>> a majority of people agree that american muslims are an important part of the religious community and the united states, but are divided over whether the values of islam are at odds with the u.s. values. this is part of a report by the brookings institution and public religion research institute, which looked at the role of religion in u.s. politics. this is about two hours. [inaudible conversations] >> i want to welcome everyone here today. i me j. dionne a senior fellow here at brookings. it is very good if you to come out and be with us and this is a very exciting survey. we have said a lot after 9/11 that we had a new normal that this had changed us in extraordinary ways and it is always in the survey that you are about to hear, more about, talks about americans attitudes 10 years later. we feel more safe marginally but we feel we have less personal freedom and less respect in the world but in many ways are halves we didn't change and indeed some of the divisions among us before 9/11 have only been aggravated. one of the things we will talk about a great deal are partisan and ideological splits that have spread from issues such as taxing and spending to issues such as what the meaning of religious tolerance is and where we stand on immigration and how we adapt to new groups. we will be talking a lot about generational divisions in the country. we will be talking quite a bit about immigration. i can't resist sharing g.k. chesterton's's observation that the united states has sought and i quote literally out of a nailed nation that comes to love, and we have always struggled over this. we have always and in there and manage to bend towards inclusion. there is a hunch that my colleague bill gholston on the survey we will again but we have also struggled over this question and there will be a lot about this struggle as we have this conversation. this survey and the report are part of an ongoing collaboration between the public religion research institute and the project on project on religion policy and politics here in the government study at are things. the survey was carried out by pri and bill galston and all of us are grateful to the great colleagues for collaboration that goes back to a survey we did that might interest some of you on the relationship between christian conservatives and the tea party. all this is available at both of our web sites. i also want to say that we are going to -- i want to welcome the c-span audience and i want to know that you can participate in this discussion by tweeting your question. it it is hashtag diversity poll, all one word. i got that right christine, did i not? it is hashtag diversity poll and christine will be passing along your question so not only will the people here participate but we hope all of you who are listening will participate. thank you and so many people worked on this. i just want to say right up front that we at brookings want to thank y. davis, christie jacobs and emily luken at pri shannon craig, emelia thompson, sammy hultquist and we also want to thank you for some of the lovely charge we see in this report. here is how we will proceed. robbie jones will give one of his patented copyrighted really and powerpoint presentations which will give you a very good sense of what this survey actually found. that will be followed by bill galston and is reported as you see will come into parts. bill will present the part that he and i worked on and then i will separately introduce our respondents. we are truly blessed and i may use that in the context that bears on religion that we will be joined by dr. muqtedar khan and jose casanova. i can't think of anyone better to respond to a survey of this sort of ireland traduced them later on in the program. right now i will introduce robbie and build and probably will take it away. robbie is the ceo and founder of the public religion research institute. he writes at figuring faith, a featured "washington post" on faith blog and is one of six members of the national steering committee for the religion and politics section of the american academy of religion. he holds a ph.d. in religion from emory university and in a m.a. from southwestern baptist theological seminary so he is fully qualified across the board to offer the observation he is about to. my friend and colleague bill galston holds the ezra k. zilkha chair in brookings government studies programs were he serves as a senior fellow. he is also college professor at the university of maryland. prior to joining brookings he was professor at the school of public policy at the university of maryland and director of the institute for philosophy and public policy. you can tell by the title of that institute that will knows everything there is to know about philosophy and everything there is to know about politics. he probably knows a fair amount about baseball too. we are very honored to have this collaboration with you robbie and it is great you are joining us here at workings again. >> thank you. >> i am delighted to be here to talk about the findings from the pluralism immigration survey conducted by public religion research institute our organization and that forms the foundation for a joint report the brookings institution. what it means to be american attitudes on an increasingly diverse america 10 years after 9/11. so if cj said with some folks joining us, the c-span audience and on twitter. the report that the full topline questionnaire the full report can all be found on research web site at www.public religion.or. you will see it right there in homepage and you can click on it and download the information right there and i will repeat -- we have the hashtag diversity pole all one word following along on twitter. e.j. has said some things i want to add a couple more before jumping in. first i want to thank brookings institution and particularly e.j. and bill for the ongoing partnership that has been so fruitful and really so much fun to work on together. as e.j. mention some of the findings we have flushed out in the survey we first uncovered almost a year ago now with the american value survey which was something we talked about here at things and we identified really these issues of attitudes towards islam and immigration as emerging issues that will be coming more to the floor and public policy. here we are making good sort of on some of the promises that were made back then to sort of flesh this out and see what is going on underneath the hood. i want to say also a thanks to the ford foundation was made our ongoing partnership with the brookings institution possible and also a a shout shout out to dan cox who was the principle researcher on this report. a couple of words about the survey itself. the survey is just out of the -- so august 14 that was the last day of the. macsata was in the field august 1 to august 14. the result i'm presenting here today were based on telephone interviews with 2450 americans age 18 years or older and including 800 respondents raised by cell phones of a margin of error for the total sample is plus or minus 2.5 to 90% interval. so, the presentation i am going to make today has three basic parts. the first part that talks about where we are looking back 10 years after 9/11, how do americans perceive our safety, reputation in the world and issues of security, tolerance and pluralism and the second part i will delve into views of islam and the use of american muslims. the third part will deal with immigrants and immigration reforms of the big parts. the key word i think you will hear over and over are variations on a theme of wrestling. americans are wrestling with fear but on the other hand they are wrestling with the acceptance as e.j. alluded to. you will see the tension between these two things going on across a number of the findings. so americans continue then to wrestle with issues of purity in an tolerance and pluralism the issues of what it lies to the heart of what it means to be americans. americans affirm first amendment principles but as you will see they don't always are we don't always apply these principles evenly or consistently particularly with regard to american muslims and current immigrants. the powerful forces of political party affiliation, political ideology, generational differences and television news media are fueling large divides in the country. so let's start with the first section, 10 years after 9/11, where are we? we found some majority of americans, 53% say we are safer today than we were 10 years ago. there is a modest generational gender and education differences on the question that the majority of them at that 10 republicans say we are safer today than we were 10 years ago. now compare that to the other two questions we had 10 years ago and turning 10 years ago. the first one here is do we have more or less personal freedom? overwhelmingly eight of 10 americans say we have less freedom than we did 10 years ago. a very similar pattern on the question of respect in the world. seven of 10 americans say that we have less respect in the world then we did 10 years ago before 9/11. one other broad thing before i go into specific question about islam and immigration and muslims and immigration business broad support we find for tolerance, for principles of the first amendment religious liberty and separation of church and state. we have near consensus on the question of religious books we had this year the infamous event of the koran earning, the threat of a koran burning. almost nearly all americans believe religious book shelby treated with respect work on questions of the first amendment separation of church and state again strong agreement nine of 10 americans including two-thirds even when they had this fairly strongly must maintain a strict separation of church and state two-thirds of americans agreeing with that statement. so again, broad support for the principle. again we will see inconsistencies and application of what it means across the number of what it requires of us. so we will start off with some attitudes and what we see about attitudes towards muslims in society, some some clear ambivalence. we have a series of questions asked about comfort levels with different activities by american muslims. the majority supports -- the majority saying they would be a least somewhat comfortable of doing a variety of activities but as you can see there is also a fair number of americans saying they would have at least somewhat uncomfortable with the number of these activities so going from right to left, the muslim teaching in elementary schools have the highest level of support, six in 10 saying they would be a least somewhat comfortable with that foreign 10 saying that they would be somewhat uncomfortable. the rest of the measures, and men praying in the airport and a mosque being built which there has been a lot of news around this last year in oslo him woman wearing of. , those are much more closely divided and we will see this play out a bug -- across a number of issues. here's a big picture question about whether muslims are an important part of the community and thinking about acceptance. the majority of americans say muslims are an important part of the religious community in the u.s.. however, one in 10 disagree so still a sizable minority disagreeing although a majority agreeing. another kind of question that has been in the news about agreeing or disagreeing american muslims ultimately want to establish sharia applies the loveland of the u.s.. six of 10 americans reject this proposition that the muslims want to establish sharia law so by a margin of two-to-one americans disagree with the statement. however again, three in 10 a sizable minority agree with the statement. as we will see later there is also some very strong partisan ideological divide on this question. one of the things to note here is that in 2011 has been an enormously active year on this question. a year ago it was sort of the islamic center in manhattan. this year it has really been the sharia law. 49 bills have been introduced in 22 states to ban sharia law and what we see as there has been an effect when we asked the same question in february, only 23% of americans agree that muslims wanted to establish sharia law as the law of the land. that number has gone up to 30% so still a minority but the minority has grown just over the past year. probably not largely or somewhat in response to the activity on the legislative front in so many states across the country. so now i want to talk a little about division before moving on to immigration. there is a lot of information here but the most important thing to see on the slightest of pattern of responses. these are bipartisanship come the number of questions across the bottom are american muslims want to establish sharia law in the country and muslims are not on the disagree site an important part of the u.s. religious community and another question that we had about whether islam was at odds with american values and way of life. if you look at this you can see really large divides. the blue are self-identified democrats, and a the tan color our independence and the lighter red color by republican and the darker red color are self-identified americans who identify with the tea party. so you can see these really large divisions among the country on really all of these questions. the other thing to note here, some of the things to point out is one that the divides are bigger and particularly on the negative side is bigger on questions about islam than it is on questions about american muslims so this question on the right here is about whether islam itself, the values of islam are american values and way of life. two-thirds of those and tea party and 63% of those who are republican agree with that statement and only four in 10 democrats agreed that they meant. this question divides most of the american committee. we find the negative slide -- side a good bit lower although the partisan divides are still here. one other thing to point out here is that the divisor little bit asymmetrical. that is that republicans are sort of more further away from the population then democrats are in this question so democrats averaged eight points from the general population at a more positive direction across all these questions and republicans averaged 14 points in the general population and were negative direction on these questions. we see the same pattern on the other partisanship, a similar pattern on views of islam in american muslims. again the same questions across the bottom but by most trusted media source and i want to be really clear here, with this question is based on is we asked americans who they most trusted to give them accurate news and information about current events and politics, which television news outlet so among americans in this chart is showing among americans who chose different television news outlets to be the most trusted one, how their views than shakeout on these various questions. the main thing that you see as there is excellent not a lot of difference by most trusted media source except for those in the most trust "fox news." that is the red bar that really jumps out. on all these questions americans who trust "fox news" are significantly more -- and the other news source to say muslims want to establish sharia law law and american firms are not an important part of the u.s. religious community and to say the values of islam are at odds with american values so a pretty stark difference here. finally before we move on to immigration, one other question -- we tried to get a sense of how americans evaluate religious violence reticular leah in light of the tragedy in norway. try to think about how do americans react when the perpetrator is doing something in the name of christianity versus when a perpetrator is doing something in the name of his long. what we found here is a double standard and i mean that in the most descriptive light, that there is literally a different standard applied when the perpetrator is a self-identified christian versus a self-identified muslim. the way it sheikhs out eight in 10 americans say that when a person commits violence in the name of christianity they are not really truly christians 08 and 10 reject that claim to be christian. americans do not apply that same principle to the perpetrator who does something in the name of islam. less than half of americans say the 48% as -- say when someone commits violence in the name of islam that they are really muslims are pretty stark difference in how americans value religious freedoms and religious violence. this hopefully make some sense about how the government went in the wake of the tragedy in norway. so views on immigration and immigrants and we will see some of the same patterns really showing up here. similar to the slide i had earlier we had a set of russians about general american attitudes about what they think about immigrants. very strong numbers of americans, nearly nine in 10 saying