on planned parenthood, absolutely. i am sure that he will speak about it as well. >> ok, because in 2008, president obama carried women by a 56-43 margin. in 2010, democratic women stayed home or voted republican treat women in this country, democratic women who were the majority of the country, we feel like we are under assault. does the president think he can win reelection without those women who did not show up for him in 2010? but of course not. is there anything more that he plans to do? in the legislation that he might endorse to get the women in this room, the women in this country who are concerned about the assault on us, to turn out and vote? >> the paycheck fairness act, the president is a big supporter of. it did not pass. >> ok. we have a question from twitter. what are the absolute line d will not cross while negotiating with the gop regarding medicare and social security? [applause] >> on both of those, we will do nothing that will slash benefits, privatize the program, or change the nature of the program. the same is true with medicare. both of the programs need to be strengthened. it is not a driver of our deficit. there are things we can do with medicare, like what we have done in the affordable care act, some of the things the president proposed and the deficit speech he gave a few months ago, that will deal with the provider side, not the benefit side of medicare. he is 100% opposed to anything in a 100-mile radius that republican support. >> no raising the age limit? >> what it means that we are going to make sure that however we strengthen its is done in a way that does not change the fundamental nature of the program. >> so no raising the age limit? >> i will not have the discussion on this stage would you. i can promise you that the president will strengthen medicare and he will fight any effort to change the nature of the program. >> i want to follow-up on this issue of compromising with republicans. this was another thing that came up quite a bit when you were soliciting questions. i went back and i looked at what senator barack obama wrote in 2005 talking about how you deal with an obstructionist party. this is what he said. whenever they are wrong or dishonest, we should say so clearly and repeatedly. i am suggesting that the truth as we best know what be the hallmark of our response. here is my question. republicans have been very affective at obstructing the president's agenda. and promoting their own agenda. with no respect for tone and truth. it seems to have been effective. >> [applause] >> the president will continue to respond to republicans. if the argument is that intel and it does not matter, -- that tone does not matter, tone does matter. there are people that are very partisan and had a lot of anger towards another party. i am a little bit like that myself. they are turned off by the partisan back and forth in washington. this president believes he saw to transcend -- it does not mean that you do not fight for what you believe in. it does not believe that you do not respond to attacks. he did that in the campaign, the midterm elections. but the midterms did not worked out very well for him. >> but that is not why. >> we had a lot of lies, ugly tone, and they did pretty well on back in 2010. it does look like they will be changing a strategy in 2012. >> what i do not think was the best strategy for democrats is to adopt the strategy of the lowest common denominator. that is not how we will win in 2012. [applause] >> ok. the president often says that we should be able to agree on certain principles. he mentioned that again on monday in north carolina. he is open to any good idea regardless of where it comes from. can you need a good idea the republicans have proposed since he took office? -- pat new name a good idea the republicans have proposed said he took office? but the individual mandates on the health care bill, if republican idea. the tax cut for small businesses. some of those were republican ideas. there are ideas that are from the middle part of the republican party, those are good ideas and it would be a mistake to discard every idea because it came premier republican. >> ok. -- because it came from a republican. >> does the president believed that bipartisanship is possible? >> the question is not whether it is possible, but whether it is necessary. that is the nature of washington right now. if we want to do things that will help them, it has to do something -- it has to be something that republicans would support. refusing to compromise is -- will mean that nothing gets done. that is not an option given where our country is and where our economy is. >> sometimes it means betraying the very fundamental value of the democratic party. for example, extending the bush tax cuts. the president said it was a bad idea, bad for the economy. but he made that compromise. >> let's talk about that when. this is a perfect example. there were two choices. a bill extending only be middle- class tax cuts could not pass the united states senate. it did not have the support of all the democrats. the choices were you can either extend the bush tax cuts for the wealthy, along with the middle- class tax cuts. and the tax cuts that were passed in the recovery act. or you could let them all expire. this president believes that it would not have been the right thing to do, the progress of thing to do, to give a massive tax increase to the middle class and working americans simply to make a point about the bush tax cut. those were the only two options. >> it is about more than making a point. those tax cuts have been horrible for our economy. >> what do you say to brooke if she ends up with a $400 tax increase? >> i do not work in the white house. >> that is the question the president has to answer. >> we have a question from the audience. a question from charles of minneapolis. why hasn't the administration used the [inaudible] to get the message out, rather large or small? >> we have tried to do that. the president has spent a fair amount of time with members of the african american media. could we do a better job of that? i am sure that we could. >> we have a question from austin, texas, on afghanistan. and the latest cnn poll, 74% of americans want some or all troops removed from afghanistan. >> [applause] when the president announced his afghanistan strategy, he said that we would begin transitioning i eat -- the end of that war in july of 2011. you will hear an announcement from the president and the coming weeks about the size and scope of that transition. >> ok. >> do you have a follow on that? >> i do not. we will change gears. in 1996, ill. senator barack obama roche, i favor legalizing same-sex marriages. after proposition 8 decision came out in california, david axelrod said, -- it seems like his position has evolved to be more supportive of civil rights to less supportive of civil rights. is the president going to evolve again and get back to supporting civil rights on a marriage? [applause] -- on gay marriage? [applause] >> the president highest -- the best way to do this is to paraphrase an answer that the president gave -- >> i have the exact answer right here. >> if you go back and looked, that questionnaire was filled out by somebody else. there was a long debate about this. >> it is a thick questionnaire? >> the present position has been consistent on this -- the president position has been consistent on this. >> you are saying that this is a fake questionnaire? it has never been clarified. there are a lot of people here who are concerned about this issue. the president has never favored same-sex marriage? >> the present's position is that he has been against it, but he has said that the country is evolving on this and he is evolving on this. he said, it is clear the country is moving on this. it is because he has france, staffers, who are in committed gay partnerships your great people, great partners, great friends, at great parents to their children, and he is a balding on that. i cannot tell you today -- and he is evolving on that. i cannot tell you when that abolition will continue. people in this room have pushed him on this. he believes you should continue to push him on this. >> if he does not manage to evolve before 2012, why should gays and lesbians vote for him? [applause] >> because this president has been the most progressive president on these issues we have ever had. >> that is a pretty low bar. >> we have made progress on benefits for same-sex couples, civil-rights progress. this is a huge issue for everyone, and it is a big deal to them. i would not begrudge a single person who feels strongly about this for being upset with the president about it. but what i can promise you is that if someone else is president, all the other things i talked about, a will all go away. -- and they will all go away. >> we have another question from the audience. why didn't the president put on his walking shoes and go to wisconsin to support the workers lucky promise to do? -- like he promised to do? [applause] >> he has talked about why governor walker wanted to do was disingenuous and unfortunate, using a budget deficit as a way to play politics against his political adversaries. he was very supportive. >> kantor the question. >> willy going to wisconsin to show his support? -- will he be going to wisconsin to show his support? >> he will be with those workers every step of the way. >> i want to ask you a question about immigration. last year, harry reid said that congress and then more time on immigration than any other issue. he was very committed to trying to get the dream act passed. we have seen this spate of anti-immigrant legislation passed in alabama, georgia, arizona. what can the president do without legislation to address the immigration? >> in states like arizona, where there are laws that violate civil rights, the justice department can take action to stop those laws. they been able to stop some of the most offensive provisions in the arizona law. we can do things to make sure that it's the coach -- the focus of enforcement is on criminals. we have very limited capacity without changing law to deal with the very tragic situation of the millions of americans who are living in the shadows. >> there are no executive orders that he could possibly issue to help this? >> you can do things that will be helpful around some of the processes and procedures. but what you cannot do is stop enforcing the law. that is not an option available to him. >> ok. if the white house bills to get a payroll tax cut during the debt ceiling deal, what approach will he take to get a jobs bill? >> we will try to get a payroll tax cut for some other measure like that, either as a part of that process, or through this congress? he will put a lot of pressure on republicans if they try to block this and put a tax increase in place for millions of americans. ups will he be willing to revisit the bush tax cuts -- >> will he be willing to revisit the present -- revisit the bush tax cut? is he going to focus on that at all? >> when he signed the extension of the bush tax cuts, he said that he would never extended again. they will come to him in december 31 of 2012 and he has a veto pen to make sure they are never extended again. in the course of the negotiations, there will be some things that -- there has to be a bipartisan bill, and there'll be some things that will be non starters. the ryan plan is a nonstarter. >> when the bush tax cuts happen and were extended, much to the disappointment of everybody in this room, the president explained that we had been taken hostage. we did not have a choice. have we been taken hostage on anything else we should know about right now? >> when -- you do not get good choices. the ones that get to the president are hard choices. on this one, the right to choice is pureed -- there were two choices. i would challenge anyone to explain why it would be good for our economy or good for the people in this room to have been gets a tax increase in a tough economy. >> i understand. but what of such people is that the president had to do something -- but what of such people is that the president said he had to do something. it was something very bad for the economy to do. he explained that we had unknowingly been taken hostage. i want to know if we had been taken hostage in any other situations where the president might be going back on a fundamental democratic principle and is going to explain to us that we had been taken hostage again? tommy gets a little bit of a warning? >> if that -- time we get a little bit of a warning? >> it that happens, i will tell you first. a value that we care about is tax cuts for the middle and working-class. that would have been bad for the economy. it would be devastating for people who are struggling in this economy to get a massive tax increase. that was the situation that was before the president. >> i would like to talk for a moment about the 2012 election and the republican nominees. i am sure that the present export to having a very serious debate on the issues that face us all -- the president looks forward to having a very serious debate on the issues that face us all. i want to ask you personally, just between us, sarah palin- michele bachmann 2012? >> that would be a ticket that would be consistent with an ideological -- a vast amount of the republican party today. >> are you rooting for anybody in particular? >> no. i will say having watched the debate the other night, parts of the debate, you have a serious of messengers offering plot plans for americans. -- flawed plans for american. ns. be a big debate about which direction the country is going and there will be very stark differences. >> i think everybody in this room understand that it is worse when we had a republican in the white house. it is worth and we have a republican speaker. it is worse when they are in charge. they feel very disappointed about where the president has been on issues and on representing fundamental democratic party issues. we are all democrats and we understand the importance of making sure that democrats are in power. but they may not turn out in the same way that they did in 2008. people said, i will not knock on doors, donates money. do you need us? >> absolutely. >> what will you do for us. ? >> there is much that has been accomplished in the first two years. the work cut is not done. there are more things we want to do -- the work is not done. we can either work together to continue that work and finish the project started, or weekend the route -- or we can be relegated back to the sidelines with a republican president. we have had that experience. we ended up with massive deficits, a war in iraq, massive violations, people so -- massive violations of people's civil liberties. we ended up with corporate interest running rampant washington. this president is committed to the ideals he ran on today as he was the day he stood in springfield, illinois. he has bought for them as hard as he could. washington is a frustrating place. we're doing it under tremendously challenging circumstances. he is going to keep fighting. on some of the things that you care about and he cares about, i promise you he is as frustrated as you are. >> did things like he has been a blockbuster with us at times -- it seems like he had been frustrated with us our times. thank you for being here and knowledge in us. -- acknowledging us. what is in it for office? will we see every turn to some fundamental progressive values instead of focusing mostly on what he can get done with republicans? >> i wanted first address what you said about he and as being frustrated with our critics. but we are also your supporters. >> right. at times, we have become frustrated with our critics, but it is not all of our critics. when john boehner and mitch romney attack us, -- mitt romney attack us, we expect that. when our friends attack us, we get frustrated. it does not mean that it is the right thing to do to get frustrated. we wanted to push us. we absolutely do. the president comes from a tradition of a grass-roots organizing. a lot of the pushing that you guys are doing on a national level, he did on a local level in chicago. when you are tired, you think you were doing the right thing under pop circumstances, and the people you care about most attack you, sometimes you get frustrated. >> we understand how that feels. >> absolutely. every once in awhile, we get frustrated, and it does not mean it -- it comes to a good place. it comes from the fact that we care about the same things that you do. we want you to believe in us. >> please tell the president, right back at keep. >> absolutely. this is another question from the audience. why hasn't obama made more recess appointments to important positions for the federal reserve? elizabeth warren, now? [applause] >> i think you can not reset the appointment and the federal reserve. we have made a number of them. we will do with -- if we have to do more, we absolutely well. -- will. elizabeth warren has an amazing fighting with a vigorous republican opposition that is undermining her every step of the way. the president is considering the best way to move that in forward. she is one of the people who was under consideration, and we hope to be able to announce what we will do their sin. >> we look forward to that announcement. -- announce what we will be able to do their soon. >> why isn't the president not taking more of a leadership role on climate change? will he do everything to support the epa? [applause] >> president was pushed very hard in the last congress to try to get cap-and-trade legislation. we were able to get it through the house, but we did not get it through the senate. that is unfortunate. there was significant opposition. he will continue to push for it. overtime, we can make a stronger case for this. as it relates to -- >> can i ask you to clarify what over time it means? does that mean before the election? is that a second term goal? >> if he could get it passed in congress tomorrow, he would gasoline did that. but that is not going to happen. -- he would absolutely do that. but that is not going to happen. that is the reality. the president has threatened to veto attempt -- attempts to undermine the epa. administrating -- god is greater jackson is doing great work in protecting art -- administrator jackson is doing great work in protecting our water and air. >> when will president obama keep his promise to shut down at guantanamo? >> this is something more everyone in this room can help us. >> what can we do for you? >> you can call members of congress, democrats and republicans, who supported efforts blocking our ability to do that. including a democratic senate. we are completely limited by a bipartisan congressional opposition. it is not something the president can way they want and do. -- wave a wand and do. right now, there are legal prohibitions that prevent us from doing that. >> i want to ask you about that generally. it is difficult for the president to get things done when he does not have people in his own party willing to support him. when bush was president, he had a minority in congress for a lot of that time. he used the power of the executive order quite a bit. he was able to get a lot done. why is it so much harder