Common sense solutions for a stronger america. No cursing, chewing gum or walking out. And im happy to sign my book at the end, in case i ever amount to anything, you can sell it on ebay for twice the price. Testing, testing. Good. We ask that you use the microphone located to your right at the front of the auditorium. If you want to watch this program again, our coverage will air at 11 00 central time on saturday and sunday, tonight and tomorrow. Keep the spirit of what fest going all year with a subscription to the journal, the premium book session. We are introducing a new digital bookstore through our could be in books apps. Take one of the promo cards you were handed out and provide information about the apps and access to special book deals. Bothell we begin todays program silence your cellphones and turn your cameras flash but feel free to take photos and posted twitter, instagram and facebook with the hash tag printers row. With that being said please welcome cal thomas 11, the Chicago Tribune achieve content officer. [applause] good morning, fans of books and reading and printers row and everyone who wants a little intellectual stimulation. I am john barron with the companys news service and syndication arm and we are very proud to represent and syndicate cal thomas. He keeps us very very busy. Hundreds and hundreds of papers and websites run his column making him the most widely syndicated Political Columnist in the country. Cal thomas obviously has tremendous reach but is something of an insurance champ as well. This year marks the 30th anniversary of his column. There are few in history of journalism who can make such a claim. And is broadcast appearances, and his books the latest of which is what works. He will be talking about that obviously today. What i like about cal thomas is you know where he stands. He is crystal clear, determined, unwavering in his believe sand with his reporters command of facts and figures he can be awfully persuasive, no matter where you stand it is always worthwhile to face in cal thomass direction to hear what he has to say. Joining cal thomas todays Chicago TribuneEditorial Board member Kristen Mcqueary. We worked for the same bosses a couple years ago when she was at the south town and i was at the sun times wishy has gone on to join w. Be easy and Chicago News Cooperative before joining the tribune two years ago. Both of them are masters of many media so now lets see how they can handle a conversation. Ladies and gentlemen, Kristen Mcqueary and cal thomas. [applause] thank you for coming. Six weeks ago i received an email in my in box asking if i would like to interview cal thomas as part of printers row with test. I immediately said yes. In my 20s i disagree with him very very much. Of course i did but i kept reading and when you read cal thomas you find yourself months and even years down the road thinking about some things that he wrote. That is the imprint of a gifted thinker and writer. Without further ado, cal thomas, your book, what works, common sense for america focuses on years of tested programs, we dont need to reinvent the wheel, we dont need to reinvent economic stimulation and job growth. We know what works but instead we are stuck in groundhog day, the movie, where the same situation unfolds over and over. In all these years covering washington what would you say are a couple of issues or policies that are the most stuck in groundhog day . Let me congratulate you on your maturity. I am reminded by your comments of what mark twain said. I thought my father was an idiot and when i became 21 i was amazed how much he had learned in three years so congratulations for that. I think right off the top there are so many answers to that question but education probably would be at or near the top for me. We spend more on Public Education in the United States percapita that at any other time in history and yet all the surveys show we still fall behind much of the rest of the world in important subjects like math and reading and science. I dont care if it is a liberal or conservative idea. If it works and produces the results that the program claims to want to produce than i would be for it and i would like to get away from the left right republican democrat business and start focusing on what actually has produced the results. There is a verse in ecclesiastes that says there is nothing new under the sun. Everything you think has been thought before, everything you do has been done before. That is wifi use the groundhog day motif. When you get up every day and repeat the same day over and over again with nothing changing that is what washington does. We are paying more and getting less from our government and it is a cycle we need to break. You talk on the issue of education and School Choice quite a bit in your book in your column. We are sitting in a Chicago Public school, it is lovely. They just built a nice addition, this is a selective enrollment school. Only a fraction of the kids who want to go here can actually go here. We have been talking in illinois and chicago about School Choice 3 years. It doesnt seem to get done. We have a Charter Program but vouchers are so far off of the radar that it is almost impossible. How do you get in a democratically controlled city and state a School Choice program . First of all, i take the evidence of School Choice, working is available for all who want to observe it. The problem is in this area and especially results dont matter because the teachers unions send money to politicians to keep the status quo. The politicians of course have choice. Most of them are well off or wellconnected enough they can send their kids to a private school, second or Religious School where they believe they