immigrants are hard-working. eight in 10 saying immigrants have strong family values. on the other hand there is some kind of reservations saying these could be interpreted negatively. seven in 10 say immigrants mostly keep to themselves in a majority actually saying immigrants do not nick an effort to english here. again we will see there are some strong partisan divides particularly on the question of learning english in the country with republicans more likely to disagree that they make an effort to learn english and democrats more likely to in win the same thing for ideology. i am -- not surprise me. number -- and other general question that specifically backs that up, what do americans think about overall impact of immigrants on society? a majority, 53% say the newcomers to american society strength in american society however you should be able cc it pattern here, four in 10 say that newcomers actually threatened traditional american customs and values. again, partisan divides her. six in 10 democrats say americans strengthen -- newcomers strengthen american society and 55% of republicans say that the newcomers threaten american society so the majority is on the opposite side for this question on partisans. this translates really into some real tensions when it comes to policy questions of how to handle particularly the problem of illegal immigrants and what approaches should be taken on the one hand. if you ask and agree disagree question about the path to citizenship and majority of americans 56% say that the best way to handle the problem of illegal immigrants in the country to allow them to have a pass for citizenship legal resident status with eventual -- at the same time 51% say to make a serious effort to deport all illegal immigrants. we have a little bit of inconsistency here in the way that americans think about -- for both of things are true. by the way just as we saw an increase in the numbers on sharia law over the past year we pulled them with the same question about the support for deportation in march of 2010 and it was far below majority support. it was in the 40s. i don't have a number right in front of me. low 40s and out the numbers have climbed to the other side. however when they put these things head-to-head we see different pictures so these are kind of asking them individually and when we put them head-to-head with the presumption that the border would be secured on both sides of the question and we sort of asked respondents to choose head-to-head on a question, which do you think is the best way a secure the borders and provide a path to citizenship or secure the borders and arrest and deport all illegal immigrants, the secure the borders and provide citizenship strongly outweighs the other side. so when you put them head to head and ask people to choose with the presumption that the border should be secure six in 10 americans say provide a path to citizenship rather than deport all illegal immigrants. as you can see there is a lot of room to play in these questions. setting up a similar pattern looking at artisan ship and media consumption patterns across a number of questions here. again we see very similar patterns in partisanship and also media. this was on partnership. across the bottom and have a question about the d.r.e.a.m. act allowing illegal immigrants brought to the uss children to gain legal resident status if they join the military. to college. six in 10 americans overall support that and a strong partisan divide including republicans in the tea party affiliates and the darker red. the second is a path to citizenship allowing undocumented immigrants who've been in the u.s. for several years to earn legal -- and finally disagreed with deportations and the disagree cited deportation so they don't go in the same traction. we should make a serious effort to deport illegal immigrants back to their home country. again we see democrats at least six in 10 favoring the path to citizenship than disagreeing with deportation on the republican side. four in 10 agreeing and only three and in 10 disagreeing with deportation and those who are affiliated with the tea party lower than those. the same pattern you see a really strong kind of partisan divide on these questions. again we look at media consumption patterns here and we see a very similar pattern as well with "fox news" in the red and public television viewers on the right here. those that say they most trust "fox news" in the red and those that say they most trust public television in the darker blue and we generally try to arrange them in order and on all these questions we see a very similar shakeout with those who say they most trust "fox news" are less likely than general public to favor the d.r.e.a.m. act or disagree with deportation. the one thing that is different here is those who say they most trust public television viewer standout more on this question than they did on attitudes towards muslims so we see seven in 10 of americans who say they most trust public television standing out on this question and favoring all these things and disagreeing with deportation. >> finally i want to lay out something on religion and say something about the d.r.e.a.m. act as opposed to a more comprehensive reform. this is also in the report. opposition for the d.r.e.a.m. act that is allowing younger immigrants in the country illegally to sort of gain legal resident status if they join the military. to college actually has less intense offered -- opposition and broader support than the more comprehensive question about immigration reform. wanted to put out some religious differences here. what we see here is all religious groups in the country with the exception of white evangelical protestants support the d.r.e.a.m. act. white in the evangelical partisan stand out as being small majority and opposition to the d.r.e.a.m. act. one slide for the road of head and then i will turn it over to bill. what happens when they look at the millennial generation? what do they seem to suggest about how that generation may push some of these complex? i'm going to look at one question on islam and the big broad picture on islam and one on immigration. on the question about whether islam is at odds with american values if we look at the contrast being tween lineal said seniors would basically see there on opposite sides of the question so with millennials those are americans 18 to 29 years of age. those are people that are as young as 810 years ago during 9/11 and aged eight to 1910 years ago so came of age at that moment in that era, so they are a majority in support of, or a majority disagreeing with the statement that islam is at odds with american values. more seniors agree with the statement and a big picture question on immigration again the differences are even starker here that two-thirds of millennials nearly say that newcomers to the u.s. strength in american society while a slim majority of seniors say that immigrants threaten american society and traditional values there. so one thing to say as we go back to the big picture question, it really is america wrestling between fears and acceptance. we see this on the front of immigration and we see this on the front of the place of american muslims in society and attitudes around islam and we also see i think some indication here that the millennial generation may have a little bit of a different take than older americans and may influence where we go from here. now i will turn it over to bill. [applause] >> well, as has been the case with previous instances of this very fruitful collaboration, e.j. dionne and i were inspired by the survey and its findings that we decided to commit a few acts of interpretation and so we have five brief mini-essays on specific topics to contribute to the mix. e.j. began his remarks by quoting chesterton. i guess i can too. and that is chesterton also famously described america as a nation of the church and then that raises the question, which church? and the answer is that the unifying religion of america is americans. so the question is, how do you get to be a member in good standing with the american church and who decides and the boundaries of the american church. that essentially is the question that this wonderful survey probes. and, let me make five points in 10 minutes. the first , the united states is committed at its core to the idea of free exercise of religion and respect for diverse faith, but that commitment historically has been tested by successive waves of new religions, it either home-grown or coming to the united states through immigration that it tested the boundaries of a doctrine that was originally developed within protestantism. in the 19th 19th century conspicuously mormons and catholics and today muslims. our argument is that public attitudes towards muslims today to the extent that they encapsulate reservations about muslims, combine combined some of the features of 19th century attitudes towards mormons and 19th century attitudes towards catholics on the opposition. mormonism was less theological than it was practice-based. there were specific mormon practices, particularly polygamy, which the first, the very first platform of the republican party and the 1850s described as one of the twin relics of barbarism, slavery being the other. in the case of catholics, it was more theological and doctrinal. first, the belief that was not without foundation that the catholic church in the 19th century was officially opposed to liberalism and democracy and secondly the belief that it demanded loyalty to an authority other than the supreme authority of the constitution of the united states, and mormons and catholics had to adjust, as did the united states in order to bring them within the framework of free exercise, and we would argue on the basis of the survey that attitudes towards muslims today combined reservations about specific actresses, for you know, for example the wearing of the burqa, which invokes a great deal of discomfort as robbie says and is just indicated, along with broader fears about the incompatibilities between the values of islam and the values of the united states. on the other hand, you know, there is evidence of building inclusion. you have majorities believing that muslims are an important part of the religious community and even larger majority saying that too many americans regard all muslims as terrorists and as we have just seen, the proposition muslims want to institute sharia law is rejected two-to-one by the american people. so rustling, america is wrestling with islam and islamic america. this is part of an often heated historical pattern. the second i can be much briefer. that is that the sorts of tensions that this report is focused on having to do with islam and also immigration are not just freestanding issues. they have been integrated into the framework of growing political partisan polarization in the united states that is developed really over the past four decades. so you know as robbie has put it, the issues of islam and immigration have now become part of a broader fabric of america's culture wars. with regard, and this is my third point, to immigration, there is a very interesting tension revealed in this survey between, on the one hand, a diffuse majority in favor of fairly capacious and comprehensive immigration reform but on the other hand and intense minority that opposes it. there is more intent -- there is more intensity on -- against the views on the favorable side and american politics, political institutions have a way of giving disproportionate influence to intensity, and that has to do not only with party primaries but the fact that if intensity tends to show up among those parts of the population that are disproportionately likely to participate in the political process, then you have what we in fact see on the issue of immigration and that is this tension between the aggregate numbers on the one hand and the actual rhythm and feel of the political competition on the issue. .4, which is really intriguing. what we call the mormon factor. while it is the case that mormons are still less widely accepted than the jewish and catholics it is nonetheless the case that two-thirds of americans, 67% to be precise, approve of mormons. it is also the case that the hostility to mormons is equally prevalent among liberals and conservatives for very different reasons. approval rates for mormons, nine points higher among republicans than democrats and what they called the white evangelical -- the conventional wisdom not entirely about foundation in the 2008 presidential campaign was that evangelicals were they part of the opposition to mormonism and it turns out the survey reveals that only 34% of white evangelicals regard torments as christians. however, 66% of white evangelicals approve of mormons. what that suggests is that there are features of mormonism other than theology probably having to do with family values and a very traditional lifestyle that these cultural features of mormonism trump theological reservations even in the minds of white evangelicals who are about as likely to approve of mormons as the population as a whole. fifth and finally, age and education. you know, as robbie's charts clearly indicated there does tend to be a very strong age and education effect influencing attitudes towards islam, immigration and a number of other cultural religious issues as well. said the survey indicates all of the expected correlations with regard to african-americans, hispanics, muslims and immigrants patterns of social relations and the importance of religion itself. but, and this will be my concluding point, there were some surprises. we did not -- we expected to find a much bigger divide between the youngest and the oldest americans on the issue of whether reverse discrimination, discrimination against whites has become as important an issue at as discrimination against minorities. we expected to find a significant gap on the question of whether discrimination against minorities remains an important issue in american politics and society today and also on the question, the very dramatic question of whether muslims who commit acts of violence are indeed muslims and the survey did not reveal the kind of age effect that one might have expected. and so there are real discontinuities by age and education but also some important continuities. with that i will subside. [applause] >> thank you very much pill. if i could just reiterate to our audience that if you want to ask a question it is hashtag diversity poll. i think we might christine begin with one of our questions from outside the room when we get to the q&a. i'm grateful to robbie for mentioning the ford foundation is supporting both of us and i particularly want to think of sheila who has been a real friend to us. she has a passion for these issues and also a deep and broad knowledge of these issues so that is a really good combination we are very grateful to her. i also want to welcome my friend melissa rogers who is a nonresident senior fellow and a partner with bill and me on many of our religious and public life projects. if we had pulled other students of religion, religious pluralism and religious freedom and asked who should we invite -- somebody will help me on that -- to be the respondents on the survey they would have come up with dr. dr. muqtedar khan and dr. keeter without any of those demographic breaks. dr. muqtedar muqtedar khan is ar in the department of political science and international relations at the university of delaware. he is the founder of the islamic studies program at the university of delaware and was its first director from 2007 to 2010. his most recent book is debating moderate islam, the geopolitics of islam and the west. he will be our first respondents. dr. jose casanova is one of the world's top scholars in the sociology of religion. that is not a nice thing to say an introduction. that is actually true. he is a professor at the department of sociology at georgetown university. he has the berkeley centers program on globalization, religion and the secular. he has published works in a broad range of subjects including religion and globalization. migration and religious pluralism transnational religions and sociological theory. so i welcome first stop your khan and dr. casanova. and thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you e.j. and thank you robert for inviting me to this exciting discussion. i'm delighted to be back at brookings. i used to be a fellow here for a long time. there are several such surveys that are coming out about muslims and muslim attitudes about america and about american attitudes towards muslims. for me, who is consuming all of these surveys it is an emotional rollercoaster. i looked at a recent survey by gallup, which says that 80% of american muslims approve of obama. maybe they are not reading the news. 66% of the american muslims say they are thriving and happy to be here and they