Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20140528

In terms of blood, nearly 120,000 u. S. Troops paid with allies and another 20,000 were wounded. It was a dramatic dramatic conflict. To my second point, the media Lessons Learned after this conflict, its odd that this sort of idealism emerged, and this idealism trump sober pragmatism come and sort of a realistic assessment about the nature of man, the nature of the international system. We saw the league of nations form which tried to impose the domestic Structure International of domestic law internationally. We saw later in the 20s a aipac, 1928 which sought to outlaw war. Something, they could just outlaw. Within the United States, rather than sort of prepare for possibly there could be another major conflict, this is from a u. S. Army history, the war deparle urged congress to authorize the astonishment of permanent regular army, about a half a million, and threemonth the universal training system, and congress and the American People said no. Rather, not just meltdown, we tore down our military. Another major war was a possible exception of japan. And the bottom line here is prior to world war ii what we saw with the general neglect of domestic capacity, readiness, coupled with at times and less than sober view of the growing international threats. And world war ii happened, we all know that that war and how it ended shaped the system. Because the conflict of the United States emerged as the indispensable pillar of world order. And so this leads to my third point, Lessons Learned today, and dr. Holmes i think alluded to this, spoke to at the weekend fully understand world war is lessons without reference to what you and even the cold war because if the assassination of the archduke sort of spark that led to a larger conflict, world war i was just a prelude to a longer continental stronger in europe that in many ways is still continuing. We see russia, the russian empire which at that time stumbled and fell by 1917, world war i. You see Vladimir Putin today in many senses trying to raise senses trying to rush right in it by the disease not just in the cold war suite but in a sweep of hundreds of years. The russian empire is hundreds of years old. A major lesson i think to draw from it is we, the United States, american citizens, we need to struggle mightily to see the world as it is a not that we wanted to be. And thats an admonition not just for everyday americans, but an admonition for leaders, those are entrusted with guiding our national security. And three specific points. First, we need to see in particular the initial threat environment as it is and not as we wished to be in a corollary of that we cant and we likely will be strategically surprised. Today president obama is giving a speech at west point in which i havent yet had the chance to see it. Is going to offer a threat assessment and also his argument for what the Obama Doctrine has been, and where things are going. But i will say that ive been observer both angel and afterwards, of the messaging of the administration about the threat environment. And themes that we hear, the three main themes alqaeda. Until recently wearing about how alqaeda was on the ropes, global terrorism on the ropes. That grand bargains, grand bargain diplomacy can contain rogue states like iran can see. Three, we cant consign great power rivalry, great power war into the action of history if we simply reset, engage and comment of the rising powers. This of course is not the message we always send tha but u sometimes hear that if you listen carefully. And when we take a look at the world, we say alqaeda is not on the roads. We see a growing and alqaeda, alqaeda in the africa, alqaeda positions in syria. Weve heard in recent months not just generals from centcom and after, but also the fbi director, Homeland Security director say things like what are going on in say, things are going on in africa right now im those threats should be home by because we are seeing extremist, terrorist of jihad is getting battle ready and setting their eyes to on the United States at some point. Basically hoping to do a repeat of what we saw on 9 11. With iran and syria, despite the administrations hope that we can use grand bargain diplomacy, we sort of segmented Irans Nuclear threat and ignored its growing support of terrorism abroad. We see that in irans support of hezbollah, and hezbollah which is also supporting the assad regime. Iranian troops are also in serious supporting the assad regime. In syria itself we saw its use of chemical weapons, even though we have this bargain if you will to try to get rid of the Syrian Chemical Weapons program can weve seen assad is more than going to find loopholes in it to hide chemical weapons, use chlorine that was used in world war i, to use it again to really crossed a red line. And still we are struggling for our response to the cost of the red line. They are, russia and china, congressman thornbury spoke about it, they are both returning in many ways, returning great powers. Russia has a lot of systemic problems but they do see, Vladimir Putin does want to restore in effect to the russian empire but if you look at his rhetoric, you know thats what hes looking at. Whats wars, what troubles me also is Vladimir Putin and nationalistic you look at the eu mess, if you will, that the Russian Parliament passed, to authorize putins activities in ukraine, its not aimed specifically at ukraine. It is protecting russian nationals or ethnic russians all over the world frankly. And many people are wondering what could be next after ukraine, could be moldova, estonia, could be somewhere in the stands. So this is a threat environment we see but what we see inserted and turns out the United States is responding to it is a Defense Strategy that i think is geared more at the world we wish it to be, not as it is. What any by that, i think a subfolder for to the independent panel of 2010 that was shared one of the things they said in the absence of a better construct to plan and americas forces can we should be using less absence, bottomup review. Something to bear in mind is that bottomup review from 1993 was designed at a time when the only reason real threat we were worried about was maybe rogue states proliferation. Thats a we are probably, rogue state. We werent weary about global terrorism and we certainly were not worried about the return of great power rivalry. In terms of just force structure number, capacity, people, we are proud at bottom of a level that we are threatened by the that that is far more challenging than what was contemplated at the bottom of the time. With a very global terrorism, put proliferation and other game changes and return of great power rivalries. Whats wars is we are on trajectory to get out of the business as much as we can from very proactive global counterterrorism, we are sort of getting out of business we dont want to be in the business idea with great powers, or at least, and last, we are still not very sober out whats going on with other rogue state regimes. A last point, too, is because were on this trajectory both in terms of the growing gap between our strategy, we have already seen a crisis in militarys readiness for combat which we can talk about during today, and its a movie to the crisis in military capability especially future not take it or those. I can throw out a lot of examples but you can look at things like the tomahawk which has been stalwart system. We are killing it and we met even have a large enough stockpile if we do see future military contingencies in the coming decade. We may not have a follow one. Ill just close at this point in terms of where our budget is today. Our budget, i did the math last night. Its been, our 496 billion where spending in fiscal year 15, when you adjust for inflation, since 48 its been exceeded in real dollar terms as many as 29 times. So 29 years since 48 in real dollars we are spending more than what we spent today. A question we need to ask ourselves is whether the world is becoming unbalanced, are we heading towards the world that people at the end of world war i hopedfor, which would be the war to end all wars, a postwar world . Or are we moving to the world with the challenges we need to be prepared to meet which wouldnt have a sober understand of this reality, this threat environment well prepared to deal with the consequences . Ill just close on that but ill just say that i think there certainly is, robert kagan whos on her board may display. Hes not sure its war weariness or something wars, world weariness. But i think to get over that i dont know if we can advocate that global leadership. I think it will be leadership both from the president and the congress in the years to come after 2014, after 2016 to explain what americans can play a leading role at wide it is an indispensable pillar, without which the world order which would take granted will eventually crumble spent appreciate that. Thanks very much. [applause] we do have some time for questions. Any questions at all . How do we go about persuading our european allies spent even a smaller percent of their gdp on defense than we do . Its dropping faster than ours. How do we persuade them to carry their fair share of the world . The nato target has been 2 , most of the nato members are 1. 2, 1. 