will get the best education, that is what president obama does. At least jimmy carter when he was president sent his daughter to a Public School and i congratulated him for his consistency. President obama sends his daughters and rightly so because but d. C. Public School System is not very good to said well friends, two of the most prestigious private schools in washington. All i am saying is my liberal and democratic friends who sell often talk about fairness and equality ought to offer the same opportunity especially for poor and minority students who are trapped in a lot of failing schools whose parents want them out, who know that a good education is the key to a successful life. I use the analogy when alabama governor george wallace, stood in the schoolhouse door to keep africanamericans out, now a lot of politicians are standing in the schoolhouse door of failed schools trying to keep them in. It is and immortality and something that needs to be broken. People need to rise up. The catholic archdiocese took a survey of parents whose children, mostly minority parents whose children were in Public Schools and ask them if you had a choice, would you put your child in a Catholic School over the Public School and the overwhelming percentage chose the path which school. I would say like moses let my people go. You, repeated that line when we were on a radio show yesterday and i was hoping i am happy to have groundhog day with you. In your book, you reference a previous book you wrote, blinded by might. It is a point that gets lost a lot in the static of washington. I will read it back to you. In blinded by might i am not calling for retreat from the public square. I ask only for a more realistic view of what the matted things government can achieve and the Unlimited Power of gods king them. Colet and listing in a better army with superior weapons and by the way, isnt it inconsistent for conservatives in one breath to criticize Big Government and then in another to employ it to enact their agenda . What are some that is a very important point. What are some specific policy areas or issues you see in washington where conservatives decry Big Government but then seek it out . Take the last administration, president george w. Bush inaugurated one of the biggest Government Programs ever in the Prescription Drug benefit. No child left behind. More money for Public Education. I call this turn to washington as a first resource instead of a last resort, kind of perversion of the 20 third psalm. The government is my keeper, i shall not want, i walk to the valley of the shadow of party, the health and Human Services department will become certainly with food stamps and payments. John stossel, who is far more libertarian than i am has a wonderful show on Fox News Channel on the weekends and has written this book, putting somebody elses book, why would you turn to government all the time when government cant even win wars anymore . Government does so few things well at some times in cooperation in the private sector but mostly the power of the private sector, the power of the individual lot to be supreme and once were. Our constitution in the preamble begins we the people, not you the government is we have a 17 trillion debt, out of control Government Spending and regulation, taxes on success and subsidizing failure, we wonder why we are getting less success and more failure. We use to praise the people who succeeded and became wealthy. Now we envied them and field entitled to their income. The most amazing turnaround. I feel like had parachuted into another planet from the one i was brought up in. We know the values that work. Inspiration followed by motivation followed by perspiration will improve any life. You might not turn out to be a billionaire but you wont be dependent on government. You have written many columns on the subject, Government Spending etc. What would you consider the most outrageous expense Taxpayers Fund . Oh my, golly, that is pretty tough. That should be a multiple choice question with the last line all of the above. It is really hard to say. Here is what i am calling for. You are probably not old enough to remember this the in the 80s Ronald Reagan appointed the grace commission, j. Peter grace was a businessman who wanted to conduct an audit of the federal government. Most businesses go through audits, as a weed out waste and fraud and abuse, and the federal government. The only proof of eternal life in washington is a Government Program and it is true once you create it is impossible to kill, easier to kill draculas and a Government Program and the analogy is it good one because both are bloodsucking entities. The whole idea that washington is capable of doing things better than the individual would be an offense to our founders. It was we the people, liberty, personal responsibility and accountability and we are spending all of this money on things to fix things that cant be fixed by government and yet people like a cult despite the evidence continued to turn to government despite the results that it cant do what we want it to do. That is a general answer but there are a lot of things government ought not to be doing. Why is government in housing . Why is government in education . I got a good education before the department of education. Why do we need the federal government to educate people . Cant even educate itself. Along those lines we saw a proposal from john mccain and some other republicans to grow the the a system. Part of that plan includes a voucher program. What do you see as the best solution for the Long Term Care of our veterans . We proposed this line glad mccain was listening. About your program is the best way to go. If your va hospital is go, why