are doing better than anybody else. in terms of religious tolerance towards others, the american muslims, more of them than anybody else, one point about the mormons in the u.s.. that may be very happy and that i looked at the survey and i am really very depressed. , let me tell you the good news or get the good news is that regardless of the nature of the favorability that is reported, it has become obvious that attitude towards islam and attitudes towards muslims has become a constitutive element of american identity. you cannot be an american without having a position on islam and towards muslims. and the kind of position you take about islam and towards muslims will also define the kind of american you are. in that sense, islam is here and has become a part of a americas social, cultural and political identity and its fabric. so that is the most interesting thing that i find. attitudes and change. sometimes data looks different if the question is framed differently. that is the first thing. the second thing that i found was that muslim bindings to me were not surprising. they were concerning, some of the suspicions we have in the trends that we have observed based on several episodes. now we have the numbers that confirms the fears or hopes, depending on how you look at this. the number 47%, 47% of americans disapprove of islam and muslims particularly the disapproval of islam has been quite stable actually since 2002. the first time i saw that was in a pew study survey in 2002 and confirmed again and again and again. so that is constant. but what has changed is why the disapproval. that is to me the most dangerous and the most frightening thing. when you ask people in the past why did you disapprove of muslims or islam, the 47% who did disapprove talked about terrorism. now they talk about sharia. that is dangerous because terrorism is -- of politics changes. if bin laden is killed, if al qaeda is destroyed. that force of disapproval, that source of insecurity, which prompts unfavorable attitudes towards muslims can disappear. but if the source port is favorable attitude towards muslims is muslim adherence to sharia then this is never, ever going to disappear. i just spent a whole month, every living moment of that month, trying to apply sharia in my life. the whole point of ramadan is too fast and pray and to think of god and to internalize and internalize the sharia and muslims do that every year they will do that. so living by the sharia is an important aspect of muslim life and if they are going to be disapproved because of that than we are going to have a perennial problem. i think that is something we need to do, unless we do a better job of educating americans about what the sharia is. in my opinion, 90% of the sharia is already applied and the united states. thou shall not kill, thou shall not cheatsheet, thou show not lie. i wonder if those opposed to sharia if they would find out that murder is prohibited by the sharia, will they approve? killing, robbing, creating krupp shin and society. all of these things are prohibited by the sharia. i have one more comment about the sharia. it is amazing these attitudes towards the sharia. especially by those who are more religious christians and those who are on the side of the republicans. for several decades, many hundred million americans have struggled hard to implement two elements of the christian sharia, banning abortion and preventing marriage. so how do they expect less than 2% of muslims, less than 2% of the american population, how do they expect less than 2% of the population to implement the entire islamic sharia in america? muslims has failed to implement the entire islamic sharia in countries where they have struggled with 100% muslims, 95% muslim, iran 95%. they haven't been successful in implementing. the point is really that sharia is just a prop, and attempts to say we don't like islam and muslims i don't know and i don't care. but if you want to have an excuse here is one. let's try sharia. i think that is what it is. i have one non-islam related -- about this report which i find perplexing and interesting. the favorability numbers towards african-americans are 89%. nearly everybody, 90% is a huge number. so why is race an issue in this country? why do people feel that they institutionalize discrimination in this country? what it tells me is there is no connection between favorability and institutionalized discrimination. so it is quite possible that you could have just favorability numbers very high towards muslims in the u.s. without having institutionalized discrimination against muslims and that is why you find of muslims in america are much much happier than this data actually suggest. that is why two out of three american muslims say they are thriving even though there are nearly half of americans that say they don't like them. there is no connection between surveys the major favorability and institutionalization of discrimination etc.. the second thing i found interesting is that mormons enjoy higher favorability ratings than muslims while -- don't. i'm assuming that the majority of mormons in a large number of atheists are white, so how does religion raise the dynamics play out in this connection. i don't understand and perhaps future study somebody could try to flush that out. they are disliked compared to muslims even though mormons are white. there is an interesting finding in this report, which is the marriage between knowledge and prejudice. this is fascinating. the people claim that they know most of islam are the people who are the most ignorant in my opinion but also the most prejudiced in their own opinion about islam. knowledge apparently is nurturing prejudice and that is because of our game equally new institution called. people who seem to watch "fox news" and trusted the most think that they know more about islam than anybody else and have extremely unfavorable ratings towards muslims. that is really fascinating. in the last two or three years, especially since you been to the mosque issue, islamaphobia has become a campaign strategy for the republican party. nobody cares whether imam is raising money or not for the mosque at wtc. it was only until november that it was such a big issue. i wrote weight until the elections are over and nobody will worry. we will see that issue come up again as we get closer to the next election. so islamaphobia in combination with fox has become a campaign strategy for the republican party. without urges toward muslim herman cain would have no status in this entire republican nomination. if it is one point candidate, i know how to hurt muslims and i can show you how. that seems to be his entire campaign strategy. the second thing that i want to point out is that if you look at this data about the media, you find that this number is very disturbing. americans to trust who trust broadcast news networks are least likely to report knowing a lot about muslims. so only 7% of the people who watch broadcast news say that they know about islam and understand it. people who seem to watch "fox news" seemed to claim that they know a lot about islam and they are prejudiced towards muslims. so i think that a lot of mischief that is being caused by "fox news" is the dividend of the stuff that broadcast news are not doing. if the mainstream news channels did a better job of educating the americans about islam and muslims, then i think that vacuum of knowledge will not be exploited as much by "fox news." and that is an important lesson i think from this report. i also want to talk about the good guys. at first when i read the report the first time i was constantly distracted by all the negatives. when i read at the second time, i said oh my god while bigots will be bigots the good guys are also scary. for example, if you look at the state on the question of feeling of -- of concern, muslims wearing the burqa, muslims at the mosque and muslims praying at airports etc. those who seem to be uncomfortable are 48, 56, 40%. those are really high numbers. and even from those who are democrats, and those who watch public television and those who do not watch "fox news," the numbers of ignorance about islam and prejudice of islam continues to hover around 30%. so while we can blame fox and right-wing leaders and preachers for fostering and nurturing the discourse of hate, against muslims probably, but the others are also not doing very well and that to me is also a worrisome issue. especially for american muslims who see america as their home, there is the idea of permanent deportation that is not possible. now nearly 40% of all american muslims are indigenous muslims and within another 10 or 15 years the majority of american muslims will be indigenous americans. so this whole idea that we will continue to be unaccepting of islam is disturbing. i also would like to add an impression to the -- how am i doing on time? >> pretty close. >> okay. i also have one question. beatitudes, the data that i am interpreting as perhaps prejudicial, how much of that is being affected by the general political climate in this country? the polarization that is taking place in the united states, united states, the perception that obama is not really one of us and this foreign guy from africa who sometimes wears a turbine is take no for our country. you know obama is the only guy i know who is converting to islam in slow motion. you know, and one point he was 30% muslim and now he is 20% muslim. i think by 2012, by the time we are pulling in november he will be 50% muslim. so, and then the joblessness, the insecurity about the economy, and they think a major global restructuring of the united states as a less powerful economic and military entity i think is -- the shock that we are not the big honcho that we used to be, all of that also i think it's manifesting in their prejudices towards primarily islam and muslims and they think that perhaps while it is quite possible that the surveys may be underestimating the amount of prejudice there is towards muslims because nobody wants to tell people that look i am the bigot on the phone when they answer these questions, but even though they might be underestimating the prejudice against muslims that it is also quite possible that it is superficial and reacting to the current economic and political environment. and i think that once things get better, these numbers will get that are too. thank you. [applause] >> well the questioner works their way up i want reminded viewers to remind the viewers that they can comment -- i want to remind viewers they can comment at hashtag diversity pulled. we invite dissent as well as questions are many point of view including perhaps muslims who are republicans or "fox news" viewers. muqtedar thank you for joining our conversation. dr. casanova dr. said dr. casanova it is on the honor to have you here are too. >> i'm thankful for the invitation. i have for brief points or comments which i will keep to two minutes each will be sufficient. first, the relation between private opinion and public opinion, what we actually call public opinion is privately self opinions made public by such surveys of course as this one. it is important -- change by being made public and what are they reinforcing loops between the media, private prejudices in a positive sense and prejudgment approaching the negative sense of a not write views of things. so in the survey results we saw a striking look between the media, the media we watch and the pre-judgments we have, especially of course this comes extremely striking in the case of "fox news." and one question i have is do we have any evidence that, when public opinion is made public it ever leads to changing our prejudices or are we only reinforcing what we see in our selves in certain groups. i am not concerned about it so the public opinion reinforces that i belong to the right group. i don't think ever public opinion leads to changing prejudice him. this of course is a very interesting issue. the second is the striking points between views, opinions attitudes and prejudices towards immigrants. the striking consistencies are all groups in america, religious groups, white evangelical protestants, catholics, black partisans but also liberals and conservatives. they are very similarly favorable or unfavorable view towards muslims and this is striking because an american muslims and immigrants are two radically different groups. most immigrants are muslims and most muslims are -- in america muslims are a small proportion of immigrants and in one pull muslims are not -- so the fact that the two are put together is very interesting. imagine if actually they would be the same group. then of course the prejudice would be doubled which is what imagine what happens in europe. in europe, to be in the immigrant and to be of no racially -- imagine in the 19th century blacks and catholics. most catholics were blacks and most blacks were catholics. most muslims were hispanic and most hispanics were muslims or of course the prejudice would be of course very very striking. it is very interesting to us this question of how the two things are linked together. .. i'm not sure in the most striking that less favorable ambivalent views to words them in the hispanics immigration but here the important issue is how the immigration enters. it's a good thing for the minorities and in the country the prejudice we must watch had it not been this the case and we see for instance how the muslims also less favorable reviews are still 58% of americans not islam but of american muslims, much higher than the only 45% who have favorable views while 46% said unfavorable and the most striking difference with tear up where in europe you have the fusion of the religious prejudice, secular prejudice, politically right prejudice, left, the extreme right, the catholic center, the liberal sector, all of them gang up on muslims and islam. thank god in america we are divided. [laughter] we are divided and therefore we cannot to gang up on them. as in this respect to de nativism in america in the 19th century is easily unviable from the view because precisely the american society is changing so dramatically but also precisely because the majority is not possible. it would be precise in the republican majority and the white majority in the 19th century it is not possible to the society any more racially much more diverse and it hasn't even appears in the category. the age has disappeared. the chinese work in the most racially discriminated nativist attack. finally on the fourth and final point about the future about are they so much more open because as it points out they are the most religiously and ethnically diverse generation and the country and its one interesting point or is it because they're so young, namely the question is for the local port and as they grow older they will also become less tolerant of the diversity and this is of course the issue about young people being less religious. young people are always less religious and they become more religious and get married and have children. so this we know and this has been an issue that all argue against people using the evidence of the next generation therefore the american people are going to be in was religious because the generations are less religious. it is the communication of both factors and they are distinguished is disaggregate what is characteristic of the generation because they are young and what it is because they represent the future of the country. think you. [applause] i have this question in my mind of someone express's a private opinion and a forest and there's no pollster around to record of you what is the public opinion? what a wonderful presentation. before you go, raviv just wanted to put a few other numbers on the table in response and presentation and then we will go to the twitter feet and then opened up for questions but we will keep also going to the viewers on c-span. >> thanks, ej. there's one more thing i can respond to but i want to take a couple moments that may help put a few more things on the ground related to the things that dr. kahn raised. one is the source of about knowledge, knowledge of islam in particular and about the belief and practice of the muslims. the source of knowledge matters. interestingly enough dr. kahn said that it's true that those who said the most report knowing more because than those who have other news sources. however, on this question there were two groups that say they know more than others and the other curtis public television viewers who tend to be on the opposite end of the opinions spectrum on this particular question so what we have is those who say they must trust public television saying that they know a lot and those who however the numbers are small even for those groups most say they don't know a lot but they are higher for the two groups and the difference is those who say the most watched fox news or twice that court is like twice the size of their group