3, somewhere. I know one way we can do it which is a way weve been trying to do. We been going to the europeans saying we are spending most and you must spend more. They are not responding with more. They are responding with less. Sort of a logical thing for them to do because he comes back to the leadership question that congressman thornbury talk about. If we are not leading they will not follow but i do know we can do it by ourselves. I think of something fundamentally has to change in the cactus for them to see their own selfinterest. There has been some talk in europe of meeting to do more on defense because of what putin is doing but the germans still are pulling back. I had a meeting a few weeks ago with a prominent member of the ct, and he was talking very hawkishly, tight but a very realistic about putin. Theres a wakeup call producing all these things and then when i asked him the question, dont you think we should have more military deployment in the baltics or invalid . He said, no, we cannot respond militarily to everything they are doing. We have to do it some other way. So even then they couldnt cross the rubicon and draw logical conclusions that indicate something more in defense. We are not there yet but it probably will be more what putin does than what we do. To add to the point. Friend of mine, a staffer on the hill, wrote a dissertation about europe and its defense plan, did note theres a twoyear lag, if we grow our defense budget, the europeans in aggregate and also in general increase the budget but if we declined a decline. Thats not a satisfactory answer because what do you do . Within europe theres a growing debate about how to best integrate the Defense Industries and move towards moving towards a more common there a ways away from have a military that is interoperable what actually cooperable. These are things i need to encourage but its not going to be, its going this is a decades long debate, and because of weather not they are able to step up, we do this with mbs of Congress Like Mac Thornberry going over to different parliaments and strengthening bonds and trying to make their case. Theres no magic bullet. You have a question is the last time we didnt get too. Center for security policy. Theres been as much concern i think has rightly been raised about the rise of revisionist nation states like russia and so forth. Theres of course still ever present the threat of jihadists terrorist organizations but in light of that theres been a lot of talk recently about the need to revisit the 2001 authorization for use of military force. Al qaeda is not on the ropes. It has morphed. It is a network of affiliates. Now, i know folks like senator corcoran and his staff are may be looking at upgrading the emf, and that that could be fruitful, especially if it helps to deal with some of the debate law extending over what actually covers. Of these committees have tried to clarify it or provide interpretation, but put it this way, i think that so long as the terror threat, everyone to call it, persists we need to make sure that the military are authorized to do with the need to do to protect the country. Senator corker does have some very specific things he is looking into both in terms of legality and voted actually covers. If you step back, political was happening in the democratic and Republican Party is, the republican side, particularly in the last seven or eight years there has been sort of a general concern about the congress. The republicans used to be against it. So there is a new Republican Party. You can see that. Of the democratic side they want to end it. This gives president obama cover if the authorization ends. So i think, frankly, that is politically was going on. My own personal view is that the authorization was sufficient and bipartisan support. When the decision were made in afghanistan bless should be sufficient. The fact of the president is looking at it differently is a political judgment he is making, supposedly of strategic grounds, but think that the whole question of the authorization is basically secondary to the big debate about whether or not we should be doing more to try to when these wars rather than walk away from them. One short question. You said that world war one must be tied then to the result. How do you see world war one considering to world war ii . When to the United States take over hawaii . What year . It became a state in the 50s. Eighteen 19 century. Established a naval facility office. Well, i sort of them mentioned in my remarks, debates over the oversight treaty, the problem there was that germany was defeated. And then after it it actually was defeated but did not believe it was defeated. This is very similar to a mentality that exists inside their russian regime. Believe their class is a legitimate and are starting to develop similar stabbed in the back theories that the western powers stab them in the back dodgers like germany did, because germany did not feel completely defeated. It did feel completely defeated in 1945. That ambiguity, which everyone, including president wilson go was trying to be understanding to the german interest, turned up backfiring because it did not understand the reality. End of the other part of it was the United States did not remain engaged in the security of europe. We were engaged economically, give them loans, we were not entirely isolationist, but we were nodding days as strongly as we have been or would become the italy during world war one but after world war ii. I would like to thank our panelists for their contributions today thought. More importantly, thank you all for attending this. This particular session will be archived at our website and should be available within 24 hours so. Thank you very much. Appreciation for the gentleman. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] more live coverage this afternoon here on cspan2. A little over an hour from now we will take you to the National Press club for remarks by a neurosurgeon and author dr. Ben carson and placed third in this years conservative Political Action conference president ial straw poll. Our coverage from the press coming up at 1 00 eastern. And this evening, the House Veterans Affairs committee has is will the hearing to get updates from officials of the Veterans Affairs department over the fear to comply with the committee subpoenaed regarding the treatment of veterans at health care facilities. That hearing scheduled for 730 eastern time live here on cspan2. Also, news today that author and poet maya angelou has passed away at her home and north carolina. She performed as a singer, calypso dancer, and streetcar conductor in her youth later becoming active in the Civil Rights Movement and became well known for more delivering the inaugural palma president of those 1993 swearingin ceremony. In 2011 president obama awarded her the president ial medal of freedom. Maya angelou has passed away today at the age of 86. One of those stories that i that resonated with me was the moment when they are dithering about whether nonbook they need to inject c waterbeds to unit one. It is a matter the clock is ticking, and they are just about down to the wire. And the plant superintendent who, in the end, would have to make the final column shows and is desperately needed. And meanwhile, everybody wants a say. The top officials and japanese government officials are of this kind of hemming and hawing. And you he gets an order from one of the supervisors. The government has not signed off on this. Or, he has already started. And so he basically calls one of his staff people over and says, okay, i will give an order but ignored. The very loudly proclaims so everyone in tokyo can here, called the sea water injection. Jimmy that was a human element. In japan by ignoring their rules and kind of acting was not rewarded. He knew if he did not act things would go even worse than they were going. More saturday night at chair 00 eastern on afterwards. Next to well look at how tourism took shape along a path that has no interest and 70 and its implication for the landscapes and politics of our own time. We hear from the university of denver history professor and author of vacationland and. From the history colorados center in denver, this is an hour. [applause] thank you for that introduction and thanks to all of you for being here. I am honored to be speaking here. Those of the lead back to the days of the old building up on 13th avenue. A really quick story. Many years ago as an undergraduate history major at was looking for summer job. I get the ingenious idea of wandering into the color of the Heritage Center and casting the first random person i saw who was the lobbying Security Guard for if there were any internships available. To the enormous credit as Security Guard said, welcome what but you go to the Management Department and see if they need help. So i went. That is so i first read the curator. An unbelievable storehouse of knowledge and enthusiasm and fun surrounding colors others during. For the rest of the summer with the next several years more than i can ever say up and did my research of the ground. Some past, but i would like to publicly dedicate this and start them. San not just for having me here but the work that you do that is tricot robert to build greater awareness and concern for the heritage shores. I would like to thank all of you for being here and taking time out of your week. So i will get started with that. The book that charm mentioned that i will be drawing their share of tonight start from, the history of terrorism and Recreational Development in the car of my country in the decades after world war ii, 1945 to 1970, the story of how this part of the seven rocky just a few decades to of very short time from a remote and obscure and little visited backwater really to one of the most celebrated and heavily visited vacation destinations in the United States. How did the high country come to be a Vacation Land . Much more broadly the board is an effort to get a much bigger issue. When tourism became such a big business in the decades after world war ii, when american came to seek out and value landscapes like the colorado high country for leisure, personal fulfillment, pleasure. The way americans related to place. Environment, nature, when so many people learn to consent recreational landscapes as a fundamental part of their lifestyle, what consequences does that carry for American Environmental politics, popular and are mature