for obama to get stuff done? [applause] >> for some up -- all lot of the things that bush wanted to do it he did not get done. some of the things he was able to do. some of them more bipartisan efforts. the bush tax cuts, they would not have passed without a stigma event support from democrats. -- a significant support -- support from democrats. >> are you saying that president bush was better at bipartisanship that obama is? >> i am not saying that. not everyone -- there are a lot of democrats that represent a very read states. we should have wide spectrum and diversity of views in our party. there will be people who support republican issues. there were a lot of republican senators to use to support things that democrats wanted to do. the tea party beat them in 2010. that is the challenge. >> i want to ask you again, maybe i am just not that clear on it, is there anything the president can do without congress, on an eagle, on any areas that we have talked about? -- on any goal, or any areas that we have talked about? what can he do as power of the president of the united states of america to accomplish these goals? >> there are a lot of things we have done that way. we have removed the bush ban on stem cells. on the big things you were talking about, climate change, immigration reform, those are things that require legislation. >> here is another question on twitter. what is worse for the working poor? >> we should do neither. >> what are you doing for them? >> we made sure they did not give a tax increase and we're fighting republican efforts to reduce their medicaid. as painful and as messy as the fight over the funding of the government this year, those were the things the president ought to protect. those are the things that the republicans want to cut. the president is focused on making sure that while we have to cut spending, we have to make sure we do it in a balanced approach and we do not do it on the backs of the most vulnerable americans. >> that seems to be happening a lot, especially at the state level. we are seeing that happen with some of the things we have had to compromise on. this is a question that people are asking a lot, apparently. a tax increase of a couple hundred dollars a year, isn't that better than slashing all the other resources that they depend on? >> for many -- this does not have to be an either-or choice. there are families were barely getting by. a couple hundred dollars a year is going to matter. it will matter a lot. we do not have to do that. states may make different decisions about how they balance their state budget, and that is up to them. on the federal level, we do not have to do either one of these things. blogs do blogs -- what you read? >> i read talking points. a lot. i read what gregg's sergeant does. sgt does. >> i can pretty much say what i want. >> i would say that -- as challenging as it makes my job, the democratization of the media, on any given day, any person you as an internet connection can make an impact on the country, has something that has been very powerful and important for our country. >> the only have a couple of minutes left. here is a question that i want to wrap up with. you are going to go back to washington. you'll be talking to people at the white house. they will say, how was it? you have been here and you have listened and you have talked. what are you going to tell the white house about how a leftist feeling right now? >> there are a lot of people in this room who care about the president, support the president -- [applause] they are very concerned about the direction of the country. they are frustrated at the pace of change. [applause] i promise you, the president shares that frustration. if he could comment -- if he could, if we could wake up tomorrow and have climate change done, immigration down, things that he talked about in the campaign, he would absolutely do that in the second. but we have huge challenges. it is not just a bad we have obstructionist republicans. we also have -- we are dealing with an economy that has been in crisis for a very long time, did not to start in 2008. it has gotten worse. he came in at a time when the country was on the brink of the great depression. we have -- we are governing in very challenging times. he is someone that i talk to about every day. i promise you that he is the same person who was on the campaign trail, he is someone who cares passionately about all the progressive ideals that we talked about today. he has fought for than the best he could from the bottom of his heart and he will continue to do that. >> are you going to suggest to him that maybe he needs to do a little bit more for us? >> i will suggest to him that we need to continue to have a conversation with this group of people and the people walking around the country, and you are a very important part of the coalition that got him here. you'll be an important part that ensures that this president is reelected. he knows that, i know that, and we want to make sure that you guys know that. >> he came before when he was a senator. can we expect to see him? >> i am not sure that it'll be next summer. will you recommend that you can talk to us directly? >> i will talk to him about it. his schedule is a bit challenging. we should talk about it. maybe we can make it work. >> it would be great to have him here. thank you so much for joining us. the thing that you got the message right? -- do you think that you got the message right? [applause] not too bad, right? >> no. thank you, everyone. >> thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> the netroots conference is taking place in minneapolis. c-span is covering the event. we will bring you more in the coming weeks. on saturday, we will hear from erik telford. they will discuss social media and how social number king is used to promote conservative and progressive agenda. a look at the debt collection industry. a presidential historian looks back at the watergate scandal. "washington journal" starts at 7:00 here on c-span. >> the 2011 republican leadership conference started this week in new orleans and continues tomorrow. earlier today, the conference heard from the louisiana rep. the white house released a report that the waivers will be discontinued. his remarks or 15 minutes. -- are 15 minutes. >> i love that music. i want to welcome all of you to new orleans. we love our city and we appreciate all of you come here and enjoy the hospitality that we call home, the great food and all the other things that we enjoy doing. the fact that there are so many people participating in this year's conference shows that we know just what is at stake right now. just how critical of a tipping point our country faces. if you look at what last year was about, but there was so much enthusiasm last year, those november elections were so critical. if you look at what the focus of most people are around the country was, this was to retire nancy pelosi as speaker of the house and we did it. [applause] there were some other good offshoots that came with that. we took away the gavel for people like barney frank. do you know what else we did? we took away that airplane that she was flying around the world with using our taxpayer money. she has to learn what it is like to go through airports and go through all those other experiences as well. it is a new date in the house of representatives and i think you are already seeing dividends. we have completely shifted the debate. president obama was talking about how much more money county's ban to other people's money to try to get the economy going. what happened was when they brought back a great stimulus bill, remember when unemployment was under 8%? it has been over 9% for the last 18 months. it continues to drive our economy down. his system is not working. instead of talking about how much more money to spend, we are talking about how much money to cut. that is where our focus needs to be. [applause] as we are starting to make cuts, i would like for us to go even further. they are out there demonizing paul ryan. i thought it was just the beginning, we need to go even further. it shows you just how wide the divided right now. one of the big debates we had over this potential government shut down a few months ago, i thought the most shameless thing i saw at the white house was a president, our commander in chief, that was willing to use our military men and women as pawns in the game over a government shutdown. [applause] we actually pass legislation and the house and said, if we cannot work out our differences, if we are still too far apart and we get to the point of a shot down, our military men and women ought to still be paid. the presence that he would veto that legislation. our men and women in the military should not be used as pawns in our differences in washington. if you want some good examples, we know all the examples. so many anecdotes of how wasteful washington spending is out of control. just how many places we need to cut, how many radical things are being done. yesterday, we had an agricultural bill both the house. we passed a bill that cuts spending, we were called every name in the book. these are agencies that have double-digit increases over the last two years. i have an amendment that passed yesterday, they just started two weeks ago. they put out a new regulation and the department of agriculture to call for a policy that requires the department of agriculture to start implementing global warming initiatives. think about this. the defeated cap-and-trade, thank god, a year-and-a-half ago. raise over $1,500 a year in new taxes on everybody's household electricity. was a debate settled by congress. his agencies are coming through with all of these regulations. they are spending at the department of agriculture of millions of dollars right now to study how our farmers ought to be grunt their crops based on what they think the temperature will be in the year 2015. -- 2050. our local weathermen cannot predict what the temperature will be this weekend. they are spending millions of dollars of money that we do not have to say how or farmers should be growing crops in 39 years. that is just one small example of all the things that are being done. 42 cents of every dollar it is borrowed money. how is that money bard? a couple of months ago, i wanted to see how we really borrow money. there is a building in washington called the euro of public debt, the busiest place in town when you think about the spending in washington. i went down there and i watched debt's being sold. the debt is being sold to americans, but the biggest buyer of our debts is china. you look at all the money that is being barred from china, guess where the bureau of public debt is? it is located in chinatown in washington, d.c. talk about knowing where your customers are. this is true. the first building we should be closing down is the bureau a public debt. did back to a point where we can start creating jobs in this country. the obama administration -- they are creating all these radical regulations that are running jobs out of this country. look at the epa. we'll have hearings with the multiple times. we've had some pretty interesting encounters and some big disagreements. they're trying to pass cap-and- trade regulations right now, trying to tell local businesses just how much carbon they can ended at a time when we defeated cap-and-trade in congress. i thought legislature was supposed to make the law. epa is out there trying to pass this radical stuff. we passed a bill and the house that said that epa has to be out of the business of regulating emissions. [applause] look, i wish it was just epa. it is every federal agency. if your a capitalist in america, you are the problem according to this administration. look at the national labor relations board. they're trying to tell boeing that they cannot build a plan in america that if it is a right to work state. that is not the jobs of the federal government to tell all employers were they can create jobs. [applause] i am encouraged by this response because the mainstream media -- u.s. managed to figure this out already. it is not just -- look at the fcc. we had a hearing in a couple weeks ago about the crazy not neutrality -- net neutrality issue. i guess it is pretty unanimous here. it is not that way in d.c. i understand and know the kind of technology and innovation that has occurred in this industry. one of the few industries that is still growing, the technology industry. the last thing we do is have government go in and figure out how to fix the one area of our economy that is working. [applause] 0 d addressed more? -- faux pas do you trust more? the innovators, -- who do you trust more? the innovators or the federal government? the technology in this cell phone, there is more technology in the cell phone that there were -- down there was on the apollo spacecraft. that is how technology has innovated and it has done it without the federal got mad. -- government. that was built by private money. that was not a federal stimulus money. over $500 billion of private money built and created thousands of jobs and great new products. guess what the government wants to do? they want to come in and fix it by taking over the internet. we cannot let that happen. [applause] all of this really gets to the bigger picture of what is the american dream? all of us, we know what the american dream has. the american dream is that concept our founding fathers had, but it did not just start and end with president washington. the greatest thing about america is that every generation, every generation has had a better opportunity than the one that came before it. how many people in this room think that if we keep going on this path, how many people think that the next generation is going to have the same or better opportunities that we enjoy today? we cannot let that happen. that is what this next year collection is all about. we have their responsibility to preserve that american dream for our children and grandchildren. we're not going to let this president take away that opportunity from the next generation. how do we get there? there are so many places we can go to fix this country. let's start here in south louisiana we understand how to create energy grid we create a third of america is oil and gas and weak -- it is under attack by the administration. the president put in a moratorium on drilling, which violated the recommendations of his own scientific experts. you lose your best rig. he had one of his radical czar's go and change the document. guess what happened? we have seen over 13,000 jobs leave this country to go to foreign countries. we'll see a greater dependence on foreign oil. the wonder why you are paying higher gas prices? they have nearly doubled since president obama took the oath of office. the buck used to stop at the desk and 6000 pennsylvania avenue. it is his responsibility to fix it. if he does not comment we will replace him with somebody who does. we have to do that anyway. we know that we can not -- we can completely eliminate our dependency on middle eastern oil today if we sent our minds to it. we can create over 250,000 new american jobs by exploratory resources here in america. we have billions of barrels of known reserves in alaska we have that the what the midwest. there is more energy in this country to sustain ourselves to increase our energy security and completely eliminate our dependence on middle eastern oil. we have to implement those policies. if you look at one of the newest large buyers of u.s. debt, it is opec. it is the fourth largest buyer of our debt. they are doing it with our money. this president wants to drill in brazil. i want to do it here. [applause] i want to talk about obama-care. i do not know if that is a four- letter word that i am not allowed to say year. if you like what you have, you can keep it. we know that is not true. secretly over at the white house, since they passed this bill that would be so great, we have had a hearing and we have exposed will be the latest scandal in washington. there been over 1400 waivers to obama-care issued by this administration. i have a list right here. it represents over 3 million employees to have a waiver. how many people in this free and got a waiver from obama-care? it happens to be all the good friend of obama. they are labor unions. they got a waiver from obama- care. aarp is on the list. they are admitting it. i want everybody to have a waiver. it is called repeal. that is the waiver that we need. [applause] i can see my time is running out. i want to talk about a few other things, including israel. this president is trying to undermine our greatest allies in the world. we should not be taken the side of the palestinians. [applause] let me wrap this up. i have talked about a lot of problems, and i hope that i have not depressed everybody. the good news is that it is not too late for us to take our country back. that is what our focus is going to be, and i know everybody in this room is committed to the same purpose. as we remember the 100th birthday of ronald reagan, but all commit ourselves that we will go rebuild that shining city on the hill. we will not let the doubt and despair and doubt continue. we will replace president obama with a president babbled not apologize for american greatness. thank you for all that you do. let's take our country back. [applause] >> tonight, a look of some of the 2012 republican presidential candidate speeches. first you hear from herman cain. after that, representatives john paul and michelle bachmann. later, former pennsylvania senator rick santorum. next, remarks from former godfather pizza ceo herman cain. >> please welcome herman cain. [applause] >> thank you. wow. thank you, thank you, thank you. my, my, my. my, my, my. ready to like y'all have a party in here. shucky-ducky, now. one of my heroes, the late dr. and benjamin mays, used to remind the young men of morales when i was a student there, let it be borne in mind that the tragedy of life does not lie in reaching your goals. but tragedy lies in having no goals to reach for. [applause] dr. mays went on to say that it is not a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity to have a note dreams. -- have no dreams. i have a dream. [applause] in fact, i have two dreams. the first dream that i have is that in november 2012, conservative republicans are going to take back the house and the senate. [applause] i have a dream. i had another dream for 2012. that dream is you are looking at the next president of the united states of america. [applause] look at me. some of you all have heard me tell the story about the bumblebee and al the bumblebee -- how the bumblebee is not supposed to fly because aerodynamically its body is too fat, its wings are too thin. the bumble bee flies because the bumblebee did not get the memo that he is not supposed to fly. ever since i formally announce my run for the presidency of this great country, there have been some people who have said that herman cain should not run. respect,illy, whom i said that herman cain does not have a chance. do not get crazy, y'all. [laughter] coral growth, who did a great job for president bush -- karl rove, who did a great job for president bush, does not take my presidency