the most trust so there is a kind of asymmetry in that regard. the other thing i want to just raise is how much is this affected by the polarization of the country and i want to reemphasize the point i do think that it's right as dr. kahn said to put an explanation on this that having the opinion on islamic and on the immigration and immigrants is well is becoming a kind of defining feature of the american public debate and how people locate themselves in the ideological circles as well, and that i think we kind of identified as a looming issue about a year ago and we got evidence that that is coming into the provision. finally on the question of the correlation, you know, the kind of views of muslims and immigrants we do see the striking patterns. however, it is clear there's a correlation so we ran the correlation analysis to see the favorability of muslims connected with and it is statistically significant but very modest and the favorability of the muslims and hispanics and the correlation is specifically statistic but very modest so it is there but it is very complicated. it isn't a one-to-one correlation and there's different dynamics happening in that debate. and the last thing that both of you raised is this high favorability rating and then some policy issues there doesn't translate in a one-to-one direction that's absolutely true to read a couple reasons may be and it is clearly the case that when these were all telephone surveys people call and sort of answer and as a human being, stranger on the other end of the line asking questions something sociologists are talking about is the social desirability that me and fleet numbers and we know for example the number of people who attend religious services on a weekly basis is probably about double the number of people ought to lie there on any given sunday. it's the kind of desirability of fact and there probably aren't enough of you is how the number of people say they actually attend religious service on a weekly basis of america and people understand understanding the direction that the social desirability effect works is actually quite interesting so if there's a social desire ability that is and fleeting for a simple favorability numbers it tells you something about what people expect is acceptable and the society and that truly matters for the debates. for how the iran and the last thing about the melanie >> caller: ward or lifecycles is a huge debate in the sociological circles when people get older, kids from a mortgage to become more conservative. you're right every generation is less religious, the younger generation because they tend to join churches and they have church but there's good evidence this generation is less religious than evin previous generations were at this point in time in their life cycle so there's something new and different happening with religion and the unaffiliated millennials generation and this generation is more diverse and just one point on that that one of the things we find this to be predictors on these issues is true on issues like gay and lesbian rights that social relationships matter for people's views and when we run their regression models to tease out what are the most independent predictors of one's view on this is kind of issues that relationships matter and it's true in both the case of immigrants and muslims that never having contact with someone muslim is a hi predictor of having a sort of negative view towards muslims and the same is true never having contact with his genex is a kind of high predictor, independent predictor holding all kind of other things constant. so there's certainly a sense the millennials generation be the most diverse that we have ever seen ever is those things as long as the social relationships stay intact as they move to the life cycle and the way they are now will continue to be a factor >> i had with a french pollster who observed that americans over report attendance at religious services because they feel guilty when they don't go and the french under report they feel guilty when they do. i had no idea there is a scientific finding but it's a wonderful observation. >> the sociability in the >> the sociability in thern europeans seem to be modern to be secular therefore they should not be as religious as they are and when you ask them they tell you 30% they go, but only 20% are religious so the scripture of the resource as well as the actual practice. thank you so much, professor. belli will give you a chance to respond if we can go to our tweet first or do you have something --. the views expressed in the survey drive you all over this already but just again neil with the progress of change campaign committee in washington wanted to see any analysis of the causation between the media consumption and the public opinion is a kind of do they have their views to have negative perceptions or does the data show that negative perception watch fox and then secondly the other question that came up came through the interfaith alliance, one of the fathers wanted to know of the 12% who don't think religious freedom is a foundation of the u.s. what exactly do they believe in and did you actually do exploration of that as well? >> we did not ask a follow-up question what we think it is founded on. we have some other data that has a fairly high number of americans who will say we actually overlap them what say that america is founded as a christian nation. that would be the alternative to that question rather than found on religious liberty. and again, there's probably to do the analysis there's probably some overlap between people who would say in some ways both inconsistent. the question on the causation is the thing that sort of just haunts the political scientists, kind of sorting out the causation we can't fully sort out the correlation is not causation, right, that's the mantra of the social science but what we can say, the closest we can do is we did run regression models to tease out whether there are other intervening variables that somehow or explaining for example. >> fox news on sorry, but on the media question whether the media influences views or whether people will certain views gravitate toward certain media because they hold those we can't sort that all and to be our questions are about the most trusted media sources and frequency of the use but people say the most trust the television news source. they hold and a lot of other demographic variables constant. what we see is that trusting fox news does show it to be a solid independent predictor of the views on muslims and views on islam that is holding constant being conservative, being a republican region gender education and a bunch of other demographic variables but that doesn't cause the issue causality but what it does is it is not some intervening variable let chollet explaining that that it's actually the most trusting fox news is an independent predictor apart from in fact it is quite as powerful as any other thing in the model living in the south and other things you might think of the would be strong predictors. >> one of the interesting things about fox is the second biggest owner of fox is a muslim in saudi arabia. that is an interesting fact in the profit-making enterprise and then gives $20 million to the universities to combat what fox is doing. figure that out. if you look abroad media studies you will find that the reader has changed they don't go looking for information, we are shopping for evidence that will confirm our pre-existing opinion on certain issues. so i have a feeling that the fox audience is preselected by the attitude they already have. but fox does is talk legitimizes by look i have this information and i have this expert on islam to simply come here and verify your work about islam so they are merely combating to confirm the prejudice and opinions that the consumers already have. >> we were speculating this at breakfast with some folks and on the one hand as robbie importantly underscored that fox news or the media consumption question generally is partly attitudinal as well as behavior that a naughty inslee guinn 65, 35 on one side and come out 83 code 20 and have a complete change in view and reinforce the new views but this goes beyond the confines of the survey to try to figure out what it means. so, who in our present audience -- what's bring a microphone to the front, our old friend. mr. mitchell. >> garate mitchell from the natural report. when we last met with your earlier survey on american values it seems to me that bill made the observation that one of the most salient pieces of information that came out of that was coming and i believe as he made it he looked towards the white house and said it would be important for someone who understood the survey to understand the importance of american exceptional was some. today -- and by the way there seem to be some moves by the president shortly thereafter that suggest maybe he had understood that. so, today bill begins his presentation by quoting a chester san america the country with the soul of a church and then says in that church is america or americanism. and i wonder if you could flesh that out all little bit for us. what does that mean, and whether that is directed at the white house or candidates and other parts what is to take away, what does that really mean? >> that exceptional question. how much time do we have? >> let me be inadequately had briefed but i will stay very close to the survey itself in an effort to answer that question. as we reflected on the the survey thinking about the essays we narrowed a very rough and ready answer to your question down to the three propositions. number one, a broad acceptance of american constitutional principles and values. now obviously there is a big zone of contestation but there is also a big zone of agreement among americans in the rough and ready way as to what those are. second is buying into the american dream, however temporarily counterfactual that commitment may be. in the sense that people who want to become americans are expected to embrace the personal responsibility, family responsibility contribution to the community etc. that general basket and third, you are expected to accept one of the principal symbolism practices of american community that is the english language and the survey that a lot of non-immigrant americans have reservations about a lot of immigrant americans on the ground that is a stick to themselves and don't learn english and are seen as forming enclosed communities. that is a big problem. so, those are three propositions about the religion of america being american is some that i think are completely consistent with the findings of the survey. let me take the opportunity to draw out some of the implications of the parallel that i drew between the position of catholics in america and the 19th century it is very may well be when you simply look at american catholics in the 1870's and 90's at the time it was around romanism and rebellion and controversy and things of that sort and what people thought about, with them on catholic americans thought about, catholics namely the theocratic tendencies, the logical objections for liberals and constitutionalism to some foreign entity, the pope, all of those may have been counterfactual believes none the less american catholics took those seriously and did their part to rebut them coming and one of the things that i think the representatives of the american muslim community should ask themselves is whether they now have a historical task they did not choose that must discharge to rebut the propositions that stand in the way of their full acceptance and integration. in the case of american catholics it meant not only rebutting falsehoods but also making important doctrinal shifts that removed the other points of disagreement. there are things that muslim and america could do in the next two decades of the 21st century. to pound home the point that there is a distinction between lifting a life according to the sharia law as an individual or as a community as opposed to the theo craddock and pulse to describe in the wall of the land because that is the question of the survey. it's nothing to do with the communal observance. it has everything to do with the expansion of that to the legal and constitutional framework of the united states and there were similar fears about catholics of 19th century so it seems to me that you told half the story that there's another half of the story. there's a reciprocal responsibility on the part of the muslim community. and i am making that point especially because i am struck as a student of american history by the fact that the reaction against american muslims after 9/11 wasn't nearly as severe as the reaction against japanese-americans after december 7th, 1941 and i was struck by the fact that president george w. bush was coming for his share of criticism did a lot more than fdr to the force of prejudice against such groups so there has been some reciprocity on them on the muslim americans saw it coming and i think that there is room for a sort of broad dialogue here. >> could i say very quickly i want to see one of the things that harmed me looking at these numbers is thinking about history because i think two things. one on the language front, there was always the view that the new immigrant groups were not assimilating fast enough on the language ground. we always had for renehan language media going back in our history. second, the parallel between catholics in the antiislamic feeling it just strikes both of us as a very, very strong and as bill suggested there has been changed a few will there was change over time on both sides of that though it took a very long time one can measure the distance between the house with campaign in 1928 and the john kennedy campaign in 1960. that was a lot of years. nonetheless, it did eventually change although i suppose if you are a muslim american that is an awful long time to wait but it has happened. >> i don't think anybody who had any kind of leadership position in the community would disagree with what they had to say. in fact the community has been conscious of this for more than a decade and a half. for example, the perception that islam and democracy are incompatible and i dedicated my life to make the point that it is not, and that has two things. bonn is diffusing the misconception about islam other than the media, but also required the reforming interpretation itself. so what you're suggesting is to change the perceptions of islam. so both of those have been on the issue of islam and democracy. in 1999 there's a significant amount of american muslims saying that democracy is quicker and belief and not what is no longer an issue, nobody talks about it. similarly, there are other aspects of which -- not to discuss economic reform the american muslim leaders and imams and thinkers have been working on this issue. what is the challenges that the community is small, the media as a result of 9/11 is extremely intense, and we also had this phenomena of ongoing immigration in the new congress. so by the time he have educated your mean believe, the base has expanded for people who are coming from other parts of the world and so, when muslims are busy in gauging the media, they also don't have the resources and the time to reeducate the new entrants into the community and that is for muslim americans no doubt about it. >> i'm going to bring several questioners at once so other people can get in. >> if i may add a constructive comparison. in both cases muslims were before september 11th but for very different reasons. in america they were unreasonable because they were integrated as individuals, they have higher levels of and come than the average american and the have no demographic concentration manila slum neighborhoods. so they were invisible for good and for that. finally, there were no prejudice is because they were unknown. this was a nation of islam, the only public disability in america. in europe because they were turks, pakistanis. there were no muslims in general before 2000, there were no muslims in great britain, there are no muslims in france. they became muslims and in moderate they became muslims. before there were turks and no muslims, this is an interesting comparison. there were clearly prejudiced against them as ethnic groups but other religious groups and the prejudice against islam itself that has become the most important characteristic. >> thank you for that acute observation. that's very helpful. let's go right across the middle. the lady and is that sort of red, please call and if you can see who you are the would be great. >> i noticed you said the surveys are the most positive indicators for the acceptance of the social contact but in the rural areas obviously there are not as many muslims and i wonder if you would look into that i wondered particularly about the role of the fis leaders in particular speaking positively about