culture in the broader sense, to ruminate on the environmental consequences of mass consumer culture, not just how consumption has physically changed the land, but also have a change our minds and in terms of teaching yes without our really even realizing it to think in new ways about nature. So i thought i would give you a taste of the book tonight. Why was really the centerpiece to the high country. The development of modern paved highways culminating in interstate 70. I have loaded the dice this is a Regional Focus on, the area to my country is obviously a vaguely defined term. But i use it basically the focus of the areas that could have been and eventually did become the interstate 70 corridor. Time going to begin by focusing on the very first section of interstate 70 that was the four lane bypass above and around the old mining town of colorado springs. That is something that state highway officials were very eager to do. In notorious traffic bottleneck. The two main highways west of denver were forced together in this narrow rally where the stranger located. Pass the gas stations, people turning off and off the road turning traffic down to the point where this became known as the turtle route and was known to truckers and travelers and others as one of the most congested structures of highway in of rural america. Just above town of the south. Construction began in late 1957. Almost completed, led local Business Owners on a tour of this new road. The business was pretty excited about this modern road with its smooth, sweet before lanes and controlled access on and off ramps would big signs pointing to Idaho Springs. They actually got up there the bypass and looked out of the town and were completely horrified by what they saw. With what i showed you before business have led to attract tourists so flower boxes to ma little patch of lawn, maybe some flowers in bushes and trellises and the like, but from up on the bypass looking down their town, a totally different perspective, and it was not a pretty sight. Suddenly there were not going to see the folks in the buildings anymore, but the backs which were unpainted, and planted, piled high with the old junk. Made Idaho Springs look like a ghost town and the process of decay. This was not a good First Impression prius brings. For small town boosters and Business Owners trying to capitalize on the exploding postwar automobile vacation industry it was no longer just going to be enough. Now they had to take with the local liz piper call the tourist i view of their own home town to consider what kind of landscape and atmosphere lead it to attract vacationers and compete with other communities who were trying to do exactly the same thing. In short already was the very first stretch of 57 to be built upon the high country. We can already see a hint of a large scale was going to change the view of the land. I will dive into the store story now. Making the high country seem like a good place for a vacation would mean fundamentally changing how those people thought. That sounds weird to you because of the ways we think of this region now, keep in mind that before the post were the high country was a pretty obscure place. The region of the extremely rugged, daunting, topography, the climate in winter, not the kind of place that most people would think to take a vacation. Now, there was, of course, tourism and the late 19th century. You might know, for example, colorado gained a reputation for being the switzerland of america. There were people coming to resorts, merrills boss, taking scenic excursions, but the key thing to keep in mind for the purpose of our story tonight is that for the most part very few of these doors were venturing deep into the high country, and if they were there were not spending very long there. A remote island. Work and their lawyers to change this impression the local chambers of commerce and highway associations, steer local officials, bigger corporations like railroads and airlines, the game and fish department, state publicity bureau, Interest Groups like the American Automobile Association and recreational enthusiasts themselves to all of them working well together but but at the same time and there are ways to revamp the popular impression of color of the high country. It would seem like a natural place for vacation the largely did this by using the i grabbing glasses, colorful, vivid colors. Michael ramirez of that they were doing anything remotely original. The emotional appeal. These brightly colored photographs, extremely formulate an extremely cliche photographs over and over showing similar views best of my countrymen those often snowcovered peaks again and again and again reproducing over and over post cards, brochures, magazine articles and so on and so forth until they became like logos for colorado tourism, instantly recognizable as standing for the state. The cover of my book is a scene a cliche of except to have exactly the sort of advertising imagery. At the same time all these different groups of people love working together but working at the same time for their own purposes were working to develop infrastructure, trying to revamp the image of the high country and build of the terrorist infrastructure. Motels to resort villages, campgrounds, and mechanical chair lifts which were rare before world war ii but which came to dominate this key landscape after world war ii. The class example of what i mean by packaging the landscape, some sort of facility, physical infrastructure the serbs to make recreation easier, more convenient, more comfortable, but gave taurus newfound access to cynical remark or while various, and nature at a minimum of difficulty or risk, and if you think about it, that is exactly what ski lifts to. In effect that an infrastructure as i mentioned a moment ago served to physically pack is the high country for ever larger numbers of tourists. But for the single most important way of packagingcentury landscape or really any landscape anywhere in america for tourists was telling them to a network of modern paved highways. Paved highways have extraordinarily powerful channelling effects on the flow of tourists because by mid century american tourists were overwhelmingly traveling by car. And despite the supposed freedom of memorability, these stores were overwhelmingly confining themselves to pave roads. There was even a saying among our planters that jurors will drive one order miles of the weight to avoid 5 miles of dirt road. At that time when many rural western roads, including many in colorado, were still under or gravel, local boosters lobbied in endlessly for highway improvements that would channel terrorists their way. Every year local delegations from all over the state would make this ritual trip to denver but to about down before the state Highway Commission to present their wish list of projects that they wanted funded he read the Highway Commission record you discover that again and again the explanation these local delegations from the high country gave her what is so urgently wanted i was was that they wanted to foster tourism. Now, before i move on let me back up for a moment to talk a little bit about what the highways every other i kutcher was like before world war ii, before the war. What i had sort of highlighted weirdly in that kind of neon purple blue, u. S. 40, highway u. S. 40, did not take a direct route west but it took a root to the northwest before heading off into utah and did this to skirt the highest mountain ranges and to take advantage of several River Valleys along the way. By contrast the route directly west of denver where i70 now runs did not exist. Just simply did not exist. This is a map from the bug. What i am trying to show you is out if you wanted to get from denver to either of the countys that are directly west, Summit County is about 65 miles or so from denver as the crow flies, but back in those times to get to seven counts see you had to drive about 100 miles and go over a couple of passes along the way. It out to get to deal county about 70 miles away from denver as the crow flies you had to drive about 170 miles. Hoosier past, Tennessee Pass before you get dumped down and to the eagle river valley. So the obvious reason for this kind of varying directors were higher rates. We will go back and really emphasize how high those ranges were running north and south directly west of denver that basically deflected highway routes to the north and south. This is a picture of the upper end of the book. Back in the late 1940s. As you can see, later interstate 70. Basically and impassible wall between eagle county from Summit County and from denver beyond. So topography is an obvious reason why these counties were so remote and why there was not a direct route, but it was not just geography. Summit and eagle or mining counties, but they were never as big a deal as some of the other. Never as prosperous. Perfect set when railroads built up into the high country the bill to the biggest most prosperous, racing each other to get there. And so when the first road camelot, often times it was start out by falling more or less the Railroad Route emphasizing eagle or Summit County. It was not just a matter of daunting topography but historical precedent. If you look at this map from about 1925, if you look at this map, look directly west of denver, and you will see hardly any hint that all of the future pass of i70, hardly any and of the major highway corridor. They reminded that there was nothing natural and there was nothing historically inevitable about the interstate highway transactinide country. Now, the earliest precursor to the future rid of interstate 70 was up by and this guy proposal last in the 1920s from highway that would basically go or less directly west from denver to this area called the holy cross, the scheme hatched by and is a predator and radcliffe which by then was a very depressed, stagnated