seriously. one of my favorites disappointed may when he did not take my candidacy seriously. well, to mr. a riley, to mr. rove, i did not get the memo that i was not supposed to run. [applause] i am running. i am running. and the reason that i am running is because this nation has become a nation of crises. we have a moral crisis, we have an economic crisis, we have an entitlement-spending crisis, we have an energy crisis, we have an immigration crisis, and most of all, we have a deficiency of leadership crisis in the white house and we ought to change it. [applause] i did not get the memo. one of the reasons that i have been inspired to answer this call has been because the american people that i have talked to and the ones that i have listened to or tired of this national nightmare -- are tired of this national nightmare we are on right now. this economy is not growing. we have a lot of problems. i do not have time to go through all the things that i would do, so let's talk about one of the biggest crises that we have -- the economy. one of the first things i would do as president would be to ask the united states congress to give me a bill that would contain the following elements in order to boost this economy. number one, a maximum 25% tax by all corporations and all individuals. maximum 25%. [applause] we are the only nation on the planet that does not give tax breaks. and we wonder what jobs are leaving this country. number two, take the capital gains tax rate to zero. [applause] do not shaved it. do not trim it back. take it to zero. because we need to release some equity for small businesses and new businesses in this country. taking the capital gains rate to zero would be a way to do that. thirdly, suspend taxes on foreign for appreciated profits. let that money come back home instead of staying overseas because they do not want to be overtaxed. [applause] #4, provide a real payroll tax holiday for every worker in america and every business in america by allowing a full holiday of the full 6.2% for employees and employers for a year. number five, and this is the most important one, ext. -- except for the payroll tax holiday, all the other tax reductions i talked about, make them permanent. uncertainty is killing this economy. [applause] make them permanent. i have talked and listened to many businesses to have their growth plans on hold. they do not know what the tax rates are going to be in 2013. they do not know the full impact of obamacare. they do not know the full impact of the dodd-frank legislation. they do not know what the outcome will be for all the conflicts we are involved in or around the country because of a funky foreign-policy position. people have gone from feeling concerned about the future of america to being fearful for the future of america. when we put the right person in the white house, moi, american exceptional as some will be obvious again. -- exceptionalism will be obvious again. [applause] i am near the french quarter, right? the get the " moi?" [laughter] americans are tired as -- of feeling as if the president is apologizing around the world. i will never apologize for the greatness of america. [applause] many of you know my background. i was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. we did not even have a spoon to put in my mouth. [laughter] walk all the farm at the age of 18. my mother did the same thing -- a different form. but what to a plant that with a raised my brother and i. -- they went to atlanta to raise my brother and i. never see yourself as a victim. [applause] never. with those principles, i have been able to achieve my american dream and beyond. i want to thank all of you because a year ago when i spoke at this conference, i challenge you to stay informed, involved, and inspired, and you did. look how we are coming along. the job is not over yet, but stay informed, stay involved, and state inspired. because the liberals do not want us to believe we can do this. they do not want us to believe the people are going to elect the next president of the united states, not the media. [applause] the people are going to elect the next president of the united states. we are winning because we are more informed and more involved, were inspired, -- more inspired, because we can feel it happening -- the spirit of america that i talked about. we will make it happen because of that spirit of america, because people come up to me all the time and say, "i have never been to a political event before in my life." i would say, "why are you here? go they would say -- what are you here?" they would say, "because i am tired of sitting on the sofa and complaining. i heard about your common-sense solutions and i want to do here up close and personal." i asked, "did i change your mind?" they say, "you not only changed my mind, but you're the first candidate to run for anything i had made a contribution for." people are sick and tired of being sick and tired of problems not being solved in washington, d.c. they are sick and tired of kicking the can down the road. we know how to solve these issues. we have solutions. all we need is the leadership and the will of the american people. when i tell people that i want to do that five-point plan for the first bill i want congress to get me, i tell them i want to take social security and i want to introduce the country, again, to the concept of an optional personal retirement accounts so we can fix social security. [applause] when i tell them that in order to get the price of gasoline lower, we have got to stop being dependent upon foreign oil. we have enough resources to become energy independent. let me tell you what the obama doctrine was in brazil. he said america was going to become brazil's's best customer. let me tell you what became doctrine will be -- america will be its own best customer. drill here. utilize the resources that we have. [applause] we must end this dependency on foreign oil. we have to end this dependency on foreign oil. one of the things that the media and others like to beat me up about as a candidate -- remember, i am not supposed to be running, but i did not get the memo -- they say i have not foreign-policy experience. well, you are right. i do not have but as my dad would say -- i do not have any foreign-policy experience. but as my dad would say -- a man i would say had a ph.d. in common sense -- they would say you do not have to have any foreign-policy experience to know your friends and your enemies [applause] . that is where form policy starts. know who your friends are. know who your enemies are. -- that is where foreign policy starts. know who your friends are. know who your enemies are. i do not have the end of to know if pakistan is our friend or not. but i can't tell you about one friend we have in that part of the world, it is a country called israel. [applause] let me tell you what became the doctrine is -- what the cain doctrine is. as my dad said, knew who your friends are, a note to your enemies are. it is real simple. i will make it so that the rest of the world hears it when i become president. you messed with israel, you are messing with the united states youou messe with israel, are messing with the united states of america. they are our friend. [no audio] [applause] -- [applause] that is where foreign-policy starts. that is where foreign-policy starts. you do not have to be a rocket scientist to figure that you stand beside your friend and you keep an eye on your enemy. so, as i continue this journey -- and when i talk about these common-sense solutions, some of the people that did not get the memo that i am running still like to say, "well, that is an awful lot of stuff to try to get done in washington, d.c. you do not know how washington, d.c. works." i said, "i do. it does not work. that is why i am running." [applause] the american people are not going to send me to the white house to learn how washington works. you will be sending me their to change washington, d.c. from the way it does not work. [applause] i encourage you to continue on this journey because we can do this. because of your encouragement and the encouragement of people around this great nation, i made the decision to try and take my talents and my experiences to the white house because it is not about us, folks, it is about the children and grandchildren. i now have three genscher the. every step -- i have three grandchildren. they remind me why i am doing this and why you are doing what you can do. not everybody needs to do the same thing. the words to the closing song of the olympics said, "life can be a challenge. lichens seem impossible. it is never easy when there is so much on the line, but you can make a difference. there is a mission just for you and me and you -- just look inside and you will find just what you can do." when all of us look inside and ask ourselves what we can do and we all collectively bring our energies together in the greatness that built this nation, the same spirit that this nation to some of its toughest times, we will be able to get this nation off of the wrong track and back on the right track. you see, the founding fathers, they did their job. when they concede those principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the declaration of independence, which inspired the constitution. but they were also wise enough and had enough foresight that when they got to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they did not stop right there, they kept writing. we need to keep reading because when it says "when any form of government becomes destructive of those ideals, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it." we have some altering and abolishing to do in this national nightmare -- altering and abolishing to do. end this national nightmare. [applause] abolish and altar. lastly, because of the founding fathers did their job, we have got to beat the defending fathers. -- we have got to beat the defending fathers. we have to defend the future for our children and grandchildren against more runaway spending, against more ill-conceived legislation. at the end of the day when you look at our lives and why we are here on this planet, there is a sense of urgency for us to take this nation back because when you look at this life that we have been blessed with -- as dr. mays also reminded the young men at morehouse about this game called life -- life is just a minute, only 60 seconds in it. it is forced upon you. you cannot refuse it. it is up to you to use it. you must suffer if you lose it. give an account if you abuse it. just a tiny whittle minute, but our eternity is in it. to president obama and all of the liberals in washington d.c. -- washington, d.c., the united states of america is not going to become the united states of europe, not on our watch and not under president herman cain. [applause] thank you. >> do you remember that dark horse candidate from last year? how do you like me now? [applause] [applause] >> thank you. thank you. thank you very much. thank you. [crowd chanting "ron paul"] thank you. i have great news for the cause of liberty, the country is coming our way. [applause] i have always been an optimist. i have always believed the cause of liberty would win, but three or four years ago i would never have predicted that we would have made as much strides dybbuks and we have today. if there is reason for us to be encouraged and keep the fight, because that is what america is all about. the loss of the land can be found in our constitution and we demand respect for them. [applause] there are four categories i would like to mention in my opening remarks. these are where we have made strides. probably where we have missed the least amount of strides is in our civil liberties. the american people are sick and tired of losing their privacy and being prodded by the gsa at airports -- tsa at airports. another area where we have made a lot more strides, and you can see it in the recent debates as well as the recent votes in congress, they are coming our way because the american people are sick and tired of the analysts note win wars around -win wars -- no \-wi and around the world. there can be no doubt that there is too much spending, too much debt, too much borrowing, and it is time to stop the spending brigid's -- stop the spending. [applause] how did you know that was my fourth item? i do not know how you knew it. this is wonderful. this is where we may have made our greatest strides, for the american people to realize you can not print money in secrecy by the federal reserve and pretend it is a creation of wealth. we have gotten the attention of the people dealing with our monetary system. it is time we not only on that the federal reserve, but also get rid of the federal reserve in due time. [applause] a few years ago it was very evident there was a financial bubble, especially the housing bubble. the bursting of the bubble was on our doorstep. the free-market economist predicted it and it did arrive. this has given a lot of credibility to the views of us who look at the federal reserve as the culprit in creating the financial bubble. when the bailout came, congress intervened, of course, and spent nearly $1 treen bailing out the people who were making a lot of money that we're bankrupting the reserves. they should not have been bailed out. [applause] what a lot of people did not know and a few have difficulty understanding, it was a much bigger bailout by the federal reserve. they created about $5 trillion out of thin air and then they bailed out the banks and big corporations in total industry -- in total secrecy. guess what? all of those derivatives and assets that were worthless that nobody could sell on the marketplace -- guess what? we, the taxpayers, but those with money printed out of thin air to the tune of about $2 trillion. the federal reserve during that time -- and the reason we have to address this subject -- making create and spend more money than the entire congress. curtailing congress is one thing, but it the people in the congress do not curtail the federal reserve, you will not touch the problem. that is why it is so important. [applause] we have had some hearings. my subcommittee on the financial services -- we have got more information than ever before. we have found out that all those trillions of dollars created by the fed -- guess what? one-third of those funds went to foreign banks. it makes no sense. we find out that some of those funds actually went to banks partially owned by gaddafi. yet that makes any sense, i do not understand it, but i think the people, once they know about this, will be outraged and are outraged with what has been going on with our monetary system. but today we are facing another crisis. the next crisis is a result of the veterans are creating all this money. that will be the inflation tax. when they create money they inflate the currency. prices will rise. that is a tax. that will come. it has started and it will be much worse next year. it will be a big issue in next year pottery campaign. some of you might remember the stagflation of the '70s. it will be worse because the economy is weaker now than it was. for us and for the sake of america, we have to deal with this problem. i have said many times we have to do something. we cannot dump this on our children and our grandchildren. i address it slightly differently now because it is the current generation -- it is us today who are suffering. we do not have jobs. we are getting hit with inflation. we are suffering from the overextension of the wars around the world. it is today -- we are suffering from this and, therefore, not only should we worry about the next generation, but we have to worry about today's generation. the most precious thing we can do for our next generation -- the debt is a concern, but the most valuable thing we can get the next generation and allow this generation to have is to have our freedoms back. [applause] i have talked a lot about foreign policy for a good many years. it is very important. the foreign policy originally of the republican party of nine intervention, a battle of neutrality, minding our own business. what the founders taught and what the constitution says -- do not get involved in entangling alliances or internal affairs of other nations. do not get into the business of nation-building. besides, we do not have the money. if somebody is interested in looking at this in detail, one of the most significant pieces of writing about this subject came from ronald reagan. everybody knows how he stood up -- stood out in standing up to the soviets. but in the early '80s, reagan put some troops into beirut. 241 marines were killed. it was a real tragedy. it bore heavy on ronald reagan. read what he said in his memoirs. what he said was, "i would not turn tail and run." but when he found out how irrational politics was in that region, he decided it was necessary to get out. he said, "if i had followed a policy of neutrality," he is admitted, "those 241 marines would still be alive." he was courageous enough to admit the mistake. robert mcnamara, he was the one who built up the vietnam war, what a tragedy. i was in the military for five years in the 1960's. i did not have to go to vietnam, but i was in the service. it was such a tragedy. republicans wanted to stop the war in 1968. 