muslims as a way of countering islamophobia or what otherwise would be positive to counter? >> can we pass the microphone, can somebody stay with the microphone. this gentleman on the left and that gentleman up there. >> i left in the geographic sense. i have no idea where your views are. >> you've commented that the america is founded on the principal of religious freedom. also that we see that decline of religious practice in the millennials group, and an that informs our morality what is the forward-looking -- what is that suggesting for the forward-looking view and i would raise the question specifically to we have any idea or any reaction about what we as americans are willing to accept in our society? so if we have the perception that muslims are terrorists, are we willing to accept acts of violence against the communities that were this is headed? i would raise that as a community question that we need to consider seriously. >> thank you three much. there is an interesting question on that subject in the survey that can be reported. thank you. >> ellen crowley teach immigration history at american university in byman on resident fellow at the migration policy institute. i'm wondering whether or not you taken your data and contextualized it with other opinions data of the earlier era. for example a lot of the questions you asked and the responses you got are remarkably similar to some of the gallup polls conducted about jews in the late 1930's, very, very similar, and i think it would make an interesting comparison to do that, and that it would enrich when you are saying because in fact there has been enormous progress and diminishing anti-semitism and perhaps offers some optimism as well as the pessimism and then what about the issue of recession and the war? one of the things i thought was missing from the presentation is any mention of the kind of economic tensions that a rise from the recession and often at least in the earlier waves of immigration have led to the intensity of nativism and the intensity even of prejudice against a particular religious and racial groups. >> thank you. that's a great point. i did a survey. there is strong and approval. the jews are one point ahead of catholics, which has absolutely no statistical significance but is a great fact use of a cocktail party. [laughter] >> yes? >> first on the social context question you are right the muslim population as is pointed out is less than 2% of the population and geographically concentrated, so it's not evenly spread over the country. so it is probably going to have limited nationwide effect. fortunately i can say this, the effect is there that the sort of thing that's most when there is having never talked with a muslim is the sort of fact this stands as an independent predictor about muslims. however it is less strong if there is any heartening thing it is illustrative on the van it is having never talked to hispanic influences anyone who's spent a the two hispanic influence on immigration, so those relationships are on immigration which i would maybe give to you it is still there but it is not as powerful. the things ahead of it again are the media, trust in media, a conservative ideology, living in the south, all of those are a little bit more powerful than in the independent predictors' than never talked with a muslim but the other piece of it is i don't see a silver bullet here because there is also no education as a pointed out earlier it depends what the source of knowledge is. it's not just getting the facts out there are going to completely solve the problem. i think it has to be a sort of, you know, sort of more general familiarity with is on that is maybe less a ideologically driven and it's a great tool. i used to be in higher education it's a great role for higher education to kind of to some of this, kind of give objectives of the study of islam and muslims in america and we are seeing some things like where does for example the history show up and primary and secondary school textbooks. is that a part of the curriculum or not? is that part of the american story and that is the biggest part of the story is that part of the american story or not and one of the things you will see with millennial is it will increasingly be part of the american story. one anecdote we talked about president bush so far as i know president george w. bush was the first to use the word mosque in the context of saying american churches, synagogues and mosques he included in the kind of landscape as after 9/11 and i think that itself is a significant marker of the inclusion of the institutions and the society. on the question of the gallup context, you are absolutely right. the survey can out of the field august 14th, so on the academic timeline we are sprinting to get the results out. but you're absolutely right doing that would be really interesting and really nailed down the point. but ej and bill makes the point that not with a democrat point in the essay and a section they write. we don't of the trend of the recession i wish we had a longer trend on the particular question we have to sort that out. the millennial point being that is religious. let me make one quick thing here. the millennials are less religious but it means by that i mean on a number of measures they are unaffiliated, officially kind of that doesn't mean that they are easiest it means they are not affiliated and there's a big number of them that fall into the spiritual but not religious category if you ask if religion is important to their lives a large number of them say yes so they are not antireligious. i want to be about that. they are formally affiliated. it is a less hard stand it is just the sort of not being formally affiliated with religion and there's one other question. islamic the question and the survey that too many americans believe that muslims are terrorists, something like that i think what report the number which goes on if you will the positive side of the ledger in terms of the views but still was split. i've is addressing a colleague of mine talking about muslims and he kept saying our muslims are not like that and i said what you mean our muslims? ayman american muslim. what you are trying to say let me tell you even those who don't know muslims would like to say that there are muslims who are better than the muslims in europe and our muslims are not like the muslims of iran so even those that have had no contact would be predisposed to having a slightly positive delta attitude relatively speaking. but also this clearly shows anybody that knows a muslim personally has a very positive views about muslims and does not have the striking the high unfavorable views about islam. but in the republican party is very interesting. even though people in texas and oklahoma that have never met muslims but to somebody they like like rick perry who is very close or christie from new jersey, these are people that are not talking in the islamophobia language. i have a feeling that if muslims can reach out at least to the leaders and the opinion makers the fact that not every american can no muslim can be part of a affected by muslims knowing who shares their attitude and their opinion making for half the american muslims particularly is really gargantuan. >> tell me how much time we have left because i want to go back to the twitter feed. we will begin and end with twitter if somebody can bring a microphone just pass along this one piece. >> one more thing i could have included in the positive views but didn't make it for time we also had a question about too many americans think that all muslims are terrorists do you agree or disagree? six of ten americans agree with the statement to many americans think all muslims are terrorists. so there is a clear sense that a strong majority of americans think that muslims have been judged in a harsh manner in this point. >> christine and then we will bring in a couple of more. >> this comes from and water in washington. the u.s. muslim population seems to be generally describing themselves as a thriving and part of the american social fabric despite the negative views described in the report. does this reflect that there are an insular community not aware of the public perceptions about them? >> dr. khan? >> when i looked at the numbers the question that kept bothering me all have the american muslims become so socialized and politicized that they are gaining when they are being asked questions are answering in a strategic way. but then i thought maybe everybody answers questions in a strategic way i always do. >> you are a social scientist. >> what are we trying to find out? let me tweak the data. that is one possibility to read the other thing is that american muslims particularly immigrant muslims when the contrast why is in the u.s. from where they have come, it is america at its worst has been better than many of the places they have come from at its best. so even though they recognize that there is the height islamophobia, the worst thing that can happen is getting off the plane or giving someone a ticket when you don't deserve it or a condescending remarks and you are a legal then you get locked up but that's a different issue. back home many of the country's you could be tortured for a similar non-offense. so for the american muslims particularly to realize that they are doing financially better and they are doing very well on the skill of the discrimination plus all the american muslims realize that they are free to practice the kind of religion they want in america as opposed to other muslim countries even in the so-called islamic countries there's only a certain kind of islam which is permitted for the practice. so the religious freedom is the first thing that hits the immigrant muslims and the second is economic opportunities and in spite of the recession they do well. >> thank you for that because understanding dr. casanova make the point that the difference between america and europe in this respect that on the whole people that are part of the emigration from the muslim countries have done well in the u.s. and the surveys are not a reflection about the assistance of prejudice or the success in the united states for the most part. >> i lived 22 days in oxford as a fellow and nearly 22 years in the u.s.. i have more incident of the discrimination and racism than i experienced in 22 days in england than i have and 20 years in the u.s.. this is the fact. >> peggy over here if we can bring a microphone. let's do three questions. here, back there or friend and i am sorry, we in the back. forgive me. my former students, i hope he will forgive me. >> congressional correspondent with the hispanic outlook, higher education. i write a lot about immigration, and especially with hispanics, immigration is about jobs, it's about work. so naturally with your orientation towards religion, i think the tone seems to be more that immigration is a civil right, and i would love to see in some of your questionnaires what percentage of americans who think the immigration is a civil rights, which of course it isn't, and how many think that being here in the country illegally is a civil right. this kind of orientation makes it a moral issue when it's really about jobs so i also agree with the gentleman behind me that there was a lack of the impact of the recession. so another question would be interesting is how many americans think that illegal immigrants are doing jobs that americans do or do they really think that all the illegal immigrants do jobs that americans want to or don't do or can't do, and i think that you would get a different feel about that if you enforce the immigration law its anti-immigrant and i don't think it is, and we are talking about job opportunity in the recession. >> thank you very much and then passed back to my former students i feel guilty. >> rachel, the communications on monday. i first want to start by thanking robbie and ej and bill forethoughtful poll and all of you for a very insightful presentation that's great. dr. khan my question is focused at you. you talk about how the broadcast news could play more of a role in educating americans perhaps about muslims and i wanted to turn it back to how you thought the president should be doing today some pieces of the post have an article feeling ignored of home how they are noting that president obama has visited any mosque yet since he was president and i'm wondering whether you have any insight with the president could be doing on the innovative ideas, and also with a muslim community has been in touch with television, and sort of hollywood because you know, we've all seen the role that television shows and how we would have played with gay rights for example. >> just pass it right back and then this gentleman over here if we can bring a microphone to him and get them both in. >> a quick question from robbie on the fox news correlation. did you find in the survey what percentage of those that trusted fox news identified as well as independent or democrat and were there enough of them that use all the same kind of difference that you saw among fox news republicans and others to kind of suggest the stronger variable if there were a enough of them? >> proving he was brilliant in georgetown, thank you very much. >> i teach down the street here. i have an anecdote in search of a polling question but have sacked in to build. i had a student just this last summer who is an egyptian academic and so i asked him about the mubarak and so forth and he seemed very early and how much he loved to visit paris, and after this exchange i asked him what about this poll post mubarak that said an overwhelming majority of the egyptians favor the death penalty for congress from islam and you said yes, absolutely. anyone who would renounce his religion is capable of any crime whatsoever and i was astonished so i asked him to spell it out and he was very adamant. i'm wondering whether the question that you've raised on sharia law touches on this attitude or whether you have any other data about the attitudes of muslims in america whether they adhere to the overwhelming majority of the sentiment in egypt has detected by that. >> thank you. thank you very much. that's a good question. but i will do is give everyone a shot at responding to these questions and making a closing comment and i will just go right down the panel with dr. casanova. >> we must remember that weeks before september 11th, president bush and president fox of mexico trying to fix the immigration problem. they were trying to introduce dual citizenship mexicans and america said it was unthinkable after satori 11th but what i want to point out is the bringing together, the linking of the issues on the immigration is one of course of the consequence of september 11th. that securing the borders became a particular issue after september 11th and in the borders they took issues now of security and jobs in the recession come so the precision of these issues, immigration, security, islam and of course jobs but that is what is making the issues so critical. >> dr. khan? >> i went to start commenting that the media. if you look at the media before and after 9/11 there has been an exponential improvement in the positive coverage of islam. the media have done positive stories great ones like the empire by pbs, really every mystery and law and order shall have done positive episodes on islam etc. but this is a huge country so this tends to be more than what is done. not only that but the muslims have become part of the media. any muslim who could put together the three sentences became an op-ed columnist. every face of all "washington post" and salon.com, a "new york times" has muslims right so they are not implicated in the media and its coverage. it's part of that that muslims are endorsing what is happening overseas when the explosion, one mosque being blown in pakistan, one pakistani immigrant trying to blow up times square and then ought positive work that has been done for a long time is completely negated. so that is one of the reasons why i think that the negative attitudes endure because the shocking impact of the image is depicted, and continues to happen in a love muslim world were here. so i think that it is really doing a pretty good job that needs to of moving the broadcasting corporation did something called the mittal mark on the prairie. this is a fantastic, the show that's been going on for several years. it's a shame and no one brought it to the u.s.. all you have to do is a big and you will get it. so that is something that there has been no sustained effort at combating. elon's government did a great job of sustaining the attempt to combat by producing the most expensive public television show of and i iranian falling in love with a jew during the holocaust in paris and is embarrassing that there hasn't been such a significant effort in the u.s. to generally combat this. the second point i want to make is about a similar