Thomas burr. He is the washington correspondent for the Salt Lake Tribune and he is the Vice President of the National Press club. Myron is a George WashingtonUniversity Professor and former president of the National Press club. Kevin merida, he is the managing editor of the washington post. Gabriel dibenedetti is a National Political correspondent for politico. The correspondent for the Kuwait News Agency and the director of Strategic Communications for the data quality campaign. [applause] i also want to welcome our other guests in the room today and our cspan and public radio audiences. I want to welcome our audiences watching a live stream on our website, press. Org. You can also follow the action on twitter. Use the hashtag, npclive. Well, our speaker today has never served in congress, or as the governor of a state. Or in any elected office of any kind. He did tell me he was elected and that gets applause. He did tell me he was elected to the yale board. This is one of the reasons that dr. Ben carsons supporters say they want him to be the next president. He is not part of the washington establishment that so many fault for gridlock and ineffectiveness. So far, on the campaign trail, he has separated himself from better funded candidates with the political experience that he lacks. Recent polling has dr. Carson running second nationally for the gop nomination, behind donald trump and ahead of carly fiorina. In campaigning, he has shown his sharp opposition to obamacare, his support in the second amendment, his concern about the federal debt and his goal to stop abortion. He also says all options must be on the table when confronting russias vladimir putin. His life story has become familiar to many. He grew up poor in detroit with a single mother and excelled in school. He rose to become the director of pediatric neurosurgery at johns hopkins. He became the first person to successfully separate siamese twins. He won the president ial medal of freedom in 2008. He has published several books including his autobiography, gifted hands. During various media appearances, he has made a lot of headlines on issues such as the mass shooting in oregon, the debt limit and whether he can vote for a muslim for president. We all know, the best place to make news is in this room and at this podium. Please give a warm welcome to dr. Ben carson. [applause] dr. Ben carson thank you. Thank you very much. Candy and i are delighted to be here. I will get right into it. Why did i write this book . And, america is such a great place and i am so glad that i was born here. I have traveled to 57 different countries. Gotten to know a lot of people and a lot of ways of life. This remains the place that is the land of dreams. I know a lot of people like to criticize our nation and demonize it and say it is responsible for a lot of horrible things. And yet, i see a lot of people trying to get in here and not a lot of people trying to get out. So i am not sure that is all that legitimate to be honest with you. Growing up in poverty, with a lot of disadvantages, the thing that was really great was that i was still able to focus on my dreams. My dream of becoming a doctor. It was the only thing i ever wanted to do. I skipped right by policeman and fireman and went straight to doctor. [laughter] i loved anything that had to do with medicine. I even enjoyed going to the doctors. I even endured shots because i liked the smell of the alcohol swabs. During the process, were there hurdles along the way . Absolutely, tremendous hurdles along the way. But nevertheless, it was still possible to realize that dream. I want to make sure that that continues to be the case. One of the reasons that it was possible is because we have a system that did Everything Possible to create fairness. Even when there were people in the system who did not want to be fair. And that is why it is so important that we must preserve our constitution. Virtually, all americans know that we have a constitution. How many people actually know what is in it . And how many people actually know what is behind it . And of course, it is the mechanism that guarantees our liberties and that provides the guidelines for the restraint of government. Because our founders recognized that it was the natural tendency of government to grow. And to invade every aspect of your life and try to control your life and that is what people do. That is what they wanted to avoid by doing this and that is why it is so important that we understand it. In 1831, when alexis di tocqueville came to america to study our great country, because the europeans were so flabbergasted that this fledgling nation, barely 50 years old, was already competing with them on virtually every level. He was going to dissect it and see what was going on. One of the things that really impressed him was how educated the people were. Anyone finishing the second grade was completely literate. He could find a mountain man on the outskirts of society and the guy could read the newspaper. And could tell him how our government worked. Nowadays, we do not seem to emphasize civics and things like that in school anymore. I am sure some of you have seen some of those man on the street interviews situations where they go out and ask very basic questions and people have no clue what they are being asked. Who is the first president . For example. And they answer, reagan . They have no idea. It is funny that it is so sad. Because, our founders particularly franklin and jefferson emphasized education and they emphasized being informed. They said our system of government and our freedoms are dependent on the well informed and educated populace. Because they recognized that if the people were not well informed, that they would be easy to manipulate. All it would take is dishonest politicians and a complicit news media and off you would go into another direction there he quickly. Now, i will tell you right off the bat before i go any further, i am not politically correct. I will not be politically correct and that is one of the reasons that a lot of people in the press do not like me. It is ok because what i really love is this country. I do not necessarily care whether the press likes me or