30,000 americans died after we were elected to stop the war. we lost over 60,000 americans and a mcnamara was the champion of the war. before he died he wrote a book. he was interviewed. the interviewer said, "mr. mcnamara, would you like to apologize to the american people about what happened?" he said, "what good is an apology? the only thing that counts is that we look at policy and change our ways." that is what we have to do. how long will we allow our presidents to go to war in an improper manner? how long will we let our governments go to war and the congress be derelict in their duties? we have not declared war since world war ii. i say if we have to go to war, declare it a war, when it, and get over with. -- win it, and get it over with. [applause] >> right now we are in libya. congress was not asked for informed about it. republicans and democrats got together. in the war powers resolution was meant to restraint presidents from going to war like this. but our current president explain to us that this was not a war. this does not qualify as being controlled by the constitution, the congress, or the war crimes resolution. he said they are not shooting back and we have not been killed. evidently if we go embalm people and they do not shebat it is not a war. that is how silly -- if we go and bomb people and they do not shoot back, it is not a war. [applause] a lot of people will ask us as candidates, what would be the first thing you would do? there is always a limit. everybody knows my opinion on monetary policy. the president cannot get rid of the federal reserve. he might legalized competition like the constitution says. [applause] but the president has a lot to do with foreign policy. he is in charge of the troops. he is in charge of the navy. i bet there are not too many in this room that read a recent story this week of where our navy just went with a missile cruiser. they went up into the black sea and right up on the borders of russia. russia is on the way. what would we say of china came into the gulf of mexico right up to the shores? i know what the texans would say or the people in louisiana would say -- we do not need you here. one thing i encourage people to do, especially when they questioned some of the things i say, always put it in light of a foreign policy golden rule -- what would we think if people did that to us? [applause] although many reasons have been given for why people hate us and what to come here to kill us, the truth is, they tell us the truth. they tell us why they hate us. bin laden told us the truth. the truth is, they cannot stand occupation and control of their land as we would not either. [applause] bin laden had a plan. he was going to get us very angry and he was going to drag us into a war. he wrote this. he said, "i am going to drag the americans into a war just as we dragged the soviets into a war -- into a war." if we were one of those who said the soviets did not have a right to be in afghanistan. bin laden says he is more to drag us into the war, bond us down into an endless war. he said, "you know what? we will drive them into bankruptcy." this is serious stuff. we are bankrupt and we are bogged down. we are in five wars. you have to remember what was said many years ago about war -- war is the health of the state. it the state is the enemy of liberty, the bigger of government to run your life and run the economy, the last liberty you have. we have endless wars and they are continuously going on. they have ended up because a military confrontation. we did not have to confront the soviets. we let them self-destruct because they spent too much and got bogged down. i would say it is time for us to give up that obligation of being bogged down against the many countries of the world. [applause] we are now in over one of the 30 countries. -- 130 countries. we have over 900 military bases. we will not be leaving iraq, afghanistan, or pakistan. we are going to expand our presence there. we are going to build embassies in all those countries. the embassy in iraq is bigger than the vatican. do you think we are going to leave and leave all of those bases? no. we are there because we are going to argue the case, at least behind the scenes, that we have to protect our oil. what are our political enemies of recent years doing? the vietnam -- the vietnamese as well as china? china has become the manufacturer of the world, selling of students, and we borrow the money -- selling us goods, and we borrow the money. the chinese and money in the bank. or the invading countries and having their people get killed? no, they are making money. they are buying up oil interests. they are making deals. unfortunately, our foreign policy has driven so many countries into the hands of the chinese, the coalition has gotten to be india, russia, china, and iran. to is the close but the knell of iran? iraq. we toured iraq over to the shiites. our policies, no matter what the argument may have been, have totally backfired on us. we need to change the foreign- policy. we need a pro-american foreign policy. [applause] ng "ron paul"}n we are steadily losing our liberties. we cannot use our property unless we pay our taxes and follow the regulations from not only the government, but the un coming down and telling us what we can do with our land. it is a very good reason that would support our bill to get us out of the un, the imf, and the world bank. [applause] the good intentions always get out of control. there is a good intention done by the food and drug administration. make sure your food is safe. everybody is for safe food. what the fda is doing and what they feel so compelled to protect you, they will arrest you if you start drinking all milk. what is so dangerous about you making your own choice about whether or not you can drink raw milk. i think we ought to vote for the right to drink raw milk. [applause] there is another good intention. the good intention that people not use drugs stupidly. there is a lot of that that goes on, but there is a lot of stupid use up research in drugs -- use of prescription drugs. up until 1937, smoking marijuana was legal. it was still stupid, it was legal, but all the sudden we decided we would outlaw it. more people smoke it now than ever before, but some states, and i am not familiar with this state, but some states have legalized the use of marijuana for medical reasons. how compassionate -- should people be allowed to make that choice? as a physician, i can tell you there have been people dying with cancer, they cannot hold their food down, and they are taking chemotherapy, and they get benefits. but we should not be afraid of people making their own choices. let's disregard that for a minute. [applause] but because marijuana is illegal and because the plant looks a little bit like hemp, we are not allowed to raise hemp in this country. if you want to get high on hemp, you have to smoke a cigarette as big as a telephone pole. [applause] yet, they are hysterical about it. hemp is a fantastic product. it makes better alcohol -- it makes better ethanol than corn. it makes clothes. it was very helpful in world war ii. so many of these jobs went to canada. they make these products and sell them back to us. then we wonder where our jobs are going. let's legalize hemp as well. [applause] because of the over bordon of laws in this country, always tell -- overburden of laws in this country, always telling us what to do, we have more prisoners than anyone else in the world. 1% of our population is in prison. we have 5% of the population, but we have 25% of all of the world's prisoners. i do not think the american people are that bad. i do not think we need that many prisons. ishink we have too many losaws what the problems are. [applause] today in the economy, that is what people concentrate on. we cannot separate that from foreign policy, but 48% of the american people say they expect we will very likely have a depression. those people are unemployed for three years already have a depression. we have been in a severe swap -- slop for 10 years. our population has grown by 30 million people, but we have not added any new net jobs. that is that it is. we are slipping and sliding. it is always moderated by more handouts and more entitlements to make people feel a little better. it looks like we will be doing that for a long time, but it eventually ends up in bankruptcy. what are we going to do with all this debt? we have a pretty good history to know what will happen to the debt. our debt, gris's debt, everybody's debt -- greece's debt -- itbody's is easily liquidated by the debt -- by the government. he gets 50 cents on the dollar or 25 cents of the dollar. that is what is happening today. we are fast liquidating our debt, but the economy has not picked up in these last two years. we got into trouble because we believed we could spin. we had the reserve currency. the world would take our money. we would get the goods and our debt would go up. we spent too much, we borrowed too much, we regulate too much, we printed too much, and we got into predictable trouble. guess what we have been doing for three years? we are regulating more, we are spending more, we are borrowing more, and the federal reserve has unlimited amounts of money flowing into the system and they think it will call -- it will solve the problem. it will not solve the problem, let me tell you. [applause] we need to restore our confidence and belief in a free society at how markets work. we as conservatives are supposed to believe in the free enterprise system. that means we want to get the government out of the business of regulating the us. -- regulating us. if i had my way, the federal reserve would quit printing money because it only benefits the rich at the expense of the port. the money from investment has to come from savings. will there have enough savings? yes, if we change our tax code. we should not be taxing savings. we should not be taxing the elderly saving money. [applause] we should not under current condition today because the banks get the money for free and they make 2% or 3%. if you are elderly or retired, you get 1% or 2% when the market rate is 6% or 7%. it is criminal. it is really bad. [applause] we should not tax savings. we should not tax dividends. that is where capital comes from. over $1 trillion worth of capital is sitting overseas because companies are global and they are able to channel the funds all. they pay other taxes, which are lower. if you want to repatriate that money, they do not ask you again. but we do. there is over $1 trillion overseas that a loss our companies, but they will not bring it home. let's stop taxing repatriated money and let them bring their capital home brigid's -- bring their capital home. [applause] then you have to change the environment brigid's you have -- you have to change the environment. the corporate tax is not a corporate tax. it is a failed tax. corporations and cannot function unless they pass it on to the consumer. the sales tax, we should stop best of the they put the money into investment. the corporate tax rate should be as low as possible. the regulatory burden should be lifted from their shoulders. one thing i have promised, it by was president of the united states, -- [applause] my goal would be to freeze the federal register and then stars -- and then start shrinking it. no new regulations. [applause] when did we as a country capitulate and say the executive branch in the form of the bureaucracy has the right to write laws? the courts do not have the right to write laws, neither should the executive branch. [applause] when you allow courts to write even at that legislation like roe vs. wade which tells states what they can do to protect human life. i would repeal roe vs. wade as much as possible. [applause] let me close by talking a little bit about what a free society should be all about. a lot of people do not quite understand when i talk about people being allowed to make choices on their own lifestyle. that worries them because they might make a bad choice, which is quite possible, but what happens when government makes the choice for you? they get involved in your education. i want that responsibility to be put back to the parents in charge of their kids and their education. [applause] but the thing -- you are challenged on this, what you should think about is the first amendment. we have a first amendment and hardly anybody argues with me about the first amendment. it legalized freedom of thought. even communist teachers or allowed to exist because it is political free-speech. we do not have a first amendment so that we can talk about the weather. it is not that. it is to legalize freedom of speech, but nobody says that if you legalize freedom of speech, you endorse the speech they use. you do not endorse what they say, you endorse the principle that they have the right to say it. [applause] this is what responsibility is like when it is on the individual. you have a responsibility printed it is your life and your liberty. it comes to you from your god, not your government. [applause] where is the responsibility on good behavior? it is with the individual, it is with the family, it is with the parents, it is with the church. believe me, the government is not a very good source of teaching good values. but freedom, freedom is something that america's -- america has been well known for. in the last several decades we have lost our way. we care less about freedom than we do about the government taking care of us from cradle to grave. they will protect us. it is ok to sacrifice a bit of your liberty for security especially cents 9/11. i did not buy that. i do not think he said sacrifice any liberty for your security. -- i do not think you should sacrifice in the liberty for your security. [applause] freedom brings people together with different values because it is not confrontational. people are not allowed to force anything on you and government should not be allowed to force anything on you as well freedom brings people together. that is the magnificent part about a free society, it is not authoritarian. whether it is personal habits or economic habits, the liberals love to tell you what is fair or equal economically, but the principle states the same if someone comes along and says they do not want you to do this or that. a free society -- the great part about a free society that we have forgotten about, it is the most productive society. yet we are not productive if we are not wealthy. [applause] which means that we are less free and that is one of our major problems. the ideas of liberty lardon need. we have had the greatest experiment in all of history, but i get a thousand years of history, we have only had a couple hundred years of testing it. 95% of economic growth and well- being for the people have come with the advancement of the freedom of people. we are about to give up because we have lost our convictions and understanding of health freedom works nl it depends on you as an individual. everyone of us is unique. we do not get our rights because we belong to a group. if we get our rights because we are individuals. individuals or the one to claim rights, not groups. -- are the ones who claim rights, not groups. when you live in a free society, there are restraints on the use of force, but -- you do not have a tremendous growth and prosperity in a communist society. it's oppresses everything. we are being overburdened l more than ever before with big government at all the rules and regulations, but we are less productive. a free society allows creativity. on a personal basis, it gives you the opportunity to do what is your personal responsibility. from my viewpoint, the purpose of life is to strive for virtue and excellence. that should be the goal. [applause] now, there will be many on both ends of the spectrum but will say, "yes, but government should do that, too." when government tries to make all the definitions and say what is fair, economic distribution is they cannot do it without undermining your liberty. the key is to understand the value of the individual life and to take that responsibility. without the responsibility being assent, it does not work. john adams warned us about that. he said, "you have a free society. you have a republic. but if you not assume these responsibilities, it will not work." we are not willing to assume its, but we are certainly moving in that direction, which makes me very happy about it. samuel adams said that -- a lot of people worry about how we get a majority to agree. we do not need a majority. we need what he said was an irate minority willing to start the brush fires of freedom in the minds of man. [applause] and this -- [crowd chanting and this i report to you is where we're making great progress. there are many, many thousands of brushfires going on in this country. i would like to think i contributed a little bit. one thing i can't tell you is that i -- i cannot -- i cannot tell you that i know how many there are because every place i go, i find out there is another brushfire here and here and more organizations and individuals who have caught on. samuel adams ha one more bit of advice about this fight and he was in a much tougher fight than we are today. he gave us one advice, he said no long faces. they were in tough times and they were very pessimistic and he said, yes, no long faces. which meant if you come and say oh, what are we going to go? it's not going to work. but there's every reason not to have a long face. let us join ourselves. we know what america is all about. we know what freedom can deliver for us. and we know momentum is with us. one way we know momentum is with us, all of a sudden i notice others running for leadership are starting to use our language. great. good to see everybody! >> hi, everyone. go southern leadership conference. yeah! good to see you all. god bless you! who doesn't love the big easy? thank you for the wonderful, warm welcome and thank you for the invitation. >> love you! >> love you too! love new orleans! you survived katrina! you survived president obama's oil moratorium. there is nothing you can't survive! you have such a great spirit, you inspire all of america. do you know that? new orleans inspires us all. you got it here in new orleans. i'm so thankful to be able to be here with all of you today. you are very brave people here and i want you to know you also have a very brave governor in governor bobby jindal. and governor haley barbour! these two governors show you can get it right, and they did. they are marvelous men. i love them both. earlier this week, i don't know if you caught it, but there was a republican presidential debate. it was -- it was held by cnn. and it was up a little north of us in new hampshire. i wasn't you to know i learned a couple of things in that debate. i learned first of all that newt gingrich likes "american idol." i didn't know that. i learned ron paul favors the blackberry, and i learned herm cane liked deep dish pizza. and aside from being a hard core johnny cash fan, the world found out i have "christmas with elvis" on my ipod. i have to tell you a secret. you're not going to tell anybody, are you? i have to tell you i was a little nervous. i didn't know if they were going to ask boxers or briefs? you know, a girl never knows. you never know. but the debate i think did bring three things out in new hampshire that were very, very important, and the first one is this -- in contrast to the current administration, what we saw on the stage in new hampshire were leaders, people who could lead this country. [applause] and our party showed very well, i think, in that debate. it was a real honor for me to be able to announce that night that i have filed my paperwork to seek the office of the presidency of the united states of america! [applause] the greatest country the world has seen. during the brief years i served in the halls of congress in washington, d.c., i feel my greatest accomplishment has been to bring the voice of the people into the halls of congress. and politicians started paying attention to your voice when it was brought into washington, d.c. and what my goal is to take your voice into the white house where it hasn't been heard for a very long time. [applause] in order to do that and to be successful in 2012, we need to engage a strategy of the three-legged stool, and the stool is this -- we need to add piece through strength republicans, and i'm one of those. and we need to add the fiscal conservative leg, and i'm one of those. and we most certainly need to add the social conservative, and i am one of those. [applause] and we need the tea party movement. the liberals want you to think that the tea party is just a radical fringe of the republican party. there's a reason why the left is absolutely apoplectic about the tea party movement. here's the truth, it's an idea and it's made up of disaffected democrats who it it up to here it's made up of independents who had it up to here with barack obama. it's made up of libertarians. it's made up of people who have never been political a day in their life, and republicans were already there. we're already there. that's the tea party movement. they should be afraid of this movement. it was the