Point, yes, we have class warfare. Those who are poor are completely left out of the National Dialogue on poverty and hunger. That is a bipartisan effort, to keep people who are poor out of the National Dialogue. That is why i work with low income women to be able to take photographs and provide direct testimony on their experiences with raising children in poverty, how to break cycles with poverty, and there are so many conversations happening. This concept of violence and the trail. People have been silenced for so many years. Betrayal. People have been silenced for so many years. Poverty is solvable. They and expect nothing less. They are raising their children and they expect their child to be the president of the United States, a lawyer, a doctor, and they want the best education, the best type of food, a safe and affordable home to live. The women we work with are investing so much into their children. They are having to trade off paying for rent and paying for food, and trade off for whether they keep the lights on and pay for food. That is unconscionable. [applause] thank you. All of us can expect more. Low income women should be included in the National Dialogue. The women i have spoken with our genius. They are brilliant to survive in the United States today. They are so fantastic entrepreneurs. They are wise. They have a lot of grit. They are stronger than any of us on stage. It is a brain trust in america we are not utilizing. They should be part of the National Dialogue and at a part of the stage and being listened to in congress. Not just the special income special interest lobbyists. [applause] we are going into the last hour of the program. We want to highlight the fight back. There are people in this country who are succeeding against the odds every day as they struggle with poverty. There are persons who will join us on the front row. They are already here. I will get off the stage and talk to them so we can hear from everyday people, fellow citizens, who are in this fight every day. We want eighth we want to put a face on poverty. While you are talking, talk to me about what you make of the fact that the new poor are in fact the former middleclass. They make up every race, every ethnicity. When we talk about poverty, people think as the poor as those people. They are increasingly becoming us. People are losing their jobs, their 401k. We are in the middle of an economic disaster. It is crushing people. It is very dangerous. Their capacity. This is a big threat to the country. We underestimate the danger. Jeffrey knows the story dramatically better than i do. Moaning small amounts of money only to women in order to create micro on super norris on Chopin Norris entrepreneurs. There are ways in which we say to people, the passive. We ought to be saying, if we could wave a magic wand and tomorrow have 6 million small businesses, one of the things we should seriously look at with tax reform is how do you replace the antipoor, antismall business tax. It is the first big hurdle to create a job. How could you design the equivalent for starting your own business . Trying to reach out here and realize, every american could be premiership of. Ntrepreneurshi passing so many laws and regulations and taxes that they kill the start up businesses in ways that are crazy. I have to jump in. Thank you so much for talking about entrepreneurship. You were there, you were a part of that. There has been so much destruction to the assistance program. Talk about rules and regulations. Those are things your administration, when you were the speaker of the house, so many of those types of rules and regulations were built into the program, so much that they have not responded to the recession. It is only able to reach about 30 of the children who are poor in this country. An incredible increase in Child Poverty been. Micro finance would may be a great way to insert into the system. If a woman is receiving cash assistance or food stamps and she happens to, may be working on the side doing hair and nails, housekeeping, child care. Fair fantastic things. That 50 or 100 she makes on the weekend, god forbid she reported to the case manager because she would be criminalized for something that would be celebrated in this country. [applause] i agree with you. I want to tell you that would have been lovely if you could have thought of that 17 years ago. [applause] i wish i had. Think of the damage done. He said i wish i had. He did say that. I have got you on the microphone. What you have just said now is wonderful. The fact she is agreeing with you is amazing to me. Shocking. You were in the media almost immediately when this fiscal cliff deal was reached. You were in the media almost immediately, you were very disappointed, very upset at this deal that was struck. I got the sense you were spanking your fellow republicans for getting their clocks cleaned by mr. Obama in that debate. Tell me what you are upset about and is there some revenge exacted . We have very severe longterm fiscal problems. I think there is a lot more that is at the big banks door and the federal reserves door. It is amazing Neither Party has been willing to look at the problems. We are faced with enormous long term challenges on the fiscal side. I thought the whole process was wrong. I have a bias. I was speaker of the house. The idea that the senate at the last minute would write an entire bill, put whatever they wanted into it, send it over, and say, pass it as we wrote it. We will not touch it again. And the house said, ok. The that was institutionally crazy. Nobody read that bill. It violated everything republicans complained about with the stimulus. The minimum they could have done was brought it up, actually read it, maybe had a hearing to find out what was in it and what did it mean. There were millions of dollars for the Motion Picture industry. I understand why the president wants to take care of its friends. What did that have to do with the bill . A good the here and a few other goodies there. Republican senators wrote what they wanted. It is a bad way to run free society. We just passed a farm bill. My colleagues and i will call them that because i am in public voted to cut 16. 