all silver mining town hoping that having its rail, road would help red cliffs or a boom again as a Tourist Destination capitalizing on senate desires. The l. A. Department never obliged. Our department never provided any funding whatsoever for the holy cross trail, but they did from the early 1930s on begin by passing those rows that i showed you before you come of moving to the south around the southern tips. They started one after the other trying to cut out by building roads that bypassed and went directly over mountain ranges. The first three examples of this work, again, down below is what it looked like. You can see that the first was that bill where there was a dirt road built in 1931, shrine password there was a dark road built in 1931, and then 1940, a paved road built in 1940 with the new deal publicworks funding. So by the time you get to the bottom halves you can really very clearly said to see the president emerging, the path that it will take. There is still nothing historical the inevitable about it. In 1937 this rift from denver sort of directly west became part of highway six. But u. S. For zero, the one running higher up on the map was still the main route to the high country. Highway 6 was less improved. Many more stretches that were still just gravel or dirt, also was promoted and very much less traveled. Usx became desperate to generate more tourist traffic along the route, so much so that they started trying some desperate measures. Maybe the most desperate one of law and ridiculous was their effort in 1956 to create an attractive brand for their rig by giving it a cartoon mascot. And this is with they came up with. The sublimely ridiculous said. This brochure, which i found completely by don lock on ebay, this had been frolicking along the highway 6, enjoying the recreational lights. Of course the brochure urges terse step following this path, stick to six with 76. Kind of sad, right . Amateurish, clownish. As i said before, just how desperate they were to generate some form of interest, some former brand name recognition or tourist cachet for their little known, little travelled route. This is proved, by the way, that no matter what evil manipulative emotional geniuses, advertising is not always work so much for that idea. This bill and ridiculous campaign, but there were also engaged in another desperate effort, to get their highway designate of the root of an interstate highway. An interstate, like a silly cartoon mascot, really would have the power to attract and channel tourists in enormous numbers and really would have the power to make this part of the high country into a Vacation Land. In 1956 this effort to get interstate highway designation seemed every bit as doomed. That was because go as plans for the interstate highway system nationwide stood there was not even going to be a renter state through the color rockies. If you look at this map, one of their earliest sort of tentative ideas of what the interstate highway system might look like, and to regional highway, 1939, and you see ahead to stay snaking across the plains from chances in the denver unstoppable. The final interstate highway map to the same exact thing, deadening in denver. The obvious reason was high ranges of the high country which should always seems to stand like walls in the weight of eastwest travel and the same reason a Transcontinental Railroad in the 1860s had shunned colorado, the same reason i like and i when the 1920s judge and colorado. Now the planners of the federal interstate system planning the biggest public works project in Human History were planting the shuttle cargo i country. Once again we see that there was nothing natural or rhetorically inevitable about an interstate highway. In fact, we see that all historical precedent weigh against. Now, once again, i should mention, it was more than just simple topography. Sibila honest postwar highway engineers were not really daunted by to part of the. There were full of the cubistic believe that they could caulker any landscape. There were even propose a one. Use nuclear detonations. [laughter] to clear mountains a way that were in the way of and interested in california. So these are not people who were daunted by topography. But in this case they calculated that there simply was not the utilitarian rationale, was not a costbenefit analysis the justified blasted in interstate through this particular to part roofie. Their just are not enough people to, and theyre just was not enough economic activity. Highway planners, highway engineers, professional training taught them to build major are ways to los import levy interest rate, where there was existing demand. There were not in the business of building adjusted to create demand, to try to spur Economic Development word was not already. That, of course paul was a major problem for boosters of colorado and our country because it wants to be adjusted exactly to stimulate Economic Development. Putting in interstate through the high country they fully recognize to put the i kutcher read on the mainland for growing hordes of automobile dependent vacationers. So somehow they had to get these stubborn federal highway planners to change their mind. Now, taking the lead in the stroke of this was governor Edward Johnson who everyone knew as bighead, deliberately pick a buffoonish picture of him because he was kind of a bullish man. He was removed most important political figure, although partially for darn. But he was the most important political figure in the country, decadeslong political career, to terms of the governor, then he went to washington. He returned for a swan song one final term of government. Today deadend there was an awkward challenge of selling highway officials on a massive tourist boosting scheme by somehow not making it seem like a tourist boosting schemes. He somehow had to persuade federal officials that building an interstate highway through rugged terrain of the high country did make engineering and fiscal and utilitarian and costbenefit sense. I wont go into detail because it would go too long, but for the utilitarian argument eumaeus moseley made the case the high country contained minerals and other Natural Resources that were crucial. So there should be an interstate to help get those things. To make an engineering keys for interstate bighead hadst a wildly audacious idea to have the state build a tunnel under the Continental Divide to dispatch for once and all this idea that the high rockies were an impenetrable barrier to the transcontinental travel. Of colorado built a total federal planners receive the engineering problems eliminated and improve the interstate. No, this set off a firestorm of controversy. Some were excited about the idea others were really not. So for many it depended on where the total was going to go. Some loved the idea of building a tunnel that would channel traffic but hated the idea of building one that would channel it along u. S. 40. As you can imagine, u. S. For zero saw it the other way around the most serious criticisms of the top proposal came from those who felt that the tunnel would simply be too expensive for too little benefit. In other words, they made that costbenefit utilitarian calculation that highway engineers did. The chief engineer of the state Highway Departments proved especially skeptical. Theyre on the left. Bighead looming over him to intimidate. Citing engineering studies showing the kind of tunnel would only slightly reduce the altitude. Big ed responded with absolute fury, basically unlacing his supporters to mercilessly attacked as a scrawny pencil neck who hid beyond calculation is an engineering specs and statistics to avoid doing the real mans job of just taking on the mound and the with the pioneers had done, and i am not kidding. The language of least portrayed him in this unmanly, weak willed, you know, not like the hardy pioneers that we ascend from. So big aid one of the popular debate. It was not that hard to do. He finally managed to bluster and up to give the state Highway Department to approve the tunnel project. Basically signing off on the idea. Wheres the money going to come from, where will it be built. By the way, of the feds going to actually give us some interstate even though we have now decided to build a tunnel. The proposal was still have to go through both congress and the federal highway technocracy. Now, congress as part of the interstate highway act of 1956 to approve the 1,000mile expansion of the interstate system. But the question as to where those exit 1,000 miles would go was up to a federal highway planters. To make a long story short after sweating it out for another whole year colorado boosters and so forth finally got with it longer than october 1957 when the federal highway planners did indeed whole lot 547 of those thousand miles to allow states to be extended west of denver through the colorado high country and on into utah. Somebody might have heard said that president eisenhower personally ordered this expansion because of his love of flyfishing. There is no question, the frequent vacationer in colorado known for a long summer visits to colorado and when she would spend it golfing, flyfishing, oil painting, especially at the guest ranch of his good friend. So the story is sometimes told that i threw his weight behind the interstate, perhaps even aborted because there would make his annual summer trips much more convenient. Other than to say that the historical record staff does not bear that called for a story out a look dug a lot of correspondence between eisenhower and his staff and axle nielsen and they get johnson and another governor. I find that big appealed pretty shamelessly to his recreational interest suspects. You, of all people, know just how much traffic there is up on the drive to frazier. Wouldnt it be great if there were a multi lane interstate, but i did not find any evidence that i was