verb and vibrancy of the 2011 election. let me tell you, that movement has more steam, more power and more energy today than it had last november 2010. get ready, 2012, the tea party will be bigger than ever. [applause] because the tea party and all of america had one goal, and it's this -- that barack obama will be a one-term president! now, the second thing we're reminded in the debate earlier this week is the race really will be all about jobs and the economy. we understand that this president hasn't done such a good job on that. here we are, two weeks, two years into the recovery. we're two years into the recovery. under ronald reagan, we were literally adding hundreds of thousands of jobs in a month. under ronald reagan's recovery, and instead now we're in the obama trench of a double dip recession. that's all we need to know to explain today people are worried about their retirement. they have this fear that's becoming not just gnawing, now it's on the surface. they don't believe their kids are going to do as well as they did. do you realize this is the first generation that felt that way in 234 years of our nation's history. that's how devastating these economic numbers are to americans, and also i think what this debate was about earlier this week is how we're going to reverse the trend. that's the good news of all of this, how we're going to add jobs. i'm a job creator. my husband and i started from scratch a successful company. we came from a lower middle class background. i drove a school bus and all sorts of other jobs to get through college. my husband did the same thing. us. a chance, a hope, opportunity. wasn't there something about hope and change in 2008. do you remember that? 2012, that's the real hope and change election! we republicans have the most powerful, positive story to tell in 2012. it's a story barry bonds can't even begin to tell and he won't tell because he's got a big "f" on his economic report card. he can't tell it. as a matter of fact if you want to sum up this election in the post simple, positive terms it goes something like this, the day barack obama became president, a gallon of gas was $1.79 a gallon, that day. today it's $3.75 a gallon. has president obama failed you ten days after he became president, the price of an auns of gold was $940. ten days after he was naug inaugurated. today it is $1,500 an ounce. has the president of the united states devalued your dollar? he has made us all poorer. now, get this -- the day that president obama took office, and your share of the national debt was $35,000 for every american. and that was after nancy pelosi had, had the gavel for a few years. you know what it is today under president obama? your share has gone from $35,000 to $46,000 in national debt. who would like to join me in sending a change of address form to 1600 pennsylvania avenue for 2012! that's priceless! the final thing we saw at the debates earl year this week is the fact 2012, i believe this race is going to be all about you, not about politicians. it's going to be about you and the future that we hold, about the free market system and about the morals and theville yus that have always been the cornerstone of this country. it means, i think, we're going to have to trust our neighbors and our friends with telling them the truth about what's going on in our country. i don't think we should fear telling them the truth because never has anything been more important i think to let them know this next example. you heard about it today, and it's obama-care. because obama-care is the symbol of what's wrong with jobs, of what's wrong with spending, with what's wrong with debt, what's wrong with government overreach. i was there. i fought against obama-care with you on the front line every step of the way against obama-care. and while we've been seeing the liberals in the last few weeks trying to scare americans about medicare and especially senior citizens, what's been ignored is president obama's plan for senior citizens regarding medicare. have you heard what that is? two weeks ago i was in the white house. i was in a meeting with president obama and the president was asked not once, not twice, he was asked three times, mr. president, what is -- a private, closed-door meeting, what is your plans for medicare? what are you going to do to save it to so it doesn't go flat broke like we know it will in the not-too-distant future? you know what the president's plan is. this hasn't been talked about very much. the president's plan for senior citizens is obama-care. we all think for our senior is going to go on. i think very likely -- and i'm speculating, i think very likely what the president intends is that medicare will go broke. and that ultimately that answer will be obama care for senior citizens. what else would the plan be? if he's not intending to save it, knowing full well what the numbers in front of our eyes that it is certain bankruptcy for our senior citizens and he's willing to allow that to happen, then that will mean our senior citizens will face obama care knowing full well that our president took $500 billion -- that's a half trillion dollars out of medicare, to give it to younger people in obama-care. just when our population of senior citizens is growing with baby boomers joined in their ranks, we'll have more people but less money and no plan to save us. the next time liberals scare you about medicare and republicans, you ask those same people, what's your plan to save social security? and don't tell me it's obama-care because obama's gift to senior citizens right now is to steal from them $500 billion out of medicare. that's not going to wash in the united states of america. i'm the very first member of congress who went down the very first morning after the passage of obama-care. i stayed up with my staff until after midnight the night that to my staff, we will not allow president obama's version of socialized medicine in the united states to stand in this country. we're going to put together a bill to repeal obama-care. we're going to tell the american people all is not lost. have hope. we will repeal obama-care. so the next morning, i marched to the floor of the house of representatives and was the first member of congress to file a repeal bill. i want you to know this, as president of the united states, i will not rest until we repeal obama-care! you can take that to the bank! you can cash that check! we will repeal obama care in the united states of america! it will happen! have hope. have real hope. we will. i wonder if they're listening in the white house right now. you will come november 2012. you will listen then. obama-care is the signature issue of this president, but did you know it's also a job killer. the congressional budget office has already told us obama-care will kill 800,000 jobs. the president, with all of his job creation plans, has already killed over 2.5 million jobs. now nearly a million more. what in the world can someone be thinking to pass a bill like this knowing full well you're going to kill nearly a million jobs? i think we know what we're going to be thinking in about 18 months of now and will be there to make it happen. senior citizens get this issue more than any other segment of the population. they paid attention to what was going on in the obama-care debate and i think senior citizens are going to line up at the polls. they can't wait to toss this president out of office, and i'm thrilled about that. if obama-care represents the president's failure on health care, i think the president's more bid obesity on spending and debt accumulation is probably the worset of all. our joint chief of staffs chair is admiral mike mullen. and mike mullen said our national debt is our biggest national security threat. now, wouldn't you think when the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff says our greatest national security threat is debt, that maybe the commander in chief might listen? you would think in a normal white house, that's what would happen. but instead what are we doing now in washington? we're debating raising the debt ceiling! and what's the debt ceiling? that's the right to give congress the authority to borrow more money it doesn't have and keep spending money. what's your opinion on raising the debt ceiling? >> no! >> i knew i was going to like you. i knew it before i walked in here. did you know in the last ten years, congress has raised the debt ceiling ten times. i have been in washington three terms and in that time, we have been asked to raise the debt ceiling about a half dozen times. every time i voted no on raising the debt ceiling,, and right now i will be voting no again because there are no serious cuts. there's only smoke and mirrors. washington, d.c., that game is over. it's over. because do you know -- if you have a dollar in your pocket. take it out. you probably don't. the government is trying to take it out. if you have a dollar, take it out. hold it up. take a good look at that dollar bill, because i want to tell you something, and i know we're getting towards suppertime here and i don't want to diminish your appetite, but when you look at that dollar bill, take a look at it and fold that dollar in half. because -- or not quite in half. because 42 cents of every dollar that the federal government spends is borrowed money. borrowed money. could you live that way? i couldn't live that way. the federal government can't live that way either. because they're spending money that we don't have. i want you to know right now that as president of the united states, i will make serious spending cuts such that this nation never has to raise the debt ceiling again. [applause] and, yes, i know it will be hard. it will be very hard. gee, think of how hard this is going to be. cutting spending for planned parenthood. that will be really hard, won't it? cutting spending for npr, very hard, won't it? cutting spending for bullet trains to nowhere, very, very hard. this is the heartbreaker of them all, cowboy poetry festivals! that's a barn-burner. and like the great and powerful oz in the movie with dorothy and the tin man and the scarecrow, when toto takes that curtain and pulls away and you see the wizard flailing his arms and pushing the buttons and pulling the levers, that's the picture of the obama economic team right now trying to put this economy back in order. [applause] well, mr. president, the bailouts didn't work! the stimulus didn't work! i voted against them! we've got to have some new sheriff in town who knows that method is a method for failure. we know what works, it's cutting spending. it's growing the economy, it's doing what free markets do and what economic superpowers do. and mr. president, you're no economic superpower! [applause] i'll tell you the late thing the federal reserve will do is have a quantitative policy where the federal reserve is printing money like it's gin rummy. not going to happen. not going to happen. the time president obama has been in office, you know that dollar that you hold in your hand has devalued 14%. two years ago that value was worth, let's say a dollar. today it's worth 86 cents. can you afford this president? i cannot afford this president. are you better off today than you were two years ago? is your savings account worth less under this president? well, strangely, this president seems to find all of this kind of amusing. he told us after he heard the jobless report being 9.1%, this is just a bump in the road. is this a bump in the road? >> no! >> i think this is the grand canyon. that's what this is. and then we heard the president say of the failure of a trillion dollar stimulus regarding the shovel-ready projects that they weren't quite shovel ready yet. i think somebody needs to take the shovel out of the president's hand and have them stop digging because there's no pony in what he's trying to shovel these days. [applause] mr. president, the status quo is not working for americans. the scatous quo certainly isn't working for the african-american community with 16% unemployment or the hispanic community with merely 12% unemployment. it's even worse for the youth. for hispanic youth right now, 26% unemployment. for african-american youth, 40% unemployment. this president has failed the hispanic community. he has failed the african-american community. he has failed us all when it comes to jobs. as president of the united states, my goal will be job creation in the hispanic community. job creation in the african-american community. job creation for all americans. and turning this economy around, and we will! [applause] now, this just happened earlier today. maybe you have heard about it. but the president of russia is named president medvedev. and this is a very interesting speech that he gave. he even knows the private industry and not government is the key to an economic turnaround. in a speech that he gave. i want you just to listen to me as i read this. this is the president of russia today -- "my choice is different. the russian economy ought to be dominated by the private businesses and private investors. the government must protect the choice and property of those who willingly risk their money and reputation. a president calls for private sector growth. why can't our president speak those words? i promise you, i will! as a constitutional conservative, the other thing we need to talk about is the absolutely explosive growth in the cost of regulations on job creators. the estimate now is $1.7 trillion burden on our job it's unacceptable. the worst offender of all is the environmental protection agency. [applause] that the whole issue about the human activity that contributes to carbon growth and all of the rest, this led to cap-and-trade policies that want to have government tell you everything from what car you're supposed to drive, the house you're supposed to live in, what light bulbs you're supposed to use. that's why i introduced the light bulb freedom of choice act! [applause] i am so proud of that bill, i introduced it after the 2007 energy act. let me tell you, president bachmann will allow you to buy any light bulb you want in the that's why i call the e.p.a. the job-killing agency of america. and that agency is going to have its lights go out if i become president of the united states! and as dire as this president has made our economy, i'm here to tell you that i am probably even more concerned about the vulnerability of the united states when it comes to america's national security and our vulnerability. because today president obama's taking leverage away from our military through a never-before-seen reduction of forces during war time while they elevate political correctness and social experimentation over readiness. as a matter of fact, in a shocking action, president obama's justice department threatened to prosecute our intelligence professionals who opened the door for our successful mission when we captured and eliminated osama bin laden. just for doing their job, is which is to get information on the bad guys so we can keep the american people safe. as a member of the house intelligence committee, we are tasked with keeping the secrets of this nation, i'm confronted every day as a member of this committee, with the threats that we face as americans. and i want to say to you, you have my word, as commander in chief. i will commit every resource required to fulfill the first constitutional duty of our government and it's this -- to protect our country and to keep the american people safe, free you may recall one of the people in the president's administration said in libya, the president was leading from behind. do you remember that? i want you to know as president, i will lead from the front. we will be the head, not the tail! [applause] and that's because america is the independenceable nation of the -- indispensable nation of the world. i'm committed to ending the war on terror. when we eliminated bin laden, that was not the end of the war on terror, as much as i wish it was. because i'm here to remind you it is a sobering thought. every day there are terrorists who wake up, seeking away to kill americans and to destroy this great country. we're coming upon the tenth anniversary of 9/11. we can never go to sleep until the scourge of the ideology of terror has come to an end and been defeated. i will stand and win the war on terror. because, mr. president, you don't win the war on terror by closing gn -- guantanamo bay. you do not end the war on terror by reading miranda rights to foreign terrorists. by the way, miranda rights aren't for foreign terrorists! [applause] and never should a commander in chief put troops in harm's way unless and until you define the clear and vital mission of the united states in a conflict. that's why the libya policy is significantly flawed. while president obama has diverted his attention to libya, the real 900-pound gorilla in the room in the middle east is a nuclear iran. we must never allow iran to have a nuclear weapon and naively and dangerously and wrongly, the president instructed our ally israel to shrink its borders to an indefensible level. i want to make an announcement today -- stand with israel! [applause] here's one last truth. through his policy, president obama devalued the dignity of human life, and i think some of the most eloquent words were ever written were penned in the declaration of independence, which said it is our creator who endowed us with an alienable rights and the chief among them is the right to life. and the beauty of this language -- and i encourage you to read this for yourself again -- the beauty of this, it is not government that gives us the right to life. it is god, our creator who gives us the right to life. government doesn't give this right to us so government can't take it away. only god gives us this right. the declaration goes on to say the reason why governments were instituted in the first place was to secure these inalienable rights that only god could give. that's the purpose of government, to protect life, and i stand for life. telling our great story i think is going to require a very different kind of leader. we need a constitutional conservative, someone who's committed enough to stand firmly in what our founders gave us in this magnificent country and their vision of a limited government where power flows from the people in a limited way to government but all rights are reserved to the people. well, who is that leader? on monday night the people also learned that my name is michele bachmann. that i'm a former federal tample lawyer. -- tax lawyer. that i am a successful business owner together with my husband. and that i'm a member of congress. we have been married almost 33 years. we're the parents of five great kids. the oldest is a physician. the youngest is going off to college. we have been privileged to be foster parents to 23 wonderful foster children. [applause] you know, we've had such a great time here in the last few moments. it's tough to end. i think our friends and our neighbors all understand that the challenges that we're facing as a country right now seem almost virtually insurmountable. but i think together in this room we know that there's a possibility and it reminds me of one of my favorite heroes from the bible. he's found in