not. Therefore, i am not going to conform to all of their little requirements. People will ask me all of the time why dont you just do this or do that and they wont say bad things about you. Because this is america and i will not do that and i never will. I want to touch on some of the aspects of america that i touched on in the book like the balance of powers, the check and balance system, the separation of powers. I believe this is so vitally important and it was a touch of genius by our founders because they recognized that each branch, executive, judicial, and legislative would want to maintain their power and they would push back against excesses in the other branches. That works extraordinarily well. In a government like we have when they all are exercising their power appropriately. Unfortunately, we have a legislative branch that really acts more like a peanut gallery. They sit there and watch it with the others do, sometimes complain about it. But they really do not offer any resistance because they are afraid someone might blame them. Newsflash, you are going to be blamed anyway. So, what they really ought to be thinking about is how do they get involved and be more proactive. You know, case in point, i think about the recent decision by the Supreme Court on gay marriage. Now, first of all, let me just say, i have nothing against gay people whatsoever. I know a lot of people do not believe that because we live in a society now where if you do not accept their entire agenda, then you are a homophobe. But, i personally believe that any two people regardless of Sexual Orientation or anything else have the right to associate together. If they want to have a legal contract drawn up which allows them to share property and have hospital visitation rights and do whatever they want, absolutely. I do not have any problem like that. That is the kind of country this was designed to be. Live and let live. Not impose your values on everyone else. And that is the problem. But what the Supreme Court ruling did, that changes essentially the definition of marriage it does not take into consideration the implications of that. If you change it for one group, why wont you change it for the next . What defense you have against the next group . Are you going to say we will only change it for this group . That would not be fair. Why change it in the first place . It has been working very well for thousands of years and that is what happens when people go in and start tinkering with things without thinking about the implications of it. The legislative branch however, i would have thought would have been already prepared with legislation in case the Supreme Court came down with that decision to make sure we preserved the right, the religious rights of everyone. Not everybody agrees with their new definition of marriage and it is a conviction and a religious conviction. And they need to make sure that they can protect peoples religious rights. They have been johnny come lately but i call upon congress to do that now. There are people who are losing their jobs. Their livelihoods. That is not fair. It is not what america was supposed to be. Unless, all of the branches of government are functioning the right way, these are the kinds of things that happened. Because, there will be overreach by any of the branches because they are composed of people and people are not perfect. But that is why we have the counterbalance in order to be able to rectify the situation because one group may not take into consideration the ramifications of what they are doing. Also, the constitution indicates that civil issues really should be dealt with at the local levels. At the state levels. There is a reason for that. It was because the legislators and the judiciary at the local level are subject to the will of the people. The people vote them in, the people vote them out and our founders felt the people should be the ones who determine how things work and the standards by which they lived. When you take those issues and you bump them up to a level where the people making the decisions have no obligation whatsoever to the people, then you wind up an oligarchy type government and that is not what the founders intended for america. So, we are somehow going to have to look into ways to rebalance that because if we continue down that pathway, you can see how virtually everything that they intended will be upset. We do not want that to happen. The preamble to the constitution talks about the role of the government in terms of promoting the general welfare. That does not mean that we want to put everyone on welfare. That is not what the general welfare is. It means that when we do things, we want to do them in a way that they benefit the entire society. It is very important that we take care and make sure that everyone is taken care of in an appropriate way. When i say we, it does not necessarily mean the federal government. I get criticized, inappropriately by the way, by people who say that i grew up poor and benefited by some programs and now i want to withdraw all of the safety nets. This is nothing but a blatant lie by people who need to characterize me as heartless. They love to do that. They love to say that ben carson is insensitive. They need that narrative. That is the only way it can be acceptable because i do not fit into their general description. A black person who is a conservative . They cannot quite deal with that. Who talks about selfreliance and that you are not dependent on them . How could you possibly say such heresy . It is necessary to demonize in a business like that and i understand that. I am actually willing to fight with them. I will continue to fight with them. I am fighting for something even greater. And that is, i am fighting for the people of the United States because you see we have very smart and very capable people in our nation who would be extremely good leaders but they say why would i get into that cesspool and be attacked and have my family attacked and have people going through every aspect of my life and trying to demonize me. People do not want to do that. I am going to fight that fight for them. If i am successful, i expect that maybe a lot more of the people in our