actually receptive to the appeals. A lot of evidence that they were repeatedly brush and johnson off and basically trying to use him to shut out. I also found that axle nielsen over and over again was refusing to use his personal for political purposes including and especially an interest issue. I should also point out one other thing while dispatching the story. The extension of interstate was finally approved, eisenhower was no longer vacationing in the high country. As many of you know, he suffered a heart attack or whether youre a very long convalescence and september 1955. Following this as starches basically banned in band and forever vacationing at higher altitude again. One of those colorful comments. It is hard to know for sure, but it appears that the single most decisive factor in the federal highway planted decision to capitulate and to extend the interstate through the high country turned out not to be an argument but instead the army decision that it wanted a director for defense purposes from denver to los angeles which helped explain why when the interstate planners granted the interstate extension they baffled, shocked, surprised everybody by not having ago from denver and salt lake but instead from denver down to a point in southern utah called coal for which no one had heard of before. Even utah officials were like, we didnt ask for this. The federal planners were angry angling interstate 70 down to have interstate 15. So that desire for a quick route, a directory or less set for National Defense purposes appears that that was the most decisive factor. The announcement was cause for jubilation. That said, it was still to be decided where the new entity would go. A federal planners had only fixed the end point out with the interstate get from a to b . This began the next cause for serious debate as boosters. Brewsters and partisans of u. S. Six argued. Since the successor of blustery and technocratic governor called in a new york Engineering Firm to study possible routes which would be the best. This new york in Engineering Firm studied no fewer than eight possible routes including seven different proposed tunnel sides. The one highlighted in red, the sort of last two routes that this Engineering Firm narrow the possibilities down to. Theyve follow along u. S. 40 in the other along u. S. Six. Besides the to the were the finalists there were six others, including laws that ran along the colorado rivers, ones that went across the mountains the blue river drainage, a map like this shows you that there was nothing historically inevitable about the task that i70 ended up taking. The new york firm recommended in the state have a commission ruled in favor of interstate most the following u. S. Six. More less directly west through some accounting which had been up to that point to of the remotest trust obscure lightly populated counties in the entire high country beyond Grand Junction and on into utah. So this is how colorado finally got interstate through the high country. I would ended up following the route that it did. It is booktv more dramatically than anything else, a channel of many more leisure seekers than ever before to this section of cholera that most people at awarded before and because of this bird much more investment interest businesses and tourist infrastructure along the route. Interstate 70 in befor 70 and t was built would have that effect. But besides doing that i also want to return to an idea that i mentioned earlier how the interstate changed peoples views particularly by making things closer to the high country to the sure that there is real irony interstate 70 was an70 wasin itself remotely natu. It was an artificial intrusion. It would take extremely heavyhanded modifications of the landscape to shoehorn this highway. The interstate highways have all sorts of design specifications as to how wide the shoulder had to be, the curves couldnt be too sharp. There were utterly building the highway and the high country so it required a doing things like blasting off the mountainside and bandaged up to keep the rocks from crashing down on the highway below and it required relocating the river channels. The most dramatic artificial truth of all undercutting the Continental Divide at exactly as they had dreamt of doing. The two eastbound lanes which are technically called the johnson title you can see they have since been built yet they would have been in 1979 but the interstate for all of its artificiality for all of its heavyhanded modifications in the landscape actually ended up enhancing the experience of nature. I 70 made it easier to access into slopes rivers in central colorado it made them closer to nature even as they were gliding along this passage to get their part the natural place for vacation. Among other things in the Vantage Point it opens access to the new landscapes and frees people from the difficulty of traversing this very rugged terrain. I like this picture because it shows how i 70 provided a phoenix viewpoint of the peaks and also it became a part of the scenery itself but its insinuated itself into the curves of the contour of the land. Or this picture where that time all the timeall i banned the mol intrusion muscles into the setting. I 70 has become an triple to the high country. We have a hard time imagining the geography of the country and without it the more inviting the high country the more particular the interstate corridor became. And im not just talking about the short stays longer stays, seasonal or second home owners and people began permanently relocating to the high country to the emerging communities like aspen or at the denver metro area that became a proximity with easy access to all in the high country. Country. And if you think about it of course the idea of the proximity and easy access were utterly premised on and greatly enhanced by the ongoing improvement of highways linking the denver to the countries. More and more people came to colorado, again, to live closer to the subject of bowmar as being right in the backyard. More and more people came for the tourist way of life for the amenities of the high country on an ongoing basis not just on vacation, but every weekend or every day if they wanted to live near the amenities so they could have access to them. So these vacationers could now become the basis for the permanent lifestyle. If you look at the pressure urging you to move to jefferson county, its about as many images as it does the everyday life like the Shopping Mall or the church. So its really the thing up. People who picked up on this promise rearranged their entire life for their personal identity. They were not just superficial consumers of recreation that people have become very deeply personally invested in the high countrys recreational settings and that leads me to another in critical important way to change peoples way of relating to nature because when people became deeply personally invested in recreational settings in the high country it also can build a fierce desire to guard the settings against the threats. So in short that is the powerful personal attachments to landscape that in turn ended up fostering the rise of the popular environmental. Towards the beginning of the talk in 1968 the people realized how it looked from this bypass and in this case there was a business or profitmaking incentive to clean up and spruce up the place but as the tourism continued to take shape and as more and more visitors and also seasonal and permanent residents begin to flock to the land of the interstate was opening up the popular Environmental Concerns began to interfere and to deepen and take on more dimensions into the interstate became a target of these Environmental Concerns. Its ironic of course because the interstate existence was shall to the existence that now though is becoming the target of more. There are many examples i could give you that i think the single most revealing one was the enormous popular out late. To cut yet another one of those loose out to make the interstate even more. It was the biggest one left through the entire country. Interstate 70 curves around over the past. The planners propose to bypass the just like all the earlier ones by directly west beneath the range would go here from the sober through the time of and out on basically the other side. This became known as the red buffalo tumble on that county side. The Sticking Point and this is a sort of schematic map what you can see is the Sticking Point that green shaded area that was the wilderness area. That is the eagle that was called the eagles nest primitive area and by the Legal Definition of wilderness it was supposed to be offlimits to the Road Construction but in this particular case there was a clause in the act of 64 that landmark created the wilderness designation. The wilderness act had a clause exempting this one wilderness area. If any power to federal officials to withdraw the wilderness protection from this area so the tunnel could be built under the range. It became a controversy for the state environmental organizations. The first success and they in ma long story short they begin to defeat the tunnel in 1968. What i think is interesting though is on the one hand the environmental organizations that fought against the time all were overwhelmingly organizations of the recreation flick the Mountain Club to the Colorado Wildlife Federation made up of hunters and the coordinating council which is a coalition of Smaller Group almost all of which were organized around one recreational pastime or another, white water rafting, hunting, birdwatching and many others. These show people who become so deeply personally invested in the recreation that theyve made it a basis o the basis of organg themselves taking Political Action. These are tourist boosters for whom the scenic and wild Recreational Amenities had become a matter of economic value in the process. They