the old testament. and he's not one of the big players but he's one of my heroes. his name is jonathan. his father was a king and his name was saul. and in ancient israel, there was a war that was going on. gee, funny how some things just don't change. there was a war going on between ancient israel and the philistines. and the king had thought the enemy, the philistines, were positioned too well and the king thought that the philistines were too great in number to doe feet. so he waited. and he was paralyzed by the problem that was in front of his face. but his son jonathan was unwilling to be cowed by the problem in front of him. he was not about to accept defeat. so jonathan secretly enlisted his armor bearer to gage the philistines. so they went to the top of the cliff of the outpost. they climbed up there. and then jonathan said to his companion, and i quote, come then, we will cross over towards the men and let them see us. if they say to us, wait there until we come to you. we will stay and not go up to them. but if they say come up to us, we will climb up because that will be our sign that the lord has given them into our hands. what did the armor bearer reply? the reply of the armor bearer was one of loyalty and trust. "go ahead, i am with you, heart and soul. and so they climbed. and jonathan and the armor bearer not only defeated the philistines who are at the outpost, they defeated the entire philistine army but it all started with two men who had the courage to face insurmountable odds. and i stand before you today to submit to you we have the people in america who are like jonathan and that armor bearer. they are willing to show the courage now to surmount those odds and take on the challenge. and we need a leader who will stand with the people and take courage and take on those odds. i ask you today, are you ready to take on those odds? [applause] and i am here to say to you, i am ready too. let's go together. we're americans. we have a can-do spirit. we can do this! we will do this! we will have victory in 2012. thank you for having me here! god bless you, and god bless the united states of america! [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, pennsylvania senator rick santorum! [applause] >> thank you. thank you. thank you very, very etch. i appreciate that. and appreciate all of you being here. it is nice to be back in new orleans. i was here the last conference, and it was the energy and enthusiasm in that room. obviously carried over all across this country and we had a great election victory. but our job, i remember saying at that time back in 2010, that this was the most important election of our lifetime. but now i have to say that, that is no longer true. because even then i said it was the most important election because it was going to stop if we were successful, stop more bad things from happening. but if we really wanted to change things, we really wanted to make a difference, then we had to elect a new president in 2012, and that's our job this election. [applause] this is a very, very serious time. i spoke here last year and i have been speaking around the country. i just came from new hampshire, just flew in from new hampshire. it was my 20th visit to new hampshire. have i been to all of the other early primary states. south carolina. i know we have some south carolinians here today. thank you. have i been there many, many times. and iowa. my kids have been watching me more unfortunately on television than they have across the table at the dinner table. the other day i was home, and my son patrick, who's 9, karen and i have a very, very blessed to seven children, and so if you don't think i have experience on balancing budgets, you don't know what having seven children means. anyway, our sixth, patrick said to me, dad, you're awfully serious. when i see you, you're always so serious. i said patrick, this is a very serious time for our country. he said you know, you should try to tell a joke. i said, patrick, i'm not good at telling jokes. he said, well i heard a good joke. tell this joke. i said ok, patrick, i'll tell your joke. what is it? he said, what goes ha, ha, thump? now, he's a 9-year-old remember. what goes ha, ha, thump. i said, i don't know patrick, what goes ha, ha thump. he said, someone laughing their jay leno, there you go. i don't know about you, but i don't watch either. but we do have serious problems. someone around the country i have noticed and recognized and felt from people this enormous amount of anxiety. we saw it percolate up in america from the tea party. and god bless the tea party for what they did in this last election. we would not be where we are today without them. we saw it percolate up. we saw in energy. we saw this anxiety, and almost fear and resolve as we face the problems of the country. i tried to put my finger on it. what was it, what was it that really was going on here? i felt maybe it's the economy. maybe it's the fact the economy is horrible and, of course, as a result of the policies of this administration, they have gotten worse and worse and worse. they're saying it won't be a double dip but certainly will not be any v-shaped recovery. it's an almost flat-lined economy. no jobs are being created. why is that? try to climb a hill with barack obama and the rest of the democratic caucus on your shoulder. it is incredibly, unbelievable how much this administration has done in a very short period of time to just crush the american entrepreneurial spirit, crush innovation and growth. i can tell you as someone who's been in congress, i spent two terms in the house and two terms in the united states senate. every time i was there, i voted for lower taxes, pro growth, less regulation, less litigation, because we know in america that's what works. what have we learned from this administration? we have seen bill after bill, the trying to put more controls. throw everybody how to run their lives. it's destroying america. maybe that part of it. maybe it's what we see here in louisiana. as michele just said, you have survived the regulations that this president is putting on you in the oil and gas industry. they're trying to now start -- they're starting talking about it up where we are in pennsylvania. we have something in common. we're drilling a lot of gas and oil wells in pennsylvania these days. we found the second largest reserve of natural gas in the world underneath pennsylvania. yeah. and we're drilling thousands of wells, thousands of wells, oil, mostly gas wells, marcellus shales but eunuchia which is oil wells. we're doing it in people's backyards. i want to remind everybody what we're drilling in pennsylvania, pennsylvania has the second largest rural population in the country. we have people all throughout pennsylvania -- we're drilling in people's backyards, ladies and gentlemen. we have a president who's allowing, thankfully for now, drilling in people's backyards but we can't drill thousands of miles from everybody in alaska. that's too dangerous but we can drill in backyards. that is just sick ideology. that is just trying to drive an ideological agenda that makes no sense for the health and safety of people. [applause] we have a huge mountain of debt. 40 cents of every dollar we borrow. president obama, how can you justify, how can you justify 40 cents of every dollar to prop up your sick policies, your sick economic policies and putting those on the back of future generations for the rest of their lives, how do you justify that? [applause] i am something who's done something. i'm the only person who announced for president who said i immediately supported the ryan plan. stood by paul ryan when others were walking away and equivocating. [applause] there's a reason i did, because when i was in the united states senate, i actually fought for entitlement reform. when i was in the united states senate, when i was in the house, i actually wrote the contract with america welfare reform bill. it was the first time in the history of our country that we ended a broad-based federal entitlement. i fought daniel patrick moynihan and ted kennedy and all of the liberals in the united states senate and was able to end a federal entitlement. they were screaming people are going to be out on the streets. we couldn't trust people to be able to provide for themselves. i said no, welfare, poverty. poverty is not a disability. it's a temporary condition. we need to believe in people again. just like what paul ryan suggested for medicaid. we had income support, aftc it was called at the time. we put time limits, with we put work requirements. we said you shouldn't have a government that supports people in dependency. we shouldn't tell people they can't. we should tell people that you can and we believe in you. that's what we need to do for medicaid. that's what we need to do for food stamps. that's what we need to do for all of the welfare programs. we can save money and tell people again, we believe you. we believe in the american spirit and can-do attitude of the american public. that's what paul ryan pleans does. that's what i support. i also was someone who fought on social security. tpwhack 1998 i actually traveled -- my only trip on air force one with bill clinton, but i traveled to missouri and did a town hall meeting where i republicans calling for reforms of social security when no one else on our side was willing to do that. i stood tall, had the courage to go out and talk about the problems that we were going to confront here in america in a very short period of time. there's an article in "the wall street journal" and they talked about it 1990 when i first got to congress, there were four workers for every one retiree. 20 years ago. 20 years from now there will be less -- almost just above under two people. almost cut in half. is that something new? did we not know that? of course we knew that. we knew that was coming but only a few, very few in washington had the courage to stand up and fight for what we knew was coming, which is a fiscal disaster for this country. i did. i stood up and when george bush in 2005 said, let's take on social security, in my election cycle, i stood up with jim demint and we went to the floor and we carried the debate. we lost but i learned from my 2006 election, which i lost, that losing isn't the worse thing that can happen. not standing up for your principles and what's right for america is the worse thing that can happen. and i was out there before anybody else. when i was on the armed services committee talking about something we termed at the time asymmetric threats. talking about this group of people who hated us not because of what we were -- excuse me, not because of what we did but because of who we were. radical jihaddists. when they attacked us on 9/11, they changed the term from asymmetric threats to terrorism. but i had been working on it, trying to shape our military, to respond to those threats before -- before we were attacked. after we were attacked i confronted, yes, even the republican president, george w. bush, because he didn't have, in my opinion, the courage to go out and tell the american public the truth tooze who we were fighting. we weren't fighting terrorists. terrorism is a tactic. doesn't describe the enemy and who they are. who they are are radical islammists. they are people who follow an ideology that is both a religion and a political doctrine. and i gave a speech five months before my election at the national press club calling out the president, calling out the people of the republican party to be honest. this is not just a war of tactic. it's war of idea. it's a war of cultures. we need to be clear we can't motivate people to defend america unless they understand what the threat is. and i did and i stood for our closest ally. i know a lot of people have come up here and said, i'm for israel. i did and performed and fought and passed bills that made israel secure when i was in the united states senate. two major pieces of legislation, the syrian accountability account and iran support act i augesered. the president of the united states, george w. bush, opposed both. thought they were too tough. even though i did it because i wanted to get syria out of lebanon and to quit harassing through hezbollah another israel and i wanted to put a stop to the iranian nuclear program. and to help fund pro democracy movement in iran because i knew that the existential threat to israel was in fact iran. so i fought president obama -- president bush, and eventually he came to my side and signed those bill and we had a safer israel as a result. and i've also led the charge on the culture. the debate was the other night. i happened to notice the that john king asked all of the cultural moral questions to me. but that's ok. because i'm used to that and i'm proud of it. i'm proud to stand up for life. i'm proud to stand up for the family. i'm proud to stand up for those at the end of life. because someone in this party, someone who wants to lead this party, needs to stand up and say that they are just as important an issue as the economy and national security of this country, if america is not a moral enterprise and blessed by god, we will not be a country that can continue far. and so i heard all of these things as i traveled around and i thought, well, maybe it's all of these things that were going on, all of the fact that the president of the united states was apologizing for america as he traveled around or he funded embryonic stem cells or refused to defend doma are whether it was the economy or the debt, all of the things the president has done, you heard the litany since we've been here. i realized after being out there a while it was in fact all of these but yet it didn't quite capture what was really going on in america. the fear in america is something deeper. when i announced for president just a little over a week ago, i went to summerset county, pennsylvania. i went there for a reason. it's where my grandfather came to this country in 1927. and a couple years later brought my father, who was at the time 7 years old. he came from mussolini's italy. he came not because he had a good job that he was promised. he actually had a great job where he was. not because he was promised government benefits and to be taken care of. they were doing that in a major way in italy. in fascist italy under mussolini. no, he came, left a good job, beautiful little town in northern italy. he came to america, to northern somerset county, the cole fields, the deep mines. and from 1927 to 1958 until he was 72 years old until the year i was born, he worked in those coal mines. he worked in those coal mines for one reason he used to tell me all the time, so his son and his grandchildren could be free. that is the reason he came. and i believe that is the reason people in america have this angst, have this sense that something big is happening to this country. let me tell you exactly what it is, we have a president of the united states who doesn't believe in the founding principles of this country. he said it -- he said it in a speech recently where he was giving a rebuttal to paul ryan and the budget. he talked about social security and medicare and medicaid and unemployment insurance. and he said this, he said america's a better country because of these proposals. i will go one step further, he said, america was not a great country until these commitments were made. the president of the united states said, until government took your freedom and your money and redistributed it and gave it to those that they chose who were worthy, america was not a great country. mr. president, america was born a great country. [applause] i love our tea partyers. they carry their pocket constitutions and hold it up at their meeting at town meetings, god bless them. the constitution is an incredible document, vital document. it is the owner's manual for america. it is how we are to operate the machinery of government, and we need to abide by that owner's manual and quit trying to amend it by actually doing through the courts and through executive orders and through regulations. there's one way to amend the constitution, and it's actually in the constitution how you do it. the second thing, though, that is printed on these documents, almost every single one of these pocket constitutions is another document. you ever ask yourself, why is this document also here, the declaration of independence? we had many other documents that were important documents, but why do they put these two together? i believe it's because the constitution is the how and the declaration is the why. [applause] it's who we are. and it's found in that sentence that all of you know, that critical sentence that gives the exceptionalism to american exceptionism. we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. among these, life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. that phrase is a phrase that transformed the world. it's the basis upon which our government rests. it is the why, it is the foundation that the constitution was created to protect. you see up until this time, up until this document, no government had ever been instituted that recognized that rights came from god to every man and woman. never before had happened. they went to the king. they did not go to every person. the people were the subjects of the crown or the emperor. in this country, the government was there to serve the people, not the other way around. we created this constitution, in my opinion, to do one thing, and that is to keep america free. that is the one thing that our government is there to do. that is why we say we need limited government. government is there to protect the life and liberty as a foundation for this country. [applause] i got involved in this race, i got involved in traveling the country, because i believe there was one moment, one bill, that will take this sentence and erase it from the minds of america, that will do more to erase the constitution from its relevance to political discourse, and it is obamacare. why do i say it is that big of an issue? because it is the first time that we have passed a piece of legislation to try and enact an entitlement for every working man and woman. they are not to help the poor, the disabled, the elderly. this would connect an ivy -- iv to every person in america. everyone in america will be connected and dependent on washington for their health care, for their children's health care, for their parents' health care. and the government will be able to withhold or pump up more or less in that depending on how compliant you're going to be. margaret thatcher said when she left the prime ministership of england, after having transformed england from the socialist country to one that was privatizing their industries and embracing capitalism again -- she said at the end she was never able to do for england what reagan did for america. remember in the 60's and 70's liberal was not a bad word. we were going to go the way of europe. and then reagan said no and change america. thatcher was never able to do that, never. she said what. she said because of the british national health care system. as brave as paul ryan is, look at what he has proposed. it does not touch anybody with an entitlement. all of his changes are