Theyve been able to put together 50 million, so the republican employee unions have outstripped california businesses by tenfold in that case. Even in the indian casinos which are huge players of the special interest in the state have spent less than the Public Employees. The problem that we have in california is that the general public doesnt precede the Public EmployeeUnion Control as a special interest. You have big tobacco, big oil, at T Telecommunications old trying to influence the system that none of them have the pervasive power that unions have and that unions have manifested power roast completely and electing democrats to office. Today in california every statewide office, all of the constitutional offices are held by liberal democrats. The Public Employee unions to spend 5 million to help elect him four years ago. They spent 4 million to elect superintendence of the instruction of professional constitution democrats of two thirds control of both houses of the legislature i legislature ae senate and the assembly. Very different from when governor browns father was the governor of california. Today one out of four californians live in abject poverty about roughly 20,000 per year for of family of four is the poverty line. Part of the reason is the cost of living because it is a desirable place to live with great weather with the coasting in yosemite and the cool things that young and old alike enjoy doing. But the cost of living has increased by a consumption tax that is a tax on a good or think it is a sales tax, gasoline and alcohol and tobacco, phones tobacco, phones, internet, a nd in some cases cable television. You name it when you have the highest consumption tax in the nation you push people who were already pork further into poverty because when you adjust the cost of living you take away disposable income and make people pour. Democrats know theyre making people for but doesnt that seem like a dichotomy with think the Public Employee unions would care about the state in general but they dont. They care about protecting defined benefit plans. Pension plans. That is where we turn the page to how your future will be affected. California taxes to make the public for there is not enough money to pay for pensions for Public Employees. It used to be people would get a job at the Public Sector the pay may not be as good in the private sector. But they would take that job with the strong defined benefit retirement plan. It was a tradeoff. That has completely changed of the california today. There maung daw highest paid individuals compared to private employees and it is outrageous let me run through the statistics. In the city of San Francisco there are currently over 10,000 City Employees paid over one and a thousand dollars per year. The average pay is 52,000 for a family of four. You have over 10,000 paid over 100,000. 70 people in San Francisco paid over 200,000 per year and 20 Public Employees paid over 300,000 including a firefighter in 2013 paid 348,000. And in 2012 the salary for an average firefighter was 144,000. Should we cut salaries . No. Absolutely not. But you will get screwed by their pension but under California Law craig davis that the economy was booming so they decided to add pension benefits to the defiant benefit plans to create something that allows Public Safety workers to retire at the age of 500 or 55 at 51 dash 90 percent of their salary. When you combine that at the actuarial tables the Life Expectancy was 68 or 72 but today it is extended because of the great medical achievements. You did have a situation where a fire fighter might retire at age 55 look at the guy who got the 350,000 salary and do the math they have 90 percent of that because it is based on a mathematical formula and if they live intel 95 that is 40 years to under 50,000 pension is possible. There is over 25,000 state employees said takeover 100,000 in pensions. What does it mean . Localities can not afford to provide Public Services to you and me. [laughter] in this city of san jose a conservative democrat recently issued a budget providing for 1 billion of spending 30 percent of the budget that has crippled that has quadrupled over the last 10 years over the last five years cities like san jose and others will have their primary purpose to take care of the elderly. They will be people who were 57 or 58 years old for past services when those budgets are hit it means there is less services for the rest of us they have already cut out the abri theyre asking for volunteers to come forward so they can do burglary investigations anybody from the county from sonoma . Sid walkie and . San walkie those have three houses 3,000 miles of road of pot holes they cannot fill. Talk about the infrastructure that say the roads are terrible but the reason is all the money will pay for Public Employee pension liability. The unions will not let it be reformed it is the difference between a defined benefit plan and a reform along the lines of the Self Directed for erwin k. One of the major reforms that has been discussed instead of putting the of money into defined benefit plans is to have employees take more responsibility in the form of the established a the Pension Plans that established a 401k that the employee assumes the risk of investment so we still have the employee making a bigger contribution, the employer making a bigger contribution and maybe even have the state. Where the state of california might say it has a deficit the reality is when you take into consideration the obligations the state is in your bang grab to the Teacher Program hundred 70 million in debt for unfunded liability in the future and the calpers program is about the same. This is a terrific problem because the liberal democrats keep coming back about raising taxes under the schrader of doing it for the kids. We know about obama if you like your doctor you can keep him but in california that translates to raise taxes likeness to do with for the kids under proposition 