spoke out against red buffalo building away from the booster approach to the more direct hire volume the better for us. One of the main arguments is they moved one of them into the tourist attraction into the region cutting into the business. People in particular made a powerful statement of reagans red buffalo proposal. Bob parker was one of the voices against the red buffalo proposal in his rationale after putting the interstate through this wilderness area would jeopardize the lifestyle interest. For a brief time there was a potent alliance of the recreational lifestyle interest and business interest. Most favorably of the vote in 1972 to reject the 1976 which had been granted to denver. This is Denver Organizing Committee literature in which they are showing where the venues are going to be. And as you can see they are counting very heavily on the interstate highway access. In the other states as well they rejected this and voted to the funding for the Winter Olympics and caused it not to happen. Another success for the movement came in 1974 when the leader of the olympics, certainly the most vocal environmental politicians in the state was elected governor. But this alliance of recreational business interest and lifestyle interest became the basis for the Environmental Movement that was very shortlived. For one what do i mean, for one, the promoters of tourism and the consumers of the lifestyle may have marginal things but on a much bigger issues like the Winter Olympics. The popular environmentalism have gone completely totally out of control. When they started voicing Popular Support for the farreaching land use Reforms Committee is environmentally minded citizens hoped that these were protecting against the environmental degradation and the landscapes. They used the water reforms to the point that they were almost meaningless. But it wasnt just the oppositional interest. The environmentalism was a crashing halt. I would argue an inherent uncertainty and conservatism among many of the environmentally aware themselv themselves. Because of the deep way of life is not inclined to seriously challenge the system that had promoted and packaged all of the same recreational landscapes and amenities and activities that they had appreciate their lives around in the first place. I will briefly mention one final controversy in the deviate in the 1970s or 1980s over the state through glenwood canyon. A great many groups in the States Council to the Environmental Defense fund and others got involved in trying to say they came from the interstate basically. They moved around the can into designing the passage through the canon in a more environmentally responsible way. They acceded to the viewpoint. They dare to propose that neither didnt need to be a superhighway of way for the high country. It was okay. The small minority that raised the possibility that maybe could just stay for the parts of the high country. They were mercilessly mocked by the dreamers at best and at worst as enemies of the Public Interest because they were people standing in the way to oppose the four lane road in the automobile access to the recreation and given that that was a form of recreation that most had invested themselves in, most of their lack of people and the fight to stop the interstate construction and some of them had more limited goals like building the interstate through the canyon in the more environmentally sensitive way according to the mor more empire mentally sensitive design. Instead of joining the fight to stop in making the interstate with nicer. In the high country as he argued before the packaging and the promotion of the recreational places came from the villages to the retirement communities and other things to consume we often tend to dismiss the consumers into something sort of shallow. The consumers were actually able to have connections that they would consume. They had limits that are equally important to notice. Consumers learned to care about their Favorite Places is not necessarily about others and that was the movement that was unified in the local and provincial and holistic. It was too rooted in the call chirrup the entrepreneurialism included the automobile highway construction to the ever really serious challenge to them even if such a challenge was needed. Then again, even if the consumers have the protested the reason many people protested at all. Connecting to certain settings as consumers may not enter the holistic of the college is for the most part, but it did spur many of them to care on some level and in some way about Environmental Issues. But that was an imported into challenging question as a bleaker grapple with the difficult issues of growth and sustainability including the ongoing debate over what to do without the congestioabout the d environmental degradation along the i. 70 today. On the one hand, can be environmental sensibility is rooted in the recreational consumerism after really point us towards the more stable ways of living and doing business . But on the other hand, it is not for consumers with the popular concern for the Environmental Quality as widespread or would it exist at all . Those might be unanswered so i would be happy to take any questions that you may have for me. . I will make my way over the there. Please make sure you hold the microphone close. Wait for the microphone. My question on by creating the interstates of the mountains besides ed johnson it sounded like they decided to factor. Was there ever a military transport on the i. 70 . Eisenhower was a part of the military transport of 1919 obviously using the lincoln highway mostly. Was there ever an event like that . Not that i am aware of. There were parts along the interstate but im not aware of the transports like that eisenhower had which was one of the things that apparently convinced him of the need for the system of the defense highways. Im not aware of any use for those purposes, but in that it seems to have been. There was a lot of talk about the highway. The official name for them is when it was created in 1956. Yes, hello . To questions. I believe that i have read or heard the canyon costs more than the entire rest of the interstate costs total. I dont know if that is true but i wouldnt be surprised because the cost as you probably know that learning is the Design Change as they ran into the Highway Builders always do into the unexpected geological obstacles and stuff like that so i wouldnt be surprised of the values. President eisenhowers involvement or lack of involvement. And in a book called the old gray mares of denver was written by an assistant to William Nicholson in the last republican mayor of denver. They had already passed the first bill of the u. S. House of representatives. They asked what they could do to help out and they said give an extra 1,000 miles. He called the department of transportation whatever it was called then, and that was passed in the house. So i take it that you dont agree with that. It wasnt that cut and dry. As you said he was supportive of the extra thousand miles but there were able of claimants to those. It wasnt a foregone conclusion that they would go to colorado and utah. So even as i mentioned before when they improved that extension, the thousand mile expansion of the interstate system it was still up to the technocrats to decide where they would go, who would give those or how they would be divvied up. And at that time it is hard to relate to this now but at that time the highway was difficult to push around politically. There was a lot of sort of deference to the technocrats to a degree. Anybody that claimed expertise about the sort of political partisanship thought yeah right so we have more of a culture than that but there was more deference to the judgment and to the power of the highly technocrats at that time. So even if eisenhower and there is no question that eisenhower made happy noises about how the interstate was through colorado. But i wasnt able to find any evidence of the staff. I got evidence at that meeting that you were talking about but the outcomes that were taken are basically eisenhower is instructing the aid to get him to extricate him from any sort of commitment. So i think that george kelly in that book was making a story id say. Over here . I actually have an old map and ive been puzzling over why u. S. 24 and u. S. 50, why neither of those was ever considered for the interstate. The biggest single reason is denver and the sort of again from the greatest political power in colorado but also the greatest sort of engineering argument for the utilitarian argument for the state and statd colorado would be one that went through denver. So that is the single biggest reason that they go through colorado springs. What about the reservoir did that have anything to do with the interstate project . S. Escape. The biggest thing is where would the interstate go. They worked with a possibility for a long time of running the interstate overthetop that would have required a much larger course but all of this is converging at the same time. Denver is making its place. The interstate planners are making their plans for which path they are going to take. The decision to run through the county wasnt made until, the final decision wasnt made until 1960 and by that time the engineering had more or less moved on so they ended up running it along the base so i did have some effect but like i said by the time the interstate was actually designated it was no longer really an issue. It was a water project. We have time for maybe one more question. [inaudible] [laughter] flip the coin. I just want to know on the vacationland of the huge traffic jams we see now on 70 calories that going to impact our economy and all of the things that you have been talking about . Well i am an academic so id like to pick up on the premise of the question. What i would say is that so much of the debate over