question when muslims are asked about the implementation of sharia you ask and they are thinking yet the most important thing is the leading in the one so everywhere in the world muslims want but when others who are not muslims think of sharia they think of the taliban so there are these two different things that they are talking about when they are talking about sharia. so i suspect even for a long time the muslims are going to have a problem on how to combat this perception about muslims with regards to shelia because i suspect that in private a large number of muslims would like to see it implemented whatever it means which means they are about to pray and fast and build islamic schools but that doesn't mean we want to force you to fast and force others to pray. that is not with your thinking. so i think that if the sharia law in this dangerous the way that it's been handled in the media and i think that it will continue to endure for a while between scirica before they become strict about it and others become more compassionate and aggressive in addressing this issue. being short, let me pick up on this point because i do think it is an example of a doctrinal problem that serves as an irritant, a symbolic irritant being precise. the classic american understanding of the free exercise and provision is including the proposition that you are free both to join the community of your choice and to exit from that community without any civil disabilities or penalties and the eyes of the law. so the proposition that it should be punished by death is a direct affront to free exercise of religion as americans understand. and if i were to give to follow on the analogy with catholicism, you know, i would urge as a n doctrinal matter that muslim theologians in america do some work on the question of the stance towards apostasy should be, and that is not a simple matter i know, but it is very fundamental because to have a majority of muslims and a muslim majority nation standing firmly for the proposition that it ought to be punished by death scares americans. >> i want to move we have to close down because we are running overtime. i'm sorry. i knew that would open a big discussion. robbie jones to close. >> i want people to get to all of them in the time we have but one thing you're absolutely right about immigration be related to jobs. and we have asked in the past about immigrants who do jobs and i can get you the number the last time we ask that question. i don't have a off the top of my head. it's a sizable number of americans who say they do jobs that americans don't do. don't, that americans won't do i think is the will be asked the question pulaski the wording after we are done, and on immigration we do try to ask the question in multiple ways to get the complexity of the answer so we can kind of see not just one shot but here's how it looks if you ask in different ways and we report on all of them so you can see it. on the fox news connection we can't break down just because the sample size limitation we can't break down independent or democrats who say they trust fox news and that is mostly because that group is dominated by republicans so those groups are so small to break down the one thing to say the which i want to emphasize here is that those republicans is a trust fox news are sort of more opposed on both immigration and favorable attitudes toward muslims. republicans who watched any other news source look like the general population so it makes quite a difference not only in the general population but among the conservative groups that fox news in fact continues to kind of health and affect their but one thing i think we want to see is kind of a bigger point that if we step back one of the things we are seeing here to go back to the term of rustling it is a fundamental principle that goes back to the founding of the country, and the idea of american exceptional the sum was raised and goes to why the stakes are high because in the previous survey that we are releasing here with e.j. and bill and americans say that america has a special place and that god has granted america and a special place in human history and one of the things we see here is americans are really concerned about how recent immigrants particularly muslims and latinos are changing american society. one tidbit i will leave you with is a little bit of a conundrum we asked the question about whether immigrants are changing, recent immigrants are changing american communities on the ground the people's local communities add about four of ten saber change in american communities a lot, and the country was split on the this limit majority saying there was a good thing, the four in matane and the big partisan divide. when we asked about american society, interestingly enough, we got higher rates saying that they were changing american society them we did changing communities on the grounds of there's the perception gap sure that even if all local level people aren't seeing such high levels of change, they are sensing or having a perception that the immigrants are changing american society and interestingly enough the same division about 52% say a good thing and the partisan divide on the generational divide on the question, and the interesting thing is there was and a logical device on the question about the society about changing perception of a changing society there is no pity the budget will decide on the perception and change of the communities it is a kind of interesting tidbit i'm going to leave you on the differential perceptions of on the ground forces the kind of more symbolic thing of how does this change america and what we think of as america? >> i just want to close by saying americans often have complicated views on important questions not only because of polarization but also because they are torn come across pressured and still working through what they think. so, be aware of anyone who says confidently americans seem that unless they add americans also think that and i want to salute robbie for reminding us of all of those also's and comcast and jones and all of you and the wider audience and our highly informed c-span audience for joining us today. thank you very much. [applause] >> the postmaster general warned today that the u.s. postal service but he changed political history. the plant at .. 2 >> postal service, an iconic american institution since the 18th century, can survive in the 21st century. it is hard to believe that it does come to this, but it has. so much of our nation's progress is interwoven with the history of the postal service. if you look at some old maps of america, you see that a lot of the roads that we use today started out as colonial post roads. as our nation pushed west before the railroads were built, the post office created the pony express to keep america connected with its frontiers. and the post office subsidies for air mail in the early days of aviation helped jump-start the fledgling airline industry. through parts of four centuries now the postal system has actually helped make as a nation, connecting the eric and people to one another, moving commerce and culture coast-to-coast and to all points in between. postal service has also bound the individual towns and neighborhoods together with the local post office often serving as the center of civic life. over the years, the post office has grown very large. today the united states postal service is the second-largest employer in the united states, second only to walmart. and with 32,000 post offices, it has more domestic retail outlets than walmart, starbucks, and mcdonald's to mind. sadly, these impressive statistics belie a troubled business on the verge of bankruptcy. business lost to the internet and more recently, of course, to america's economic troubles have led to a 22% drop in male handled by the postal service and a gross revenue decline of more than $10 billion over the past five years. this year the postal service is expected to have a deficit of approximately $8 billion, maybe more for the second year in a row. the postal service will also soon bob up against its $50 billion credit line with the u.s. treasury, which could force it to default on a five and a half billion dollar payment into the health care fund for its retirees, which would normally be paid at the end of this month. the bottom line is that if nothing is done the postal service will run out of money and be forced to severely slash service and employees. that is the last thing our struggling economy and country needs right now. despite its shrinking business, the postal service still remains a powerful force in america's economy and american life. it's still delivers 563 million pieces of mail every day, even with the rise of e-commerce, most businesses don't send out bills, and most families don't pay those bills, except through the u.s. postal service. while magazine deliveries are also down also because of competition with the internet and the recession, 90 percent of all periodicals, about 300 million paid subscriptions per year worth billions of dollars to the publishing and advertising industries and bringing about the employment of millions of people are still delivered by the postal service. only the post office will go that last mile to ensure delivery throughout the country to everyone's address, and even using the grand canyon and snowshoes in alaska. last year, just to show the diversity, and the american people know this, last year the postal service process to over six and a half million passport applications. right now there is no other federal agency with the national presence that is ready or able to take on that task. now, why are we here today? before the homeland security and governmental affairs committee became the homeland security and governmental affairs committee it was the government affairs or government operations committee, and in that capacity it has long had jurisdiction over the united states postal service. that is why we are convening this hearing today. we are going to hear several proposals this afternoon about what can be done to create greater efficiency, close the postal service deficit and give it the flexibility and tools that it needs to survive and thrive in america's future. postmasters general donato recently offered a plan that he believes would save $20 billion return the postal service to solvency by 2015, and that plan is the immediate impetus of this hearing, to both give him the opportunity to explain it, describe it, argue for it, and to give others the opportunity to comment on it and, indeed, to oppose it, which some will do. the proposal includes eliminating saturday delivery, closing approximately 3,700 post offices, shrinking the work force by as much as 220,000, pulling out of the federal employee health care plan to create a separate postal service employee health plan, doing away with the defined retirement plan for new employees and transitioning to a fund contribution plan and asking that almost $7 billion in overpayments to the federal employee retirement system be returned to the postal service. these are self evidently been told, tough, and controversial proposals. as for myself, i don't feel i know enough about them yet to reach a conclusion. that is why i look forward to the testimony of the witnesses today, but i do know enough about the real crisis that the postal service is in to appreciate the postmaster's courage in making these proposals. i am also grateful that my fellow senators have been leaders on behalf of this committee in dealing with the postal service problems and,o indeed, were the architects of the postal reform bill that passed back a few years ago. each of my colleagues, senator collins and carper, have now introduced legislation to deal with the current postal crisis. i am encouraged to learn that president obama wilson offer an administration plan to respond to the postal service's fiscal crisis. so, i have an open mind on the various proposals that have been made, but to me the bottom line is that we must act quickly to prevent a postal service collapse and enact a bold plan to secure its future. the united states postal service is not an 18th-century relic. it is a great 21st century national asset, but times are changing rapidly, and so, too, must the postal service if it is to survive. senator collins. >> thank you, mr. chairman. first, mr. chairman, let me thank you for holding what is truly an urgent hearing to examine possible remedies for the postal service's dire and rapidly deteriorated financial condition. the drumbeat of news about the exhilarating lapses at the postal service underscores the need for fundamental changes. the postal service is seeking a far-reaching legislation to allow the service to establish its own health benefits program, administered its own retirement system, and lay off its employees. this is a remarkable turnabout from its previous proposals. i appreciate that the postal service has now come forth with several big picture ideas, although many of the details remain unclear. as we search for remedies, we must keep in mind a critical fact, the postal service plays an essential role in our national economy. if the postal service were a private corporation, its revenue would rank just behind boeing and just ahead of home depot on the the fortune 500 list, but even that comparison worth the one used by the chairman understates the economic importance of the postal service. the postal service directly supports a 1.1 trillion dollar mailing industry that employs approximately 8.7 million americans in fields diverse as direct mail, catalog, paper manufacturing, and financial services. many of these businesses can't return to readily available alternatives. they depend on a healthy, efficient postal service. but as vital as a stable postal service is to our economy, at its current financial status is abysmal. the most recent projections are that the postal service will lose some $9 billion this year. that is $700 million more than the deficit that the postal service was projecting just at the beginning of this year. this hemorrhaging comes on top of eight and a half billion dollars in red ink last year, and 3.8 billion lost in 2009. unfortunately there is little cause to believe that an improvement in the overall economy will stop this slide. the fact is that americans are unlikely to abandon e-mail and text messaging and return to first class mail. the postal service's own projections now resume declining revenue all the way out to the year 2020. the losses in mail volume are even more dramatic. last year the postal service handled 78 billion pieces of first-class mail. that number is now projected to fall to 39 billion pieces in 2020. this represents the 50% decline in first class mail volume over ten years. i want to give the new postmaster general great credit for coming forth with more creative proposals to stem this crisis. at times, however, the postal service response in the past has been inadequate and even counterproductive. some would cut directly into the revenue that the postal service so desperately needs while leaving customers with diminished and insufficient service. consider, for example, the debate over post office closing. now, let me make very clear, there are undoubtedly some post offices in maine and elsewhere that can be consolidated or moved into a nearby retail stores. this simply is not an option for many rural or remote areas. in some communities closing the post office would lead customers without feasible alternatives and access to postal services. that would violate the universal service mandate that is that justification for the postal service's monopoly on the delivery of first-class mail. let me give you a couple of examples from my home state, maine. two islands, post offices, good examples. the tennant this is 20 miles off the coast of maine. it receives mail five, rather than six, days a week and only in good weather. closing this post office or moving it into a large retail facility is simply not realistic for the residence of cliff island, closing their post office would mean more than a 2-hour round trip by ferry in order to send parcels or conduct all but the most simple of postal transactions. the fact is that maintaining all of our nation's rural post offices cost the postal service less than 1% of its total budget that is not where the problems lie. that does not mean that there should not be consolidation and, indeed, i believe that closing some post offices and moving them into the local treasury store or pharmacy would work very well. similarly the postal service plan to move to a 5-day delivery is not without significant downside. it would harm many businesses and less the postal service can mitigate the impact. it would force industries ranging from home delivery medication companies to weekly newspapers to seriously consider other options. once these private firms leave the postal service behind, they won't be coming back. and