30 that past 2012 the money did not go to the kids according to dan walters it went to prisons, welfare and hiking government salaries. So that in a national i have a lot more in the book one interesting thing i might mention is the story about the sophomore who worked on freshman orientation at the university and she wore a little cold across around her neck up passive display is what it is called the of religiosity. A and according to a policy of the 2 she had to take a job to not offend any Incoming French wood dash freshman this is part of the liberalism that all problems of spending and protecting special interests cause. We need to fight for freedom. I will close with this. Ronald reagan who i was proud to work with brought in the longest economic expansion in the history of the nation by lowering taxes in 1982 it was locker it longer than the carter expansion and believes in limited government and lower taxes than people prospered. Kennedy said when he or Capital Gains taxes the rising tide lifts all boats. That there is too much spending and individuals need to have their eyes on the government so it is not so out of control and onesided that they are allowed to run amok because then your future are is in danger. I want to thank my comrade and old friends we were out there in the trenches fighting jane fonda and her communist allies. Patrick and i have worked together for a while and we had a great career so thank you very much i can answer questions i would be happy. [applause] i should mention the book is also available amazon. Com. Cspan2 is here. My name is diana. What are the steps that california has to take to get back contract . It is a great question i believe arnold as shorts a maker governorship was a failure because when he ran for governor in 2003 was after we we called the governor on the basis of the tax. So he went to the Republican Convention i dont believe in karl marx but he was lying to us just like obama did. That the same time he made collop comments he was making deals is there anything we can Work Together . I will work as the reform governor and will not do anything to hurt you. He could not have it both ways to show he was a governor to try reform and i talk about this in the book he created that california Performance Review commission. It had hundreds of volunteers involved all over the california State Government to come up with recommendations there is even a california Performance Review that has the findings sandy affirmation according to this review if it was implemented like 30 billion of savings could be achieved. When meg whitman ran she said it was not implemented by a schwarzenegger that it was a nobrainer simple like the department of Motor Vehicles you register once a year under the Performance Review you extend that at two years. You pay more but you pay it over two years so there is less bureaucratic work. Simple things. Joel fox former president of the taxpayers he saw it was not implemented. He asked why to arnold. Basically he did not want to take on the left. With those initiatives of 2005 he was bt and basically gave up. By the end of the term the chief of staff, Susan Kennedy was a former executive director. What steps . Is called the california Performance Review. Among the other things with those it is of democrats michelle agreed to use to be the chancellor of the district of columbias School System has an Organization Called students first and another one that we want to reform our schools. Repaid teachers the top level of fourth graders are finishing 44th and 46 and 48. Repair teachers at the top but the kids performed at the bottom. There is no accountability. Texas does of better job to educate for a lot less. We need to learn from those moderate democrats with that meaningful standardized testing. You take standard test all the time but some people say we just have to take the test. It is meaningless and will not affect the ability to graduate. We should have a test you should take to graduate. And those should be used to measure the accomplishments of teachers and how teachers should be paid if they need training or if they are doing good and students are doing good they should be emulated in other places. That is a reform that is needed with meaningful testing, a teaching of critical thinking. I am not of big advocate of common court that is controversial but one of the underlying issues which is standardized testing is very important to from a taxpayer accountability standpoint. Listen to federalization and the left hates coming court but from the tax payer accountability standpoint we need to have intelligent kids graduating from high school that dont have to take remedial class is at college we need smart in bright people entering a the work force. Did i answer your question . I am from flagstaff. They have Public Employee pension issues. But your point the officer held by liberal democrats. How do we get to that point . There has to be some opposition how can we change that . It will not be overnight. You were from arizona basking a california sensitive question. The Republican Party in california is no where near the status of arizona where you dominate it is almost reversed registration for the Republican Party in california is the alltime low of about 150 year history. 