interstate 70 has revolved not so much on the Environmental Issues but the congestion. For how the recreational it takes too long to get up there to get back where for the business interested might start to harm their business if people are detoured by how congested the interstate has become. I think its interesting that has become the core issue is the issue of congestion. If its the sort of limits of the environmental consciousness that by developing the consciousness that grows out of the business interest you miss a lot of other ways of looking at the issue. Which way that will go i have no idea. I was asked that question in the afternoon talk and i quoted the famous saying of the prophet looking backwards to say that historians are useless for projecting the future. But it seems like when they expanded that tunnel just east that currently the strongest political supporter stands for doing some strategic widening here or there. Whether that might change or there might be a paradigm shift towards the rail with a new way of viewing the problem at the end of the book i raised the issues of the things like as Environmental Issues change if whale becomes less cheap and climate changes radically transforming. I would like to thank you one more time. [applause] i wish we had more time. The lecture could keep going on but please come out and he would be happy to answer the question individually. Otherwise stop by the gift shop on the way out. I needed to answer questions as well otherwise we will see you next month. Thank you very much. We are live now at the National Press club in washington, d. C. For remarks in a few moments by the retired surgeon and author ben carson who plays third in the political conferences president ial straw poll. The new book is called one nation what we can do to save americas future. Introductory remarks are getting underway. Live coverage on cspan2. I noticed the members of the general public are attending. So its not necessarily evidence of a lack of journalistic objectivity. I would also like to welcome the public radio audiences. You can follow on twitter using the hash tag npclunch. We have a question and answer perco and will ask as many questions as time permits. Now its time to introduce the head table guests and i would like you each to stand briefly as your name is announced. From your right, the director emeritus of the journalism washington program. Travel writer for the jamestown postjournal of new york state. The assistant managing editor for the christian post. President Editorial Associates and coworkers might serve todays luncheon, candy carson, coauthor of two books with her husband who is our guest speaker today and the cofounder of the carson scholar fund. Donna reporter usa today, four National Press Club President and vice chair of the speakers committee. Skipping over the speaker for a moment, mary lou donohue, president artistic the speaking and organizer of todays event. Thank you so much. Anchor, reporter, fox news. Megan, regional editor at the washington post, and kirby, executive director of the National Journalism center. [applause] although well known in his field he was a pediatric brain surgeon at Johns Hopkins university Benjamin Carson was not on the political radar until the keynote speech at last Years National prayer breakfast. With president obama [applause] with president obama also outcome of doctor carson spoke about the danger facing the country, lack of education, the tax system, healthcare. He prefers a personal savings account for every one and approach quite different from the Affordable Care act. Some viewed the speech as a rebuke of the president and it caught the eye of conservatives and led doctor carson to the National Stage and weekly column in the the Washington Times and now some encourage him to run for the republican president ial nomination. [applause] while his views on social issues fit comfortably in the gop rightwing he also advocates practically some. Note the following from the column and i quote if conservatives are going to win in 2014 and 2016 and preserve the environment of freedom to which we have grown accustomed, it will be necessary to learn how to prioritize issues. Issues. Im not saying social issues are not important, but its executive branch remains in the hands of those with secular progressive ideas and 2016 and two or three more Supreme Court justices with similar meanings appointed conservative, social ideas will become an act of mens to the prevailing powers. We will use every tool available to silence the opposition. Born into poverty and raised in innercity detroit, doctor carson graduated from high school with honors, received a degree in psychology from yale and earned a medical degree at the university of michigan. At 33 doctor carson became the youngest doctor ever to hit the Major Division at the hospital to read hes the author of several books and with his wife the creator, together the creator of a Scholarship Program for children grades four through 11. Doctor carsons breakfast speech earned the backbone of the book one nation what we can do to save americas future or a topic that he will address today. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in a warm welcome to the National Press club for doctor Benjamin Carson. [applause] thank you so much. Candy and i are absolutely honored to be here, and im going to tell you what at the end of the talk why i think the press is so important and what the role is in the free society. But first of all, let me just tell you that i am so grateful that i was born in this country which is still a land of dreams. My dream was to be a doctor. I love love anything that has to with medicine. All that stuff. I just couldnt get enough. I eve even like to go into the doctor office, so they told me i was a bit of a strange kid. But, you know, there were a lot of problems along the way. My parents got divorced early on. My mother discovered that the man she married when she was 13yearsold was a bigamist into that resulted in a divorce. She only had a third grade education. And the job of raising two young sons by herself in the innercity. But the key thing about my mother that she passed on to us that was so important is that she refused to be a victim and she refused to allow us to the victims. And she just said whatever the situation is, i will deal with it and thats what she us to do. And there wasnt enough money. She would get in the car could take us out on a monday morning, not on the farmers door and say can we pick some apples or beans, three for you and one for us . They always like that deal and she would bring stuff home and go to goodwill and get a pair of pants with a whole and people would say where did you get those pants i need some like that. She would stretch every penny and nickel and dime, drive the car until they wouldnt making noise again and then she would take all of those nickels and dimes into by a car and people would say how can she afford a new car but is she doing she must be selling drugs or selling her body or something but she understood economics. If she were in the treasury we wouldnt be in this situation right now. [applause] but fortunately i was able to benefit from her wisdom because she worked as a domestic cleaning other peoples houses getting back after midnight. She worked so hard because she didnt want to be on welfare. She noticed anybody that went on welfare generally didnt come off of it. She needed to be an independent soul and i was a horrible student and she was the one that made me start reading books and my brother also. I like the idea. She came home and turned off the tv and said you are going to read two books a piece and submit writing book reports which she couldnt read, but we didnt know that. And she would put check marks in highlights and everythinand hign them and we thought that she was. But everybody else was having a great deal of fun and i just hated it. Why did you do it, your mother wasnt there. Back in those days you had to do with your parents told you. But as i started reading those books i really had a transformation of who i was. I started reading about peoples accounts was and i began to understand who it was that was responsible for my life and it was me, not somebody else or the environment and i used to hate poverty before that. I know that it was within my own power to change it and i developed the cando attitude that has had a profound affect on my career and if i had listened to to so many aspects i wouldnt be standing here talking to you today and i encourage people to utilize those gifts and to think in a creative manner and think about what you can do not what you cant do. There are so many negative people. When i was in my first year of medical school i took poorly on the first day. He looked at my record and is it you seem like an intelligent young man. I bet theres a lot of things that you can do outside of medicine. They tried to convince me to drop out of medical school. You make yourself and everybody else miserable. He seemed like a very kind thing but it wasnt. And i just went back to my apartment and i started contemplating and i said lord help me figure this out and i said what kind of courses do you struggle and do you do very well in and i realized i did well in the courses i do a lot of reading and i struggled in the courses i listen to boring lectures. We spend time reading int the td the rest was a snap after that. I was looking for that because i was going to tell him he wasnt cut out to be the counselor. [laughter] because there are so many people that are negative. They can tell you whats wrong with something and why something cant be done. I am not politically correct and i dont like Political Correctness. Im totally refusing to submit to Political Correctness come and i actually have a great deal of productivity for pleasure as they try to dissect everything. Most of the people in nazi