for people in the future, far into the future. he would not there. no one cares. talk about taking anything from anybody who has something from the government. look at what is going on in greece. this is the future of america if obama care is put into action. this is the future of america. when i was 16 years old, it was the first time i had ever been to a funeral with an open casket. it was my grandfather. i knelt next to his casket and i looked at his hands. they were enormous hands, click, a beefy hand. they had done work for 30 years. i looked at those hands, and those hands clawed and scraped and grabbed their way for freedom for me. you think about the men and women across america now, in uniform. you think about the sacrifices of those in the past two fought for freedom, who were willing to do whatever it took to make sure that they were going to hand off and america as free as we were given it, and here we are. yes, we are at war. but very few are participating in that war. thank god for their coverage. thank god for their sacrifice. but most of america is working, playing, doing what they do, and watching america slowly slipped away. one of my favorite quotes is from a man by the name of christopher latch, who says every day we get up and tell ourselves lives -- lies so we can live, and the like americans are telling themselves now, as they are in denial about a $1.40 trillion debt -- 100 trillion dollars of unfunded liabilities, a worse condition than in greece is in from a debt standpoint in the long term. and we deny ourselves. more government, obama care, and more dependency. it is just part of the process. it is nothing really new. it is more of the same. we will be free. everything will be safe. that is a lie. we need a leader to stand up and tell america about the line and remind them who we are. this is the challenge of the next leader. yes, to win this election, but the -- but to then have the courage to go out and lead and motivate a country, to remind us who we are, that the people who came to this country came like my grandfather, because they cherished freedom. it is in our dna. we are different than the greeks. we are different than the brits. we left greece. we left britain. we left italy. we came here because we knew our government would believe in us. barack obama does not believe in you. he believes in himself. in the 2008 election, the american public was convinced by this anointed one, as shawn hammett he calls him. -- past --- as sean hannity calls him. there was a belief that if you gave him your trusty would take care of you and america. after two years of running this country in the ditch, of having our allies, like the czechs and the polls and the hondurans and the colombians, and they used to be the egyptians and israelis, now see that america is no good friend, and our enemies like iran, venezuela, cuba, and syria look at us with the stain as toothless tigers -- this is our moment, ladies and gentleman. this is our moment. it is our watch. it is our obligation to go out and make the sacrifices, and to have a leader who is willing to lift up the people to believe in themselves again. when i was in the united states senate, i fought for life because i knew of the dignity of every human person. i fought for welfare reform because i knew the dignity of every human person, the potential of every human person. i believed in that. i still believe in that. i believe in the greatness and goodness of this country. i believe we need a leader that will raise them up. i am concerned that if this goes on much further, not only with obama care, but with what our children are being taught -- do you know our children? everybody talks about how poorly they do in math and science. do you know their worst subject? history. how can we have children in this generation of america willing to fight for america if they don't know who we are. our president does not tell us who we are. he tells us to believe in him. in 2012 we do not need a president that we can believe in. we need a president who believes in us. [applause] i know it is frustrating. i know the anxiety level when you see this country that you love going through what is going through economically, going through what it is going through culturally, going through what it is going through with the embarrassment of the president who does not believe in america and it's the use and standing up for the country. i know it is hard. but it is our watch, and we need to be faithful. we need to go out and fight for those values. i will close with a story of faithfulness. it is a story of the foremast from my time in the united states senate fighting on the issue of life. i want to share this with you because i want to instill in new this. all you need to worry about is what you can do. all of us are going to be called to do heroic things, i believe, in this next year and a half to win louisiana. we need to elect a president and a sufficient majority of the united states senate to repeal obama care. [applause] this is a bigot, a big task for all of us. we need to keep our head down. we need to keep working. we need to keep faith. if you keep faith, god will keep faith. he will bless what you are doing and he will bless this land. i told you of the story of the debate on partial birth abortion. it was the second time bill clinton vetoed this bill. i was the leader of that bill. i was author of it. i fought for three years to get it passed. he vetoed it in '96. we tried to override it and we failed. we tried again in 98 and we can short again. we tried again in 2000. the supreme court threw out a similar statute out. eventually, after george bush came back, we stood up and said the supreme court was wrong. we put the first two sections of the bill telling the court how they screwed up the case. we told them congress has a say of what is constitutional and we believe this is constitutional. the court sided with us. we eventually won. during this discourse, i have a moment when i was in the trenches, and not necessarily feeling they love and success of the ultimate victory. it was in september of 1998. we had just debated for six hours on the override a veto. i debated barbara boxer on the floor for six hours. i am catholic. i think i will have a little time off in purgatory as a result of that, personally. [applause] we finished the debate at 8:00. the vote was the next morning. i felt maybe there was something more i should do. i still have this sense of responsibility that you all feel. that is why you are here. i went and called my wife. we had four children. we had a little one. i said, "i have been debating all day, but i feel maybe there is more, maybe there are two or three senators who are watching c-span late at night and will see what i have to say. maybe i can change their mind. karen said exactly what she always said. this time when i sat down with her in the family, "if that is what you feel called to do, that is what you have to do." i went back out on the floor of the senate and an hour and a half later i finish. i am almost done. don't worry. packed up the senate, came in the next morning, and we lost by the same number of votes we were going to lose by the night before. i walked out of that chamber having gotten into late at night to see my kids to bed, or even my wife. i got up the next morning at 5:00 a.m. and was out before they were awake. i thought what a horrible that i had been, what a horrible husband i had been, another night were you focused on what you felt called to do. i thought of the hubris and the pride i had that somehow i could make a difference. i beat myself up for days. five days later, i got an e- mail. it was from a young man from michigan state university, and it said the following. the other night, my girlfriend and i were flipping through the channels and i saw you standing on the floor of the senate with a picture of a little disabled boy. that is what i was talking about, the children who are the targets of partial birth abortion, children with disabilities. we did not find out about the disabilities until later in pregnancy. he said, "we stopped and listened. after a few minutes, i looked down and saw my girlfriend had tears running down her cheeks, and i asked her what was wrong. she looked up at me and said, "i am pregnant. i have an abortion scheduled for next week, but i am not going to have an abortion anymore."" [applause] god will be faithful. he has blessed this land. but he needs his people to be faithful to. that is why you are here. you're responsible to this country is to select leaders of the republican party who will go out in this election and touch the hearts and souls of the american public. someone who will lift their eyes up. someone who will help break the shackles, the siren song of those in government to said, "just trust us. just give us a little bit more. we will take care of you." take the view that narcotics. the week after the massachusetts election last year, i was in the green room at fox. it was the day after barack obama decided to push the senate health care bill through the house. i ran into juan williams and said, "this is crazy. you are going to lose the election. people are outraged. even massachusetts does not like this bill." they had some experience in it. [laughter] this is what williams told me. he said, "let me tell you what people in the white house and nancy pelosi's office said. we believe that americans love entitlements, and once we get them hooked on this entitlement, they will never let it go." why do you think they were willing to push this bill, in spite of this and popularity? why do you think they were willing to lose this election? because they knew that obama care is a game changer. it will change america forever. it will make america the country that your ancestors left. don't let that happen. god bless you. god bless america. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> tomorrow, live coverage of the republican leadership conference from new orleans wraps up with texas governor rick perry, tennessee congresswoman blackburn, and rinse previous -- rince preibus. >> c-span has launched a new easy to navigate website for politics in the 2012 presidential race, with the latest events from the campaign trail, biographies of candidates, twitter feeds from candidates and reporters, and links to media partners in the early primary states. visit us at c-span.org/ >> coming up, damn pfeiffer -- dan by dirk faced questions critical to obama at a net roots nation conference. leiter, a republican presidential debate hosted by cnn and wmur tv in manchester, new hampshire. white house communications director can divert faced questions critical of the obama administration's relations with the online community. mr. pfeiffer acknowledges his frustration with some of the president's decisions. he talked about administration economic policies and the repeal of the don't ask, don't tell law. this is an hour and 15 minutes. >> many of you know her as angry mouth. please welcome the editor of daily kos. [applause] >> for all of its six year history, not roots nation has brought our leaders -- netroots nation has brought our leaders to talk about politics and progressives change. i am thrilled to be your representative on stage for another in a long line of conversations, this with the house communications director. for the past week, i have been getting feedback from the community through facebook, twitter, and blogs about your questions for the administration. the questions i am asking today concern you and are a reflection of the issues you care about. my colleagues and i will be gathering questions from you today in real time. here is how you can participate. at each of your tables, you will find index cards and pans. you can write your questions. raise your hand, and someone will pick up your card. if you do not have cards at your table, raise your hand and we will bring you one. you can also send your questions by twitter. before i asked mr. pfeiffer to join me on stage, let me say he is here with that limitation on subject matter, so ask away. with that housekeeping out of the way, let me introduce you to the white house communications director. [applause] thank you for joining us here with the professional left. would you like to make any introductory comments before we get started? >> of course. thanks for having me. i am excited to be here. when it was announced i would speak today, "huffington post" wrote that i was heading to the lion's den. that is probably true, in that i know there are levels of frustration with some decisions that have happened in this white house. there is frustration in the times that the pace of change has exceeded everyone's patience, including our own. i know that beyond that without the people in this room today, barack obama would not be president of the united states, people in this room who walked on doors in the -- knock on doors in the freezing cold of iowa so that we could win that caucus, people who were in the convention to celebrate barack obama becoming the first african-american nominee in a major party. it was the people in this room who helped put together the largest grass-roots campaign in history so we could win that election, and who helped us to do a lot of things in the white house -- help us pass health part -- health care. it means 30 million americans are going to get health care. it is a very important thing. people in this room want us to bring an end to the war in iraq and to do things like repeal don't ask, don't tell. i do that not to get credit or wax nostalgic, but to be grateful and know that is the foundation for some of the big fights we have coming up. we have seen in recent weeks with the plan paul ryan put forward and the performance republican presidential candidates had onstage on monday night a very different vision for this country than the people in this room and the president has. it is one that includes massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and in medicare as we know it, privatizing social security, repealing health care, appealing don't ask, don't tell, and doing all of those things. we are going to have a lot of fights together and i hope we can work together. we are going to have the lot of battles in congress as we fight to make sure the republican vision of this country does not become reality in the coming weeks and months. my hope today is that i can have an open and honest conversation. if there is a thing you are frustrated by, i will address -- i will address those and tried to give you the best understanding for why he made the decisions. i look forward to having those conversations. >> thank you again for joining us. did you bring your long form birth certificate with you? >> i promise i was going in this country, even if not everyone will believe it. >> we were soliciting questions all week from the community. one of the main questions that came up over and over again is about jobs. i just wanted to review and comment we got from broke in seattle. what does the president planned to do about people like me, who have been unemployed for more than three years and are not getting unemployment benefits? does he have a jobs plan for people who are over 50 and already have multiple college degrees, other than telling us to go back to community college to train for jobs that are not there? what jobs can you train for when nobody over 50 can get an interview? we have run through our savings and for a 1 k plans -- 401k plans and do not have relatives. what can you do for us? what do you save for a book in seattle -- for brooke in seattle? >> her story is not unique. the president gets these letters every day. they are tragic. they are what he thinks about every morning and every night. if we could wave a magic wand and fix this, we would do it. we need to do several things. we need to keep growing the economy. that is going to include doing things like investing in infrastructure, investing in education, research and development, high-tech jobs of the future like bioscience, things like that. it means doing things sitting in congress now that could help people, which includes passing an infrastructure bill, which has bipartisan support and leverage is private capital to get structural things done. it requires making sure that when we are going to have a pending fight on unemployment benefits in this country we work together to make sure the republicans who have been fighting us do not get their way. what we have to do for everyone is to get the economy moving on a large scale. there is no question that with a republican majority in the house this is very challenging. >> earlier this month, you wrote on the white house blog that the president wanted to tell you that we will not rest until every american who is looking for a job can find one. does this mean we can expect a jobs bill from the president? >> the president will support a number of initiatives to create jobs that have not been acted on yet, including the infrastructure bank, a proposal that would put people in jobs creaking in national wireless plan, significant advancements in clean energy and infrastructure, additional tax incentives for small business so people can start businesses and hire people like brooke, and there will be more ideas on that front. we are going to work with democrats and republicans in congress and see what we can get past. >> the president is not going to be proposing a jobs bill? >> the president will continue to propose initiatives to create jobs. there will be more initiatives. whether that will be in one bill or a series of different proposals -- there will be initiatives. >> with a 91% unemployment rate, why wouldn't we have a jobs bill? [applause] >> i think it is a false thing to say we do not have a jobs bill. we have a number of bills in we are going to have additional ideas, proposals to create jobs. and proposals for things that we can actually get done. challenging where republicans are. gosh what of the things that keeps coming up from the administration, i understand it is difficult from an obstruction of the party and some democrats that are not as supportive as you like them to be. it is hard to get things done that the president talked about when he was running for the presidency. is it impossible to get these things done unless he has a super majority in the house and the senate? he said it was next to impossible to get these things done. what difference does it make whether we reelect him? >> i will give you several reasons why it makes a difference. it is challenging. we have the historic amount of things that we got done. was that everything that we got done? i know. but we passed a recovery act, a health care act, don't ask don't tell. >> you are still firing people for being gay. [applause] >> in the historic vote, congress repealed the law. nobody thought that it would pass through congress. >> when will you stop kicking a gay people out of the military? [applause] >> that bill has a certification process in place that is close to being finished. >> when can we expect it? >> as soon as we can possibly do it. an orderly transition. >> speaking of the military, the white house released a report on libya. the president did not need congressional authority to go and libya