the postal service will suffer yet another blow to its finances. the major solution to the financial crisis should be found in tackling more significant expenses that do not drive customers away and lead to further reductions in volume. to actuarial studies have found that tens of billions of dollars have been made in overpayments by the postal service to the federal retirement plan. regrettably today the administration has blocked the bulk of this prep payment. i proposed last year a new, more gradual amortization for the postal service's annual payments to reduce the unfunded liability for retiree health benefits. to that, too, is no longer adequate. more than 80% of the postal service's expenses are work force related. the failure to rein in these costs threatens not only the viability of the postal service, but also the livelihood's of the postal service workers themselves. the worst possible outcome for these workers would be for the postal service to be unable to meet its payroll. that is a very real possibility for next year if we cannot act together to achieve reform. in my a judgment the most recent contract agreement with the postal service's largest union by and large represents a missed opportunity to negotiate a contract that reflects the financial realities facing the postal service. the postal service has to preserve the value and the service it provides to its customers while significantly cutting costs and streamlining its operations. and that is no easy task. senator carper and i have reached introduced our own bills to try to avert this crisis. i am the first to admit that worsening conditions clearly require far more significant reform. so, mr. chairman, thank you for calling this hearing. we do face an urgent task, and that is to save this icon of american society and this absolute pillar of america's economy. thank you. >> thanks very much, senator collins. senator carper, because you have been doing such an extraordinary work on behalf of this committee i want to invite you to make a opening statement if you like at this time. >> did you very much. to our witnesses, thank you for joining yes. thank you for holding this hearing and allowing me to deliver an opening statement. appreciate it to you and senator collins for the attention that you and your staff has paid to this vitally important economic issue. for some time my subcommittee and i have been sounding the alarm about the dire financial situation facing the postal service. unfortunately while the number of bills have been fourth congress has been unable to up reach consensus on the kind of dramatic and likely painful reform that will be needed to avoid the looming showdown. in addition the proposals put forth by the administration today have been insufficient. just a few weeks after narrowly avoiding the first ever to fall by the federal the government if we may be a few weeks away from??? the first ever default of the? postal service. that defaults, if permitted to? happen, would be lasting and? dangerous and would pave the way for postal insolvency by this time next year if not sooner. officer of manager and budget declined to testify to discuss the administration's plans for preventing the postal service from failing. it is my hope that the discussion we have will jump-start the process of developing a bipartisan, bicameral consensus around the reforms necessary to restructure the postal service's finances and transform operations to reflect the uncertain future that it faces. postmaster general donahoe will testify today that the postal service's finances continue to deteriorate. he is projecting a year and loss of some $10 billion. nearly 2 billion more than projected when our subcommittee last held a postal oversight hearing, i think, in may. it will not be able to make the five and a half million dollar payment due on september 30th. come october it will have exhausted its line of credit with the treasury and we will have only enough cash on hand to get by. then under what is likely the best case scenario, cash will be completely exhausted by next summer and the postal service, absent any lifeline, will likely be forced to close its doors. if the postal service were to fail the impact on our economy would be dramatic. as postmaster general donahoe and others have pointed out time and time again the postal service operates at the center of an industry that employs? millions of people.? these people don't just work at? the postal service, magazines,? banks cannot printing companies, and businesses large and small across america. every state and congressional district. and they generate more than $1 trillion in sales and revenue each year. given the challenging economy facing our country we cannot afford to put jobs, these jobs in that kind of productivity in jeopardy. in fact, it is our job to do what needs to be done to save this industry, even if it involves decisions that might be difficult politically. like it are not come in a number of ways i don't like it very much myself. the postal service needs to right size itself to reflect the decreasing demand for products and services offered. it's needs to shed employees, downsize its network up processing facilities to reflect there is less mail to process and technology has made getting it to it's destination easier to do. the postal service needs to be able to relocate or colocate some of the postal services that are provided in communities across america. putting forth a plan to eliminate 120,000 positions on top of the 100,000 that were lost through attrition. they have begun studying some 300,000 post offices around the country. looking at 3,000 post offices for closure or card location with other businesses. expected to propose similarly dramatic changes to its processing network in the next week or so. we are rapidly reaching the point, however, at which the postal service no longer has the authority to do what it needs to do to get by which is why i have introduced legislation that aims to clean up the postal service's finances and help implement the ambitious plan it announced last spring. postal operation sustainability act aims to permanently address the various pension and retiree health related issues that have plagued the postal service for years. the postal service inspector general, postal regulatory commission, and to independent actuaries, one of whom is represented here today, have come to the conclusion that they have overfunded obligation by some 50-$75 billion. in addition, numerous observers and the office of personnel management have pointed out the postal service has paid $7 billion more than it goes into the newer federal employees retirement system. my bill will give the postal service access to the funds that it has overpaid. they would be able to use them to make required retiree health refunding payments picking a parts of $5 billion off its books each year for the next several years. once they're satisfied, the fines this bill would free up could be used to pay workers' compensation obligation and a debt to the treasury. these reforms are in similar can be a vital part of any effort to improve the financial condition in both the short and long term. stopping these reforms and avoiding further and potentially more difficult changes will simply not be enough. to anyone taking an honest look at the numbers, it should be clear that more will need to be done. that is why my bill takes important steps toward giving the postal service the flexibility that those of us in congress all say we want to give them. the new realities and operate more like a business. no business facing the kind of difficulty the postal service faces today would survive very long if it were told how many retail outlets they should have and where they should be located or if they were prevented from making operational changes are taking full advantage of the resources and expertise at its disposal. if that is what congress does to the postal service. my bill and to address these problems and take congress out of the day-to-day management, assuming the postal service can continue to build on recent cost-cutting efforts these changes could help set the service on more solid footing in the years to come. i don't just focus on cost-cutting. also aiming to give the postal service new authority to leverage its nationwide retail logistics' transportation and delivery networks to attract new business. it gives the postal service more flexibility to work with existing customers to keep them in the mail and partner with state and local governments to find new potentially profitable resources. i mentioned at the beginning of my statement that there have been a number of bills introduced to address the postal service financial condition -- condition. my hope and prayer is that they will do it this time to good effect. another approach. parts of both i don't agree with, but also parts of support. overlapping the provisions in my own bill. we need to focus on the areas of agreement. from there, with input from the administration, a key stakeholders, prevent a default and insolvency and said the postal service on the road toward stability and profitability. in conclusion, mr. chairman and senator collins, let me say this, the postal service is an enterprise, a business enterprise. it is an enterprise that has more people than it needs if it is to reduce its head count we need to let them. we have more post offices and we need. the key is not closing post offices but to provide better service to customers and communities across america by co locating services to drugstores and supermarkets and department stores and the like. finally, twice the number of processing centers and they need. they need to reduce the number of processing centers, and as they do those things we need to get out of the way. there is not a huge bailout that is needed, but to let the postal service act more like a business and come up with even more great ideas like flat rate boxes and last mile delivery. if you do that and we do our job, i think the postal service will be here for a lot longer. thank you so much. >> thank you, senator carper. postmaster general donahoe, we will go to you first. i thank you for being here. it probably does not need to be said, but the fact is that you÷ have had some tough proposals. i think everybody listening÷t should know that you are not÷ some sort of executive that was brought in from outside to go through the post office. you spent your whole career in the postal service, beginning as a clerk 35 years ago in pittsburg. having had that experience, from my perspective, you remained remarkably youthful. whether i can say that at the end of the next year or so remains to be seen. thank you for being here. >> mr. chairman and members of the committee, good afternoon and thank you for scheduling this hearing. i appreciate the opportunity to testify about the financial state of the postal service and about the proposals to improve its business model. america depends on a financially strong postal service. the postal service provides a vital national delivery platform that is part of the bedrock infrastructure of the american economy. it supports a $1 trillion mailing industry that employs over 8 million people. every american residents and business depends on regular, secure, and available delivery of mail and packages. this will always be so, even in an increasingly digital age. nevertheless, the postal service is at the brink of default. without the enactment of comprehensive legislation by september 30th the postal service will default on a mandated five and a half billion dollar payment to the treasury to pre fund retiree health benefits. our situation is urgent. the congressional action is needed immediately. mr. chairman, the postal service requires radical changes to its business model if it is to remain viable into the future. the postal service is in a crisis because it operates with a restricted business model. a self financing entity that depends on the sale of postage for revenue. requiring the ability to operate more as a business does. this applies to the way it provides products and services, allocating resources, configuring retail, delivery, and mail processing networks and the way it manages its workforce. unfortunately the postal service today has a limited flexibility to respond to the changing marketplace. since 2008 the combination of weak economic conditions and divergence to electronic forms of communication have resulted in unprecedented declines in the use of first-class mail and the weakness in the use of standard mail. in response we reduced our annual cost by more than $12 billion our work force by 110,000 fewer employees in just the last four years. as impressive as these have been, we must accelerate the pace of cost reduction over the next few years. based on current revenue estimates the postal service must reduced its annual costs by 12 -- $20 billion by the year 2015 to become profitable and to return to financial stability. mr. chairman, we do not have the flexibility in our business model to achieve these cost reductions. to do so requires the enactment of a comprehensive long-term legislation to provide us with needed flexibility. short-term stopgap measures will not help. our long-term revenue picture dictates developing a long-term comprehensive approach to help the postal service and mailing industry that we served. the postal service has made a number of policy proposals that merit consideration including giving the postal service the authority to determine its delivery frequency and transition to a national five day a week delivery schedule. the postal service needs to restructure its health care system and make it independent of federal programs and eliminate the mandatory annual five and a half billion dollar retiree health benefit payment with this action. we need to accelerate work force reduction by as many as 220,000 employees and are asking congress to consider the reductions -- be governed under the reduction provisions applicable to the federal employees. be are also seeking the authority to provide a defined contribution plan for new hires, rather than today's defined benefit plan. we are seeking the return of $69 billion in federal overpayments. we are also seeking to streamline postal governance models. we have advanced these and other proposals to provide the congress with a range of legislative options and are also aggressively doing things that we can do within our own business model. by 2015 we intend to capture more than $11 billion in additional cost reductions by optimizing our delivery network, retail network, reducing mail processing footprint by more than 300 facilities, and by taking advantage of negotiated workforce flexibility. these are aggressive and necessary steps. america deserves a financially strong and independent postal service that can meet the evolving needs for generations to come. we require the flexibility to operate more as a private sector business would. this would enable the postal service to return to profitability and sound financial footing. this would also enable the postal service to properly fulfill its mission since the 70's, which is to operate on a profit test launch basis independent of taxpayer support. let me conclude by announcing the commitment and dedication of our employees during difficult times, even as we consolidate facilities and made substantial work force reductions. they have delivered at record high service performance levels. mr. chairman, thank you for giving us the opportunity to testify today and i look forward to answering any questions you might have. >> thank you for your testimony. we will go to the hon. john berry, director of the u.s. office of personnel management directly to testify as to the subject matter as it relates to opm. he is able to speak on behalf of the administration as well. >> thank you, mr. chairman, for the opportunity to testify regarding the financial challenges facing the united states postal service. i have met with the postmaster general several times recently, and the administration is committed to exploring ways that can be helpful to the postal service. both the president and i know of the critical importance to our nation's economy that the postal service provides, and we are grateful to the men and women of the postal service for the important work they do for our country. the president's fiscal year 2012 budget proposed ways to provide postal service financial relief, but since those proposals were offered the financial situation of the postal service has deteriorated further. in response to this situation the administration plans to release a proposal in the few coming weeks that will ensure a sustainable future for the postal service. this proposal will be included as part of the broader one in a half trillion dollar deficit reduction package that the president has promised to submit to the congress. in the interim the administration supports delaying for 