29 . That looks terrible if i was a younger republican california with the political future i would say to myself if i was not a conservative before a republican why would i joined this party . I will not have any future and a the bay area it is worse and in santa monica it is ahead of republican with registration. However believe it or not have the of the elected officials who hold nonpartisan offices where the party is not revealed on the ballot are republican. House. Only where the party is revealed on the ballot in a partisan election the republicans start losing elections. Nationally theyre talking about a branting problem for the last few National Elections but really have that california. Its started 1998. Skis mid1994. When wilson ran for his last election for governor. Actually that resulted in republicans taking control of the state assembly in california as well. But for the two years brown stayed even though there was a majority of republicans. The reason it happened was over the issue of treatment of illegal immigrants. The ballot proposition was on the ballot called proposition 187. The substance of the initiative was to discourage illegal immigration by denying illegals certain emergency benefits such as emergency treatment in hospitals and other Public Services for which the taxpayers would pay for but the illegals would make no contributions. Wilson was running a tight race against Dianne Feinstein and he decided he needed the issue that had populist appeal to get him reelected. He fully embraced the proposition and was elected them the majority cavy in and that is the last time that has happened. And hispanics took a bitter pill as a result of that. From that point for word Public Opinion polls showed support for republican candidates diminishing consistently and fairly rapid they. 1984 when reagan ran he got 45 percent of the hispanic vote. But in the last election 20 is what romney got. If he got the hispanic vote that Ronald Reagan did he would have won california believe it or not. This is how big the problem is for the Republican Party with a huge credibility problem that has been exploited by the liberal democrats to continue to portray republicans as insensitive to hispanics. How do you do with that . You are a party that believes in merit but house you deal with Something Like that if there is any perception you are excluding minorities and hispanics from leadership position . This is the problem with the party that has done a poor job in california to get over that. Frankly part of the problem has been the Republican Party has had too many interesting squabbles for it to be a reliable source of political change. Of course, the Business Community gets hammered as soon as they get involved on the left. To show you how frightened the Business Community is, wells fargo which has its headquarters in San Francisco, last year moved to the annual meeting for the first time in the history of the bank to Salt Lake City for fear of occupied wall street people spoiling pair meeting. Occupy a oakland is crazy. By the way the occupied movement is founded by california teachers association. They get the banners and san richer and sandwiches and everything that they need from there. But we have a very radicalize left that seizes on these issues to push the Republican Party down. It is so radical that the Electricians Union in oakland went on strike last year demanding living arrangements because they thought 133,000 per year was not good enough. Which by the way is the third most dangerous. It has a lot of work tear do it will not be to the Republican Party. There with the guidance and francisco the entrepreneur was supposed to do do it and saw a baby visible Transportation System was in ruin. The cars stink, blighted by crime, a slow, he bought terrific beautiful buses the of this to deal with the wife i. You can pull up the act to see we were driving he charges 6 it is safe and is a solution that is accomplishing something great and San Francisco without getting the board of supervisors to vote. There are private Sector Solutions eventually they will get older that they would participate. There was a transition people talk about global campuses with google where those people who are in solar moving back to use San Francisco. Twittered opened an office to take a vintage of the tax incentives. But to bring the people in and as the cultures come together i think good things will, out of bet i think the left wants them to they want to talk about income inequality but talking about Public Employee union that is the argument i hope somebody brings on because of various income inequality i am from Santa Barbara can county obviously they are living in the loblolly and. So attuned to centralize the california at government and the supportive effort in six different states. What is your take on that . It is very interesting i was on a radio show in way north california but they had a lot of economic depression. I was on for one hour there was a movement called jefferson it has been going on for a few years so we were talking about tax reform and slowly the callers took over the Radio Program that was all whole program about jefferson. There were so interested to adjust if i seceding to create their own state even the guys and i will not take any more calls about jefferson. [laughter] is very interesting. So we should have a good debate but you should realize to accomplish that you need not only to have votes of the citizens of california but it would take the approval of congress. If the republicans were lucky enough to win both houses then the next door around we cannot guarantee to get Something Like that for because you have two more years of obama and who knows . Realistically it would never have been and we will just have to keep fighting the fight to because the states is worth it. I wrote the book to say they should not come to california but it should be reformed. But i appreciate the fact there is a guy behind that that has a lot of funding to do that it will help the debate. I am from flagstaff arizona to believe reforming environmental policy would move the country economically or Howard Hughes suggest we would advocate for that . Environmental laws are a great the outdated particularly in the state of california. It took donald trump for years to get a flagpole approved for his hotel because the local authorities thought the American Flag would be a blight on the view. It took him three years to get some ficus tree plans approved to put in front of that golf course zero the golf balls with not go through to hit people because the government did not like that plant they thought their brothers we dont acknowledge