50 billion over the next years. I voted against it because i thought it was outrageous. They voted against it because they did not think it was enough. We have people who literally work in the house of representatives who do not believe they are in poverty in this country. Any of them, i want you to go to the other side of town to wherever it is you live. People believe if you do not lazy. You are laid t these are the craziest people i have ever seen in my life. Absolutely not. Nuts. [applause] [applause] if we continue to send people to congress who do not understand what their job is, then we are never going anywhere as a country. These people are evil and mean. They cared nothing about anybody but themselves. [applause] let me ask you, though. I am really feeling sorry for you. I will push to hire up on my purpose tonight is a prayer list tonight. The my prayeron list tonight. There are people who are entrenched in congress, they come from districts where this is not their priority, not their issue, so congress is polarized around the issue of poverty. There is a consensus poverty does not matter. Congress is polarized on this issue. How do we ever imagine that the plot of the poor will get addressed. Class getting these little blurbs. Make them sit down, convene a group of people to address the issues of poverty. People out there have to stop being silent. Anytime i get a phone call in my office, i believe at least 50 of my constituents believe the exact same thing. If you start calling your Congress People and your senators and say to them, you want them to address poverty, trust that they listened very do not assume or be angry when you turn on the news at night and turn and tourism at your television. It cannot talk was. You have to do it yourself. If you dont, once again, every year, once of one of us takes the food stamp talent. People get challenge. People get the news. Until we get more voices, until more people understand how important and significant it is for us, they are going to continue to pat us on the head and say, your food stamp challenge week. Until they see hungry people, until they see babies who do not eat every day, until they realize the fastestgrowing group of children in schools today is hungry and homeless children, until we can make them see it, they will not believe it. That is a perfect segue. Segway for those who just tuned in, this is our hastag. Povertymustend. Our website is a future with poverty. Com. You will find a letter. It is already litten for you written for you. Encouraging the president to do things quickly. Deliver a major Public Policy address on the eradication of poverty. We have been told over and over he is an organizer. It is time for the community to get organized and led the president know we want to hear from him, we want him to deliver a major Public Policy address on poverty. We can do this every day. This is no comparison. Between what we are doing and what would happen if the president of the United States gave a major policy speech on what he will do to eradicate poverty. And then he gave us an assignment to do to help him get it done. He ought to give a major Public Policy address. Bring the experts together. I will not be in that meeting. I am not an expert. I am just a broadcaster to open up a whole for the exports to run through experts to run through. A plan to cut poverty in half in the short run, eradicate it in the long run. If the president wants a legacy in which he and we can be proud, he will have to make poverty a priority in the second term. Signed that letter and let him know about it. I do not want to be in that meeting, either. I would not go. At least a crack addict is honest about their addiction. The white house is addicted to power. They are addicted to power. It is not just about power. It has to do with love and justice. Love and justice is always week. That is precisely why tradition in this history of this nation has been the democratic loaf. We recognize we have to have a suspicion of government. This is why i resonate with my conservative brothers. Martin luther king jr. Was under fbi surveillance until the day he died. Government can be oppressive, vicious, ugly, violate your rights, generate propaganda. We need that, too. Government can be affirmative, if they are helping poor and working people. Government can help use its power for elites. When they come together with no accountability whatsoever, not just politically, but economically. Let me say this. Martin luther king jr. Today could be taken to jail without due process or judicial process under the National Defense authorization act because he had a connection with a freedom fighter, nelson mandela. He just got off the terrorist list in 2008. He had a relation to a terrorist. Under the present administration, and you can take americans to jail without due process. The black Freedom Movement has always been suspicious of it. We have black prisoners in their precisely because they were willing to tell the truth that was a threat and we do not talk about them. That is why the culture of fear is not just violence. People are afraid. They are afraid to lose their jobs. They are afraid to lose their status. Not going to be nice tea parties, the white house. You cannot have a culture of fear and generate a movement. It is not just about justice. We have got to talk about love. Martin was a titan of love. If you are not talking about love and willingness of sacrifice, we are not going nowhere. You have to be willing to hit the streets, go to jail, to die. That is what it is about. If you are not willing to do that, keep your job and drink your tea. We are in the state of emergency. [laughter] [applause] people are dying out here. Since you went there, this is foreign to a lot of people. He hasnt martin has been gone for so long now. The nation knows the president will be sworn in for a second term on monday, on the Martin Luther king jr. Holiday. Just blocks down the street, the monument. The