90 days the postal service's five and a half billion dollar refunding retirement health payment that is due on september september 30th. this would allow the congress, postal service, and administration the time to carefully worked through the details of a proposal. we believe that the postal service and its employees and retirees are well served by the existing health benefits program and the retirement system. the postal service proposes reducing costs by discontinuing participation in federal health and retirement benefits this is a complex proposal that will require further study and analysis . as such the administration does not have of formal position on this proposal at this time. opm expects that a withdrawal of the postal population would not have a significant impact on the federal employee health benefit program as a whole. in addition, the overall cost of the program would be minimal and would not impact the integrity. however, it would have a significant impact on health plans with a large postal population or such as rural letter carriers with the american postal workers union plans. if these plans chose not to participate in the fehbp in the longer it could have a significant impact on the number of choices that are available to our enrollees and overall competition in the program. the postal service's proposal to withdraw its employees from c.s. irs would pose very significant challenges because postal and not postal service are integrated in the same retirement system. as such many employees have a credible and door fers service both in postal and not postal employment, and the federal government will have a legal obligation to pay those benefits. any proposal to remove the post a population from federal employment health and retirement systems would be complex and more analysis is required. as i mentioned earlier, the president's budget proposes improving the postal service's financial condition by approximately 5 billion in both 11 and 12. first we do propose returning to the u.s. postal service its surplus in the retirement fund estimated by opm at 6.9 billion dollars. also proposes a restructuring retirement benefits at an estimated cost savings of $4 billion in temporary relief. additionally, the president's budget proposes streamlining fehbp pharmacy purchasing benefits, and we believe this could save the postal service an additional $300 million over the next five years. lastly, i would like to address a number of reports questioning whether the postal service has overpaid its obligations. moreover, i would like to clarify the term overpayment has been used by those who implied that there should be a change to the current allocation that is mandated and the law. opm applies the method established in tech current law for apportioning responsibility for ses are as cost between the postal service and the treasury. after careful review by the office of personnel management general counsel, our inspector general, and our board of actuaries, they have all concluded opm does not have the administrative authority to make a reallocation of the cms rs cost based on the 2006 postal accountability and employment act. however, if congress determines that another methodology is more appropriate and explicitly establishes another allocation method, i pledge that opium will quickly and fully implement those changes. we look forward to working with the committee and the postal service to develop a solution to this problem and in addressing these fiscal challenges. thank you for your time, and i'll be glad to answer any questions?? >> the thank you very much. it will be submitted. if we give you the authority to return the money that the postal service believes is an overpayment to the fund that opium will implement that rapidly to. i appreciate that.?? next we will hear from phillip? herr, the director of physical infrastructure issues at the government accountability office really here because under that general title he is the expert on the postal service. thank you for your testimony. >> thank you. thank you for the opportunity to discuss the serious financial crisis facing the postal service. as volume has declined that service has not generated sufficient revenue to cover obligations. critical decisions by congress, the administration, and the postal service are needed to help put it on a path to financial solvency. first, by most measures the financial situation is grim. net loss of 20 billion over the last five years. a projected net loss of 9 billion this fiscal year, and reaching its $15 to have $15 billion borrowing limit on not making its retiree health benefits payment this year. the postal service has released several proposals to address these problems. one is to withdraw from the federal employee health benefits program and create its own using the 42 and and a half million dollars fund set aside for future retiree health benefits. this proposal should be carefully reviewed as it is not clear whether the postal service can achieve its planned cost savings or what the implications are for employees, future retirees, and the federal budget. currently over 1 million employees participate in the federal health benefits program and 300,000 employees are eligible to retire over the next decade. this is a significant obligation. several proposals would defer as a way of providing financial relief. however, deferring payments increases the consequences should the postal service not be able to make future payments if its core business continues to decline, as expected. this increases risk to the federal government and taxpayers and possibly future retirees. important that the postal service continue to pre find its obligations to the maximum extent its finances permit. the knowledge this will be difficult until its business model is updated to reflect current realities, however. some key questions to consider regarding the proposal to create a separate program include how it will acquire the expertise needed to manage health benefit programs, what would be the budgetary impact of transferring 42 and a half billion from the treasury-help fund to a postal administered program that could seek higher returns in the market with potential risk. can savings realistically be expected from restructuring its health benefits program? with such a change. if it defaults on funding or benefit payments to employees or retirees are changes significantly, as is possible, what would be the federal government's obligation to 1 million plus beneficiaries? the postal service has asked for legislation to access its surplus estimated to be about 7 billion. what is discussed last often is the postal service has an unfunded liability estimated to be about 7 billion. in june 2011 the postal service stopped making payments, meaning the surplus has been reduced by $800 million. the postal service has also proposed making new employees ineligible for annuity raising the question of whether other options have been considered. flexibility now accommodate different ecru rates for certain employees. the postal service also seeks to accelerate network and work force downsizing. we agree networks need to be realigned. frankly, network realignment is overdue and necessary, whether or not actions are taken on the pension and health proposals. when fully implemented estimated savings could total $11 billion. several key areas include saving 3 billion by reducing processing plants from 500 to 200, 3 billion by reducing delivery from six to five days, reducing delivery cost drought consolidation and saving one-half billion by selling postal service to private businesses and closing up to 12,000 post offices. realigning will require trade offs in the postal service asking for legislation to eliminate the layoff provisions so that it can reduce its work force by an additional 125,000 career positions. if congress considers possible changes questions include, is six day delivery still appropriate? what changes to delivery standards are needed to realize cost savings derived from network optimization? our statutory or regulatory changes needed to permit postal operations while assuring appropriate oversight. in closing, the stark reality is the postal service business model which until 2006 relied on continued growth has broken. the gap between revenues and expense of maintaining network has become unsustainable. difficult choices must now be made. members of the committee, this concludes my statement, and i'm happy to answer questions. >> thanks. i think you? have summed up th reality pretty well.? the business model, which worke? for a long time for the postal service, has not broken, and we? have to help fix it. thank you for being here.??ó? thomas levy is the senior vice president and chief actuary at the segal company which has done work relevant to our hearing. proceed. >> thank you. i was the principal author of the 2010 report to the postal regulatory commission on civil service retirement system cost and benefit allocation principles and i'm here today with the encouragement of the postal regulatory commission to discuss the recommendations with respect to this important issue. let's make it clear. our assignment was to look from the current point of view at what is fair and equitable, not whether opm, in fact, and implemented the 1974 legislation correctly. i have not heard anything in our study to suggest that they have done otherwise. we do not suggest overpayment in the sense of not following congress's direction to the extent that i may use that word, it is in a standard of fair and equitable in 2010-11. when u.s. ps was established as and entity in 1971 and important issue was the allocation of civil service retirement system costs between the work -- the federal government for worker service and the post office department and the u.s. ps. opm has consistently done this allocation in accordance with public law 93349 in 1974. the essentially allocating the federal government the cost of a frozen pension benefit for each worker as of june 30th 1971 based on service, rate of compensation, and the benefit formula at that time. the entire balance of that workers' pension over and above that frozen amount has been charged to u.s. ps. the benefit design is more generous in the later years of the worker's career. since it was always the second employer, the benefit accrual charge was usually higher. because the benefit is based on the high three-year average salary for all years of service, usps is paying for the impact of post 1971 salary increases on pre 1971 pov pension accruals. in a report for the -- office of the inspector general dated january 11th 2010 actuaries' concluded that this allocation was inequitable in both respects. they estimated that an equitable allocation accumulated with interest would have resulted in did usps share of the csrs assets being lowered by $75 billion for past payments with about $10 billion of savings anticipated in future years. usps requested the opinion on the fairness and equity of the opm method. after taking competitive bids the segal company was selected to analyze and make recommendations. we met with stakeholders and reviewed the actuarial and accounting standards, and we concluded that the most relevant benchmark was the accounting standard applicable to private companies. this was the only one that had as the primary objective the matching of revenues in the postal service's case, selling postage, with the labor cost to produce those revenues. that was our assessment of the appropriate basis for evaluating the fairness of the csrs cost allocation. the accounting standard provides clear and not discretionary direction with regard to plans such as csrs that provide non uniform benefit accruals, in this case higher accruals in later years of employment. the expense charge requires following the plan cycle formula as opium was doing. it also requires the cost allocation for a final average salary plan like csrs must reflect the anticipated future salary at termination or retirement and may not be limited to the cost based on the compensation at the time the work is done. reflecting future compensation increases in the allocation would not part of the opm methodology. based on this analysis we concluded that the preferred method to allocate csrs benefits to the federal government was to reflect post 1971 salary increases with respect to up 31971 service, but otherwise to follow opm methodology. we indicated we did not believe that the commission of future salary increases with respect to pico de services was fair and equitable. in effect what that did was gave the federal government a lower-cost because of the establishment of usps then it would have had had the pierre de continue to operate, and we did not see anything to suggest one of the objectives of establishing the usps was to reduce past pension cost, but that is, in fact, what the law has done. we also noted a pro rata reduction of accruals that did not follow the csrs formula was within the range of fair and equitable alternatives, but was not our preferred methodology. we did not do any calculations of our own, but roughly estimated that are recommended allocation would result in accumulated savings of 50- $55 billion for past allocations compared to the opm methodology with an additional savings with respect to future payments of 6-$8 billion. that completes my prepared testimony and i'm pleased to answer questions. >> thanks. we will go now to questions.q let's do six minutes since there are a number of senators here. postmaster general donahoe, you mentioned that without some change by the end of this month the postal service would have to default on the five and a half billion dollar payment to the health fund. indicated the administration would seek legislation to delay that by 90 days, but assuming that is taking care of -- let me ask another way. if nothing happens, you receive none of the relief we are talking about providing, by what they teach you think the postal service will not just have to default on the health payment but will begin to find it impossible to carry out its normal responsibilities such as delivering the mail? >> probably next august, september timeframe. what we are looking at is even if we push the payment off for three months, we have got the payment of over $1 billion due in october. >> what is that? >> workers' comp. >> department of labor. >> department of labor. then we have a couple of payrolls in october. we will be very close, even not paying the prepayment. now, over the course of the winter mail volume picks up and we will pick up revenue. we think that by the august-september timeframe next year given no action we will be out of cash to pay employees and contractors.óóó >> and if for some reason you don't get that 90-day delay, what is the consequence? >> well, the delay one way or the other we will not make that payment. so the delay now, it does not really matter. if they delayed it makes a october more bearable. >> right. you are saying here, and i know you said it before. there is no way you will have the capacity to make the payment due at the end of this month. >> i will not. >> okay. let me ask you this. you made would be described as controversial proposals reducing delivery to five days a week, closing significant -- over 3,000 post offices and reducing the number of distribution centers and ultimately asking for authority for reductions in force comparable to what exists for other federal employees. help us understand the basis of those requests in this sense. why are you confident that the result of those cutbacks will not lead to a further drop in business for the post office? in other words, why do you think those changes will not only save money, but will really put the post office back on the road to being balanced fiscally or even slightly in surplus. >> here is the way we look at this. there are two major things happening right now. one is the decline of first-class mail. i think that we can cut the price in half and not be able to slow it down. >> that is important. it is all the internet. >> 60 percent of americans pay bills online, and that will not change. as a matter of fact, what we are seeing are a number of companies requesting payments to have a hard copy statement mailed to once house. >> that's right. >> banks are now starting to charge for checks. so all of these things will continue to force the first class mail volume down. we think that is something that will try to slow, but will continue. where we see our business going forward it into direct areas. one is standard mail. the drop-off of the economy. standard mail has leveled off, and i will tell you for the most part standard mail is an excellent investment. >> define standard mail. >> advertising. what happens is companies tell us over and over that they get the best return on investment because it gets in front of the customer's eyes, like the internet and radio or tv. ..

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