because u.s. operations do not involve the same fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces. and they don't involve u.s. ground troops. it is a little more that we don't need the authority to do this. the united states sent a few military advisers to vietnam. the war was over, how do we know that libya will turn into a bigger war? -- and that libya won't turn into a bigger war? >> holly did it in a very limited way, it was done in a multilateral prohibition with an american president. it is the opposite of what we have done in iraq. we only would have done if out of those circumstances because we could not have forces marching where they threaten to go door to door. we had a choice. we could either let that massacre happened, or we could do something about it. now we are heading in the right direction. i am not a lawyer or an expert in the war powers act. the way that this is set up with the very limited role, we're primarily providing answers for nato forces. this is consistent with what we did. there is a 60 day provision in the war powers act and we are not in violation of that. it is not helpful to our efforts and when members of congress, particularly the republican leadership play politics with this. and this and example of politics. in 1999, the speaker thought that the war powers, he thought that it was unconstitutional and ho invoking in this way was not hellhole. >> of the republican attacks on the president from the left are a little disingenuous at this point. i think it raises an important question, should the president, and the president be able to wage war without the authority of congress? >> you should be involved in limited supporting roles in the military conflicts like this one. u.s. troops are not engaged in acts of hostility. we're playing a supporting limited role. >> you are saying the you're guaranteeing us that this is not going to become a bigger war? >> he made a guarantee, absolutely. >> i would like to ask you about a different kind of war, a war that i am particularly concerned about. the war on women. [applause] we are seeing an unprecedented number of attacks on women at the state and federal level, anything from contraception to health care to food stamps. drug-testing, women receiving welfare in florida. women in congress are talking openly about a war on women. i want to know if the president agrees with nancy pelosi and the new chairwoman. is there a war on women? >> there is a sustained effort from republicans at the federal and state level to undo a lot of the progress we have done. the most prominent example was the effort to defund planned parenthood a few months ago. the president at that point told the house republicans that if they wanted to do it, they would have to shut down the government over it. they signed into law an effort that would illegally defund planned parenthood. the president is very concerned about all of these efforts and the ones from the federal level. the president will do that. >> we saw that when it comes down to it, for the larger issue, for example, the president said that accepting the amendment that punishes poor women in this country was unacceptable status quo and we had put that aside for the bigger picture. is there a war on women? >> let's talk about health care for a second. [laughter] amendment was the lot of the land. >> is renewed every year. >> if we tried to repeal it, there it be no health reform. that was the choice. it was a very simple choice. you have two options. there was no health reform, that is the to as you have to make. if you have a question about -- war on women is not a phrase that the president has used. nancy pelosi has. there is no question that the very same things that concern nancy pelosi concern the president in the same way. >> he talked a lot about the efforts on planned parenthood. i am sure he will speak about it as well. >> president obama carry a 11 by a 56-43 margin. in 2010, democratic women stayed home or voted republican. democratic women that were the majority of the country and the majority of the party, we feel like we are under assault. does the president think he can win reelection without those women that did not show up for him in 2010? >> of course not. >> and does he intend to do any pro-active steps to get the women in this room, meat, the women in this country to turn out in 2012? >> the paycheck fairness act, the president is a big supporter of and a big push in congress. >> ok. we have a question from clutter. what are the lines you will not cross while negotiating with the gop regarding medicare and social security? >> on both of those, the president will do nothing that will cut benefits, privatize the program, or change the nature of the program. there is no question that both of those programs need to be strengthened. it is certainly not a driver of our deficit, same with medicare. there things we can do that was done on the affordable care act. like what the president proposed in the speech he gave a few months ago that will deal with the provider side, not the benefit side of medicare. he is opposed to anything in 100 miles of what the republicans and paul ryan have put forward. >> not raising the age limit? >> we will make sure that however we strengthen it is done in a way that does not change the fundamental nature of the program. i will not have a negotiation with republicans here with you, but what i can promise you is, the president will strengthen medicare and he will fight every effort to change the nature of the program or end it or privatize its. >> i want to follow up on this issue of compromising with republicans, because it is the scene that came up quite a bit. i looked at what senator barack obama wrote in 2005 talking about how you deal with an obstructionist party. this is what he said. whenever they are wrong or dishonest, he should face those clearly and repeatedly. we should respond quickly and forcefully. truth as we best know it will be the hallmark of our response. here is my question. republicans have been very effective at promoting their own agenda. with no respect for tone or true. it seems to have been fairly effective, actually. at what point will the president responded quickly and forcefully with truth as the hallmark of his response rather than concern for the proper tone? >>, the president has and will continue to respond to republicans. if the argument is that the town doesn't matter, it does matter because there are a lot of people in this room and in washington that are very partisan and have a lot of anger towards the other party. i am like that a lot of the time. there are also a lot of people in this country that are less engaged in politics and are turned off by the partisan back and forth that is dominating so much in washington. the president was elected because he wanted to transcend it. if you don't fight for what you believe in. he did that in the midterm alexians. >> they did not work out very well for him. >> that is not why. >> a lot of lies, ugly tone, and they did pretty well on that in 2010. that does not like they will be changing that strategy in 2012. will it not work for them? >> i don't think it was the best strategy for democrats to stoop to the things that they do. that is not how we won in thailand that -- 2008 or how we will win in 2012. >> the president also says we should be able to agree on certain principles. he is open to any good idea regardless of where it comes from. can you name a good deal of the republicans have proposed? >> i will give you one. the individual mandate in the health care bill. a republican idea. the tax credits for small businesses that were passed as part of the recovery act or since then. some of those were republican ideas. there are ideas from the middle part of the republican part, those would be a mistake to just discard every idea simply because it came from a republican. >> ok. does the president still think that bipartisanship is possible? >> the question isn't whether it is possible, the question is whether it is necessary. there will not be a law that gets to the president's desk that does not have some measure of republican support. that is the nature of washington right now. if you want to do something that will actually help them, the republican support. do we wish we could do this on our own? that is frankly not an option given or the country or the economy is. >> of the concern about compromising, it means betraying the fundamental value of the democratic party, like extending the bush tax cuts that the president said was a bad idea and is bad for the economy. we don't support it. he made that compromise. >> this is a perfect example. there were two choices in this. a bill extending only the middle class tax cuts that the president would have signed could not pass the united states senate. the choices were to either extend the bush tax cuts for the wealthy along with the middle class tax cut for the tax cuts that were passed in the recovery act, which led to the poorest americans, or you could let them all expired. the president believes that it would not have been the right thing to do or the progressive thing to do to give a massive tax increase to the middle class and working americans simply to make a point about the bush tax cuts. those are the only two options. >> of the tax cuts have been horrible for our economy. >> what do you say if she ends up with a tax increase? >> i don't work in the white house, i don't have the -- have to answer the question. >> but the president does. >> a question from charles in minneapolis. why hasn't the administration used the black press to get the message out, the successes that are large or small? >> we have tried to do that. the president spends a fair amount of time with members of the african-american media. he is on shows like steve harvey at of regular basis. we will continue to try to do that. >> a question from texas of afghanistan. in the latest poll, 74 percent of americans want all or some troops removed from afghanistan. " will it take to get through to the white house that we want the war ended? >> when the president announced his afghanistan strategy, he said that we will begin transitioning the end of the war in july of 2011. you will hear an announcement from the president about the size and scope of that transition, how we will begin withdrawing troops. >> ok. >> be you have a follow-up? >> how we will change gears a little. >> he wrote i favor legalizing same-sex marriages. after the proposition 8 decision came in california, the president does oppose same-sex marriage. his position has evolved to being more supportive of civil rights to less supportive of civil rights. is the president going to of all the again and get back to supporting civil rights of gay marriage? [applause] >> a couple things on that. the best way to do this would be too -- i will paraphrase and answer what the president gave. >> i have his answer right here. i favor legalizing same-sex marriages and i will prohibit efforts. >> it was asked by someone else, not the president. >> it was a fake questionnaire? >> the president's position has been consistent. >> you are saying that this is a fake questionnaire? >> this was litigated in the campaign. >> i would like to clarify it out. there are people concerned about this issue. the president has never favored it? >> his position is that he is against it. the country is evolving on this, and he is evolving. some of the folks in this room or at the white house meeting with the president. the president said that it is clear the country is moving on this. it is because he has friends, staffers who are in committed accommodate partnerships that are great people, great partners, great friends, great parents, and he is evolving. when thatll you today evolution will continue, but that is where he is. people have pushed him on this, and he believes he should continue to push him on that. >> if he doesn't manage to of over most of the country is heading before 2012, why should gays and lesbians vote for him? >> i think because this president has been the most progressive president on issues we have had. >> that is a pretty low bar. we have made progress on benefits for same-sex couples. this is a huge, important issue for everyone. it is a big deal to them. i would not begrudge a single person who feels strongly about this for being upset with the president on that. if someone else as president, all of the of the things i talked about are all going to go away. >> we have another question from the audience. why didn't president obama go to wisconsin to support the workers alike he promised he would do in the 2008 campaign? [applause] >> he has spoken publicly about this about supporting their efforts and white the governor, what he wanted to do was disingenuous and using a budget deficit as a way to play politics against his political adversaries. >> will he be going to wisconsin to show his support? >> when he is in wisconsin, i am sure he will support them. he will be with those workers every step of the way. >> i want to ask you a question on emigration. the majority leader said congress has spent more time on emigration than any other issue and was committed to getting the act passed. it didn't. we have seen this anti-immigrant legislation passed in alabama, georgia, arizona. what can the president do without legislation to address emigration? gosh states like arizona where there are laws that violate civil rights, the justice department can take action to stop a lot of the most offensive provisions. it is still working its way through the arizona court. it is working its way to make sure the focus of enforcement is on criminals. that is where the focus of the energy is. you have a very limited capacity without changing the law to deal with the very real and very tragic situation of millions of americans living in the shadows. >> there is no executive order you can possibly issue? >> it will be helpful around some of the processes and procedures. but the president of the united states cannot stop enforcing the law. that is not an option available to him. >> if the white house fails to get a payroll tax going, what will happen? >> there will be a payroll tax cut or some other measure like that, either as a part of the process if it heads in that direction, or he has got to put a lot of pressure on republicans. will they try to block this? and put a tax increase in place for millions of americans. the infrastructure bank, there will be a lot of pressure on republicans. you will hear more from manhattan in the summer and fall about this. >> will he be able to revisit the bush tax cuts? they would try to get the bush tax cuts expired. how will he focus on that at all any negotiation having to do with the debt ceiling or any of these issues? >> when he signed the extension of the bush tax cut, and will include an income tax credit. he said that he would never extend them again. they will come to him in december 31, 2012. he will make sure that they are never extended again. there will be some things that will have to be a bipartisan bill and my suspicion is that it will be non-starters. i suspect for the republicans, the bush tax cuts will be there. >> when the tax cuts have been and were extended to much to the disappointment of probably everybody in this room, the president explained that we have been taken hostage. and we really didn't have a choice. have we been taken hostage of anything else we should know about right now? >> being president, you don't get good choices. the good choices get help elsewhere. the ones that get to the president are hard choices. there were two choices. everyone in america gets a tax increase or extend the bush tax cuts. i would challenge anyone to explain why it would either be good for the economy or good for the people in this room a, the president can care most deeply about it. >> i understand, what upset people is that the president said he had to do something that fundamentally violates what democrats believe and was very bad for the economy to do. he explained it was because we had unknowingly been taken hostage. i want to know if we have been taken hostage in any other situation where the president might be going back on a fundamental democratic principle and will explain to us that we have been taken hostage again. >> if that comes up, i will be sure to tell you first. what is also a progressive democratic value that we care about is tax cuts for the middle and working class. not tax increases. that is the principle he would have violated if he led the tax cuts expire. forget what macro economists said, it would be devastating for people struggling to get a massive tax increase. that is the situation that was before the president. >> i would like to talk for a moment about the 2012 election and the republican nominees. i am sure the president looks forward to having a very serious debate. i want to know, between us, palin-bachmann 2012 is a no- brainer? >> it would be perfectly consistent with a vast majority of the republican party today. >> are you rooting for anybody in particular? >> having watched the debate the other night, parts of the debate, there was a hockey game on that night, you essentially have a series of messages offering a very broad plan for america. tax cuts for the wealthy, and in medicare, repealing don't ask, don't tell. and so, there'll be a big debate about which direction the country is going and there will be very stark differences between what the president is talking about and what paul riot and the republicans are talking about. everyone understands that it is worse when we have a republican in the white house. it is worse when they are in charge. but a consistent theme that came up in discussions of what people wanted to know is that they feel really disappointed

Related Keywords

Vietnam ,Republic Of ,Honduras ,Louisiana ,United States ,Alabama ,Alaska ,Brazil ,China ,California ,Syria ,Russia ,Washington ,District Of Columbia ,Mexico ,Arizona ,New Orleans ,India ,Egypt ,South Carolina ,Massachusetts ,Iowa ,Libya ,Czech Republic ,Chicago ,Illinois ,Greece ,New York ,Canada ,New Hampshire ,North Carolina ,Missouri ,Afghanistan ,Texas ,Iran ,Florida ,Indiana ,Town Hall ,Colombia ,Wisconsin ,Georgia ,Manchester ,United Kingdom ,Lebanon ,Seattle ,Pakistan ,Beirut ,Beyrouth ,Tennessee ,Iraq ,Thailand ,Springfield ,Israel ,Pennsylvania ,France ,Utah ,Venezuela ,Italy ,Americans ,Egyptians ,Colombians ,Soviets ,Vietnamese ,Iranian ,Israelis ,French ,Hondurans ,British ,Czechs ,American ,Texans ,Chinese ,Greeks ,Russian ,Britain ,Syrian ,Barack Obama Roche ,States George W Bush ,Bobby Jindal ,Elizabeth Warren ,America ,Nancy Pelosi ,Ron Paul ,Ronald Reagan ,Andrew Rossi ,George Bush ,Rick Perry ,Michele Bachmann ,Mike Mullen ,Michelle Bachmann ,Samuel Adams ,Margaret Thatcher ,David Axelrod ,Haley Barbour ,Juan Williams ,George P Bush ,Mitch Romney ,Pfeiffer Dan ,Herman Cain ,John Boehner ,Rick Santorum ,Sean Hannity ,Newt Gingrich ,John Adams ,Jay Leno ,Paul Ryan ,John Huntsman ,Benjamin Mays ,Marcia Blackburn ,Sarah Palin Michele Bachmann ,Robert Mcnamara ,Daniel Patrick Moynihan ,Ben Ghazi ,Erik Telford ,Barney Frank ,Harry Reid ,Dan Pfeiffer ,Barack Obama ,Jerome Kersey ,George W Bush ,Shawn Hammett ,John King ,John Paul ,Jim Demint ,Ted Kennedy ,