country who are not professional politicians will say you know what . He did it. And i am going to do it also. And i think we will be much better off as a country when we once again understand that this country is for everyone and not a specific political class. [applause] but as far as the whole safety net argument is concerned, my mother worked extraordinarily hard. Three jobs at a time, leaving the house before 5 00 a. M. In the morning and getting back after midnight. Because she did not want to be dependent. She occasionally accepted some aid, but for the most part she was able to stay off of it and she refused to be a victim and she refused to let us be a victim. It was not that she did not recognize that there were problems out there. She chose to focus on other things. She would say to us if you walk into an auditorium full of bigoted, racist people, she said, you do not have a problem. They have a problem. When you walk in there, they are all going to cringe and wonder if you are going to sit next to them, whereas, you can sit wherever you want. [laughter] that is kind of the way that i have chosen to live my life. Have there been obstacles . Of course. Have there been racist people around . Of course. What i said, that is their problem. I have some very important things that i need to do. So i can get wrapped up in their problems or i can do the important things. Not everyone chooses to live their life that way and that is fine, but that is the way that i chose to live mine. It works pretty well, if i do say so myself. Having said that, i am very concerned about the downtrodden people in our society. And i do believe that we have a responsibility to take care of them. But when i say we, i am talking about we the people. I am talking about the private sector. The government has been taking this on since Woodrow Wilson but it kept increasing. By the time we got to lyndon johnson, and the war on poverty, that we are the savior and we will take care of you guys and we will solve all of the problems. Here we are all of these years later, 19 trillion later, did we solve the problem . We have 10 times more people on food stamps. More people in poverty, on welfare, broken homes, out of wedlock births, crime, incarceration. Everything that was supposed to be better is not only worse, it is much worse. So, i am not going to sit here and demonize the government for doing that, but i am saying isnt it time to wake up and start thinking about another way to do things . Rather than driving ourselves into debt without solving the problem. And that is a tremendous responsibility of the government as well. To remain solvent. Because, you are the guardian of the peoples future. How can we enjoy the liberties and have the future enjoy the liberties if they are overloaded with debt. 18. 5 trillion, the national debt. Think about that. To pay that back at 10 million a day, it would take you over 5000 years. That is absurd. We are putting that on the backs of our young people. And now, here we are sitting here saying let us increase the debt some more. Let us raise the debt ceiling some more. Did it ever occur to us that there is another way . There are 4. 1 million federal employees. I would offer that that is too many. There are 645 federal agencies and sub agencies. This is absurd. If you cut the budget by one penny, it will be a disaster, according to some. Nancy pelosi. This is absurd. [laughter] we must think about the children. That really is the main reason that i have gotten into the fray here. My whole professional career centered on children and the future for the children. What we had to do to improve the quality of life for them. How can we in good conscience continue this charade of responsibility knowing that what we are doing to their future is wrong. If i had time, i would get into the fiscal gap and all of the implications of that and what the implications of the debt is on the fed and how they are irresponsibly printing money and how the low Interest Rates are hurting the poor and the middle class. Putting money into a savings account or buying bonds does not help them. The only people that can make money are people that have a risk tolerance which allows them to go into the stock market. And i would talk about the regulations and how every single regulation costs money in terms of goods and services and how those are the things that are really impacting the middle class and the poor people. It does not matter for wealthy people if a bar of soap goes up . 10 but it matters a lot to the middle class or for poor people. You think about that Regulatory Burden and who that is hurting. It goes on and on. We are promoting the general welfare, those are the kinds of things we need to be thinking about. We need to be thinking about mechanisms for allowing the downtrodden in our society to escape from dependency and move up the ladder of success. We have to understand that we only have 330 million people. That sounds like a lot but china has over a billion and india has over a billion. We need to get the bang for the buck out of all of our people. We need to find out how all of our people can rise and stop all of this really class warfare stuff. We can get immediate stimulus by thinking about the over 2 trillion that exists overseas. Right now. We need to bring that money back. I can remember many an afternoon sitting around the board table at a lot or costco talking about the money overseas and what we were going to do with it and how we would love to bring it back to build another factory or do something else. But the Corporate Tax rates were too high. What if we had a six month hiatus on those Corporate Taxes overseas . Let that money be repatriated. I have been talking about this for several months. It would not cost them anything to repatriated. We would only require that 10 of it be used in enterprise zones that are set up in our major cities or to provide employment for people who are unemployed or on welfare. If you want to talk about an incredible stimulus that does not cost the taxpayers one penny that would be the biggest stimulus since fdrs new deal. Such a low hanging fruit. [applause] that is what we have got to do. Deal with this low hanging fruit. The