president will put the hand on the bible of Martin Luther king jr. As he is inaugurated. King is always present in our conversations. He is present tonight. If you raise this notion of love, since martin, the notion of love, and our Public Policy have been absent, you talk about and try to put love we heard about compassion and conservatives, i want to ask you what ever happened to compassionate conservatism but love, at the center of our Public Policy, it is a foreign concept. That is exactly what martin did. He put love at the center of the public square. Why have we abandoned that notion . The rule of money. Everybody and everything is up for sale. You cannot have integrity, love, you cannot have trust if everything and everybody is up for sale. If youre leaders are up for sale, they will talk one way, get inside, and do something else. It is big money. For black people who have been hated for 400 years, hatred comingized a stric after us, and we dish out martin king, that love in the face of the hatred, that is a spiritual and moral high ground. The whole country has to take note of it with martin. The whole world has to take note of it. That is what is weak and feeble. It is not a question of speed skin pigmentation. It is a question of equality and morality of your speech rowdy. All of us fall short. [applause] now it is competition. The president takes no child left behind, which is the worst education law in my lifetime [applause] straight out of charles dickens. Train them for exams, do not let them they might start asking why politicians do not keep their promises. No talk of love. The president takes no child left behind and he softens it. A race for the top. There will be told winners and 12 winners. The word enterprise, i am a very patriotic american. I like capitalism. It is good to me. The word enterprise is sickening. It has had a pathological affect on our attitudes effect on our attitudes. , these wall street guys who want to privatize our schools are setting up academies. Dart dr. Martin Luther King Academy of leadership and enterprise. Or they will name them for langston hughes, frederick douglass. Frederick douglass. I do not think a lot people should let the name the schools. [laughter] [applause] they should name it for people they do not like. [laughter] here are a few points. I will be unfashionable tonight. Everyone in washington seems to think the way to solve the problems in our schools is to not give them another cent, another penny, to improve and make the Schools Look Like places that are inviting and respect the value of children. Aesthetics count. Do not do that, but beat up on their teachers. That is the trend today. [applause] attack the unions. I heard about the Teachers Union from teachers in l. A. Last fall. I flew to chicago to stand with them the day they went on strike. They were right to go on strike. [applause] i will tell you something. I am in schools all the time. When i was a young teacher, i remember this. Schools are overwhelmingly the teachers are women. You go to a convention, if you are a guide, there are like 50 women for every guy. It is wonderful. I love it. [laughter] when they scapegoat teacher unions, the ruthless way they do, they are attacking some of the largest unions in this country of devoted, unselfish, inspired, loving, tender, good, female human beings. They are women. It is an attack on female women. [applause] i remember dr. Kings last words when he said i have been to the mountain. That mountaintop is something that is a symbol of hope. It is biblical. It is something we would like to get back to. We wish we could get there again. But the dialogue of School Reform is just like the dialogue of health care. There is nothing transcendental in it. There is nothing courageous in it. They are tinkering around the edges of an equity. That is what president obama is doing. Fix the schools, they say. Fix the schools. A very suggested word. It is a mechanistic terms. As though our schools were out, and our kids were commercial commodities. I hate that word. Here is what i believe. I think that is emblematic of the low level of dialogue. My favorite american poet happens to be langston hughes. I read his poetry to my fourth graders. It was considered dangerous. Curriculum deviation, i was fired. I was hired shortly after by the johnson administration. [laughter] my favorite worldwide poet happens to be the irish poet. There are lines many of us learn in school and forget. He said, the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity. We need that passionate intensity on our side, on the side of the poor children in this earth. I beg the president to summon up the courage to give us that voice. If he does not, it would be a terrible betrayal of his role and he will miss an opportunity to leave behind a beautiful legacy in history. It will be his tragedy as well as ours. [applause] we are clearly headed to a real debate about austerity. I do not believe austerity is the answer. Some people do. There is a big debate in the coming weeks as we get to this debt ceiling debate. Talk to me, from your perspective, about this notion of compassionate conservatism. There was a movement 12 years ago to present that as an alternative. What happened to that . I would be glad to go down that road but i do not think it is useful. In the 1970s, jack was trying to gently develop a real understanding of how to break through at every level, housing, learning, jobs. And who i always told people, as a football quarterback, had showered with more African Americans than most republicans knew, had a deep, passionate commitment with every american he met. His heart was big. He did love everybody, to a point where it drives you crazy. You think, slightly less love, jack, it is ok. The use of it by the bush people was a political slogan to show they are softer than the gingrich republicans. They did not think through any serious, systematic program. I want to commend you. Sitting here, i had two ideas, sufficiently radical, that would never have occurred without this conversation [applause] i did not