in california in particular is the Great Success of the clean error act wall olivetti over the last 40 years automobile pollution in the Los Angeles Basin has been reduced 99 . People dont talk about that we used to have stage one, a stage to, stage three smog alert they have not had one since 1989. The reality is most air pollution is caused by cars. Not necessarily caused by manufacturing plants. Most of it is caused by automobiles and trucks. The reality is federal standards coupled with standards of california have cleaned up the air. There is a bakery in california. Now was just find 2 billion last year for pollution. Of bakery . They were eating the small of baking bread. That is a pollutant in california. The rules need to be free to hold and the democrats realized that. Googles wanted to build an extension on the san jose airport. It was an extension that they put have paid for to allow for more commercial small plane traffic. The whole thing was held up over environmental rules but the people complaining about the environmental rules to hold that up was the Construction Company that lost the bid to do the extension. Even jerry brown gets his comeuppance. Do you know, that bullet trade that they will spend billions on the with the Central Valley . What is stopping that thankfully because it is a boondoggle, who are suits from farmers. When i mention this, what i mean to say is our environmental laws are for the purpose they were created. That is the problem. We really need to have the change even the democrats in california have acknowledged that the inertia is not there because of the lack of interest on the part of the people that really matter and these politicians are responsible to. That bottom line is hands off of the Pension Program program, a fight for higher pay to cause job loss to help the people in general. A big part to of californias problems once to the the nation with green. It becomes the worlds policemen to release carbon emissions. It is so bad that 95 percent of the energy comes from natural gas. Not carbon. He will not let that natural gas be exploited. But when 95 percent is imported it is like a monopoly causing the price to go up paying 40 or 50 percent more for their energy. California cannot be the worlds policemen for green. At the time of record high unemployment. Now was not the time to do that. With the terms of unemployment and poverty. They need to be reformed. My name is joe. That is where i grew up. My parents ended up getting an apartment. [laughter] what can we do to make a difference . First of all, it is wonderful that you are here and thank god there is the American Foundation to have a place for you to come so they are focused on college kids as opposed to high school students. I actually joined when i was there but id hate myself but april 1970 was the first earth day i was among two or three students in protest of earth day bourse suits to school. [laughter] that was revolution at that time. [laughter] but it is wonderful they were here and this group in particular is available with a tremendous resources. It is a Nonprofit Charity that i can tell you i dont know what you paid to come here but i can tell you that ron and his staff has raised funds and it is not inexpensive but you get a great education and will burn more and more and more. I think highschool is a little different than a college. The professors understand and the administration expects there will be a lot of free speech with high school if it is of better focus to prepare for the time. I do love political activism it is great to be politically active but high school students, it is only natural. I understand that i think it is great but high school is a time for learning to have interchange and developing ideas and thoughts to very yourself when you go to college so you can leap out of the box to participate to the americans for freedom chapter and make your way. But let me ask you a question. Do you feel constrained . How you feel yourself . I think we are at an open place but there is a lot of backandforth. People are open to ideas which i like but we have a lot of people come to the meeting but i feel i am able to be active talking about a poor buddy is different they are the crazy republican and i dont feel that but i live in the bay area. But the bay area if you dont understand the politics it is a wasteland for republicanism. But that does not mean that they dont, from that area or to be involved with the republican and registration is Southern California and the family up to the north that is the swimming area. But you need to represent so the idea to have activism or activist organizations i remember ron robinson used to tell me when he was in buffalo, a part of the activism was whenever there was a snowstorm they would close all the schools he would be certain to get on the radio to call in that the chapter would not be having their reading at that school that created an oppression there were a lot of chapters. [laughter] maybe creative review there were not chapters but the radio people would say it anyway but you have to remember though the big are coming with activism on the college campus. It was excelling of philosophy exposing yourself to have this wonderful opportunity. I am from malibu california you have been talking about the solutions to californias problems. What about the top 13 was that part of the solution . It goes over here. Liberal democrats were completely in control of california in 1978. Jerry brown was the governor then. Liberal democrats have very big majorities in both houses. The problem 1978 that taxes were getting incredibly high because of inflation of Property Values. During the jimmy carter era that there was tremendous hyperinflation. So Property Values were going up and the of method of taxation at the time was based on the annual appraised value of a home. If you bought a house for 15,000 in the 50s and were a retired couple living on 1,000 or 2,000 per month of Social Security