shouldnt you be able to have a little plastic card and take it to your nearby public or private hospital and get the care you need. Choice works. Choice in education, medicine. The Obama Administration trying to take over the health care of the United States. All you have to do is look at the nhl is in the u. K and see how dysfunctional that is or the va, government run health care. I hope we are not evacuate in. I guess he didnt get the memo to turn off the broadcast devices but anyway, maybe that was the voice of god. Maybe it was your apps. I follow instructions. The individual in the minds of the founders was supreme. Nancy pelosi once that you put the democrats back in power and we will drain the swamp. They got the power back and they didnt drain the swamp. The build hot tub. What would you have done about the bergdahl the situation . I would not have released five terrorists. For number of reasons. The obvious one that they will return to the battlefield. They already said they are the taliban said this is great encouragement to us and they have encouraged their people to kidnap more americans so we get the rest of them out. There is a lot left to be known, interviews with five of his colleagues, bergdahls colleagues including his platoon leader, all of them said he deserted, all of them said he was making statements against the war in the United States and willingly walked off. People are making a comparison with the israelis, the number of times they released palestinian prisoners to get one or two is really soldiers back. The big difference is Israeli Soldiers were doing their duty and in gaza and the west bank israel can keep a better eye on these guys than the United States extending them to cutter and back to afghanistan. War has consequences. I wouldnt have made the trade but the president used this as cover to fulfil his longstanding promise to close gitmo. I dont think it had anything to do with anything else other than that. She was the only soldier left from the afghan and iraq war. Do we leave him there . We got a guy in mexico right now who supposedly made a wrong turn and has some guns in his car and been languishing in jail, we have a christian pastor in iraq who reportedly has been tortured and imprisoned, this christian woman who they claim was an infidel but she was never a muslim in the first place, just had a baby, theyre going to let the baby live to be 6 months old before they hang her. There are two now americans held by the north koreans. Are we lining up to trade with them . We cant fix everything. First of all if you go to north korea, that is evidence that you are an idiot and probably belong in a hospital. Who would want to go to north korea for heavens sake. But we cant fix everything and this has been one of our problems in this sound like a very non conservative position but i remember John Kennedys great inaugural line the United States is willing to pay any price, bear any burden in the cause of defense of liberty. That is great during the cold war but we now have multiple enemies transitioning various countries, and an entirely different approach to warfare. We cant afford to pay any price and the bear any burden. Sometimes bad things happen even to good people and we cant fix it. We should have left him. In chapter 9 of what works. We point at states that doing a great job solving their own problems. I notice illinois is not on that list. Why isnt it . Is there any hope . There is 0 wing at juliet prison just for illinois politicians. No Political Party has a monopoly on morality or ideas. This is why you need to shake things up and i would say the same if the republicans had been in power too long. You get stayed in your ways, you get a sense of entitlement and the temptation of corruption succumbs to everybody in high office at one level or another is there. I have become a political environmentalist, i believe in recycling trash and politicians for the same reason, each left in one place too long begins to admit a foul smell. We are doing them a favor. My favorite line on this side may have mentioned in the book, my late friend george mcgovern, liberal democrat senator from south dakota and he was my friend, when he got defeated in the reagan landslide in 1980 he hadnt done anything but Public Service since coming back from world war ii so decided to do some the difference, went to connecticut and boss and in, tried to run it and it went bankrupt, wall street journal called him up and wanted to know what happened and the only line you need to know that explains what happens when people say too long in Office George mcgovern said if i knew how difficult it was to run a business on my have voted differently in the senate. There you are. You get out of touch, get free haircuts, free parking, free pension stuff after one or two terms. What is not to like about that. The founders never wanted that to happen. What we have in illinois is will we have a lot better state especially the federal government if you are going to elect the same party, the same people, the same party over and over again you can expect corruption. It is going to happen and it happens here, it happened in new jersey, still does, in new york and parts of california and other states when you have a 1party control of your state or federal government are going to open yourself up to far more temptation and corruption. A book is not just 150 pages of blasting this issue with that issue. You have solutions and solutions for regular people. Bring the hammer down on something and people are left after they read it. What can i do about it as a citizen, as a voter and you recommending your books and people to find someone who is trying to make a better life for themselves and to volu