germany did not believe in, but did they open their . No. What happened and what does happen and they dont stand up for what they be vegan because freedom isnt free. The scandal was a gift from god, and of course any thinking person knows that what im saying is that the revelation of what happens when you create the bureaucrats between people that creates this kind of problem and its a good thing but something happened that will show even the most partisan person what to expect when you take healthcare and put it in the hands of the government. It would be comical if it were not so sad but thats where the nation has gone. What i see is on as one of the t problems in the society. The reason i wrote one nation is to illustrate people is that we the American People are not each others enemies. They try to drive a wedge in every craft they can find to create racial wars, gender wars, income from any kind that you can present. But this is straight out of the marxist. One of the rules for radicals dont have a conversation. Political correctness is the way to keep people from having a conversation. You cant say that or talk about that. What we need to start doing, all of us, when you are watching the news or you are reading a newspaper or magazine, get a piece of paper out. The objective journalism on the one column, the Smear Campaign on the other side and just listen to it. There are certain columnists, certain pundits who never actually address the issue at hand. They go off on a tangent and start calling people names, they start trying to demonize folks coming and youre never quite yt to the actual issue at hand. And its one of the reasons that its so important that our populace becomes educated again. They become informed. The founders in the nation said our freedom and a system of government is based upon a wellinformed and educated populace and if they ever become anything other than that, the nature of the country will change. Why . Because people wouldnt have the wherewithal to analyze what they are hearing. And they could be very easily lead by the slick politicians and the dishonest media. This is what we are dealing with. This is what is in the process of east riding the nation. Now, i know what the left wing says. [applause] they would say the American People are too stupid to know anything. Thats the only way they know how to report. They dont actually know how to report the kind of things. But i think that we have to start calling them out on all of this silliness and i think that its so important that we hold the press to a higher standard. They cant do what theyre doing. [applause] because a free and vibrant society is dependent on a free press to told the truth to be objective and not to choose the size because they choose to ignore the law and the constitution and to do anything they want and not be called into question and when that happens, the freedom and the society disappear. That is a law of the press you can go about and read and at some point members of the press just like the political carnage have to say my loyalty is into this party or that party my loyalty is to america. [applause] thats what is going to make a difference and we have to stop making issues. Look at our national debt. 17 trillion moving towards 18 trillion do you know how much money that is . If you tried to pay that back at a billion dollars a day that is a lot of money. A billion . It would take 47 years. And the only reason that we can do it is because our dollar is a reserve currency of the world. What if it wasnt . And it may not be forever because that is the status that usually goes to the number one economic power in the world which we have been since the 1870s and will not be by the end of this year because of an incredibly sluggish growth. Why do we have such a sluggish growth . Because we have asinine economic policies. Think about this. [applause] we have the highest Corporate Tax rates in the world, and we sit here and complain about companies doing business overseas. That indicates a fundamental lack of understanding of what capitalism is. People dont go into business to support the government. They go into business to make money. Money. Suck on a live government creates an environment that is conducive to business, not one to blame them and then demonizes them that doesnt make any sense. A live government has a tax structure that is truly fair, not one that oppresses people. And i will soon be coming out with some principles of taxation, one of which is no american should have to pay more than 37 of what they earn in taxes. [applause] im talking about federal, state, local, all taxes. 37 . Thats more than one third of what you make. I think thats reasonable. We can make it 42 for those that make over a Million Dollars to the left wing can be satisfied that somebody is getting mixed up. But anybody that is paying more than 50 of what they make in all taxes, that this incentivizes people. And what we need to recognize is that when you incentivize people and we get people working hard and creating business, it creates a much bigger pot. The government will wind up with a lot more money, not less money. But we have to get people that understand that and not people who think you take the money from this group and if you give it to this group that will be fair. And this group doesnt even pay income tax but they should have a say in how much of this group sounds tedious copays that isnt fair at all. Porsche analogy that is what is fair. You make a buck and pay a lot, make a little, pay a little. You pay a billion dollars, but the wonderful thing about the nation and the system like that of a guy that pedophili got paie are not about creating the class envy and if you go back and look at the neo marxist literature what did they say and emphasize . The importance of the class envy that you can never let it rest. Have you noticed anybody that does that in our society . I am not mentioning any names, but im telling you its rampant. And this is what weve got to stop, and weve got to become compassionate. We have to think about the next generation. I grew up in detroit so im very sensitive to this. Detroit was once the wealthiest city in america and now the largest bankruptcy. And what happened . People kept kicking the can down the road and refused to accept responsibility for what was going on. Some people said there was the union and they played a big role. But they do what they do. They will gladly just give me that right now. I dont care about anything else in the future. But the big three automakers and i blame them just as much because they knew that if they kept competing to demand of the union that one day the price would have to be paid but they also knew that by that time they would have long disappeared in their golden parachute and it wouldnt be their problem and this is exactly what we are doing today and in this nation. We have no regard whatsoever for the people that come behind us. We just want ours right now. Its incredibly selfish and unamerican and we have to stop it. [applause] why to buy rail so much against the Affordable Care act . I wouldnt if it was the Affordable Care acts but its the own Affordable Care act. The real reason isnt because of the rollout and all of the computer glitches thats around it being passed. Its not about the increasing premiums and the inefficiency and the beer of chrissy. Its about the fact that we are taking the most important thing that a person has come of their health and their healthcare, and we are putting it under the hand of the bureaucrats and the government. How can you give away your most important asset to the government because they can come tall the most important asset it isnt long before they can control Everything Else and i want you to read what Saul Wilensky and Vladimir Lenin said about that. People need to educate themselves so that you know whats going on, so that you know what the agenda is, so that you know how to combat it. You wont know that if you dont educate your self an and rooms f what is going on in the society. And i think it is also incredibly important that when we gain control again, and when i say the im not talking about any political party. Im talking about people with common sense. When we gain control again [applause] what we have to remember is that we are not going to treat the secular progressives the way that they treated us. We are going to govern based on the constitution of the United States of america, and we are not going to have special favors. We are going to have won a special Interest Group and thats the American People and im talking about all of the American People. The downtrodden in the country have been abused so much by the socalled do good that have made them into a dependent class. We dont want a dependent class. We want a 47 to ascend to the highest level possible. We have to pick the right programs in place and look at things like what Mohammed Younis have looked at people out of poverty in pakistan and india. Those will work right here in america. We are responsible for putting those things together because all of us no matter what our social economics class and status, we are in the same boat and is part of it sinks, the rest of it is going down and we have to recognize that is the reason that we are called the United States of america. Thank you. [applause] we want to begin the questions. We want to use every minute possible to ask doctor carson questions and hear his responses. Doctor carson, were you surprised by the attention that you received following the 2,013th National Prayer breakfast . Why do you think you struck such an accord . Deep and abiding. And what has happened is that all of those people who have given up on america are starting to think that maybe they are not the only ones who feel that way. Maybe there is some logic and some common sense, maybe theres hope. And thats what they represent to a lot of people