in your home had gone up in value at 250,000 the annual property tax could be almost what you paid to buy the house 25 years ago some people were taxed out of their homes and the response of the democrats was to do nothing. It was a windfall. Unfortunately the establish Republican Party did not want to take on brown. A populous state characterized by the Initiative System trying three times making a coalition with another they got it to a drastic twothirds cut of property taxes. He was derided by all establishment liberals the established party was not in favor but the people rose up because they do it was the right thing to do than twothirds of the people went against everybody and overtaxes by 57 . It had an effect of actually helping the economy. Tax revenues went down only with propertytax category according to court laugher for about five years. After the five years propertytax revenues were back to where there were because of expansion of the economy and every other category revenue creating the economic boom. Ill think there is much hope for california but california has risen up in 1978. In 2003 we did recall a governor. 2013 to be better not the liberal citizens of los angeles turned down a tax hike put on the ballot people had enough of the taxes in recent the san diego had is elected a republican mayor is one of the biggest cities in the nation. My book is not optimistic about the future of california but we revealed the issues and up problems and it can be no more relevant but the young people represent the future and you dont want to live in a society where all the local governments and services to basically run retirement programs. We need to reach out to reach out to uninformed people to change our great country and state to move in the right direction. Thank you for the opportunity. [applause] [applause] good afternoon the presentation and today is dedicated to do too intellectual work chippers workers and ms. Barnett 1862 through 1931. This afternoon it is my great pleasure to introduce dr. Mitchell. Dr. Mitchell israel literary historian and cultural critic. Is centers on africanamerican literature, racial violence and contemporary culture and black trauma and employe in a. And pursuing research on these topics i think dr. Mitchells role is in our society. There is say masquerade where from time to time ancestors are worshiped betrayed the people in the colts has several duties. To show a the way to the masquerade. She or he interprets to the people or the onlookers with the masquerade has said. She walks ahead to make sure it does not triple for the pot holes or . In the ground. She operates between the deity and the ones to worshiped its she works to process apparel knowledge of her society that people and culture and world views and helps us to understand some of dr. Mitchell is like the person that her research has changed how we understand and rightabout and teach about whinging she has given a voice to the Africanamerican Community and has caused a major shift in the narrative and introduces us to the genre of the lynching. She examines to help terrorize families and communities to survive. Her book living with lynching. The university of Illinois Press has won awards for the American Theater and Drama Society and from the society of the study of american women writers. Currently an associate professor of english at Ohio State University and earned her ph. D. From the university of maryland at college park. She has numerous publications and in particular i will focus on James Baldwin performance from mr. Charlie that appeared in the quarter of a. She also has an article called love in action in drawing parallels between racial violence at the last turnofthecentury and the antilgbt violence today. It is a pleasure for me to welcome you to the library of congress because so often we do not hear so many different sides of the community and your scholarship does just that. Welcome. [applause] that is high praise. That is high praise. I certainly have tried to do justice about the people that i write about. So that is high praise. Think you for being a part of this. Of this is rolling. Dr. Moses thank you for the invitation that came out of the Clear Blue Sky and made my day to take this journey with me stepbystep to bring this a day to fruition so i am grateful to the humanities and social sciences division. This feels like a full circle moment because of course, i did research at library of Congress Years ago and even dug up my id card. I was younger. [laughter] but also knows full circle because we are in the Nations Capital and washington d. C. Is central to the findings of living with lynching. Most of the playwrights within washington d. C. When they wrote the plays is because they have from grossi to the refusal to pass antibenching legislation so our location is important in that regard. Also because they went to university of maryland right here surviving that process also involved being affiliated with a sister mentors with an organization based here in washington d. C. Before leaving that area i received a fellowship from the Ford Foundation to help me with the dissertation is so that felt like another full circle moment. I see all the connections in the room and finally in the last days of reaching the book the women gave me a postdoctoral fellowship in some of them are in the room so as a full circle moment that is just a little bit of what i mean. I am very conscious of time and i want to make sure we have time for question and answer so i will go ahead and go into housekeeping items then move forward. First make sure that you know, there will be gruesome images shown. The fact i am telling you that now is the only warning that you get. But i understand we have already had discussions of the relationship to that i love the fact they were taking pictures and please send those to me please dont include the images of the lynched dictums of that archive i dont want that to be part of the silent archive