are frankly underfunded to the extant that within the next 10- 15 years, we could have several mini-greeces at the state level pare. host: as a state, i am not obligated by the law to fully fund might pension plan? guest: every state is different with respect to its funding obligations. there are funding standards but there is great flexibility. reason we are about to be in a pension funding crisis -- the reason we are about to be in a pension funding crisis is it is really multifaceted. the stock market crash in a 2008 really affected pension plans in a significant way both public and private. secondly, pension plans when times are good in the public sector really added and made benefits richer. sometimes it was retroactively. people fought the good times would last forever. they had surplus assets. they provided ancillary benefit per is. states have been implicated in certain pay to play arrangements which are costly. finally, there seems to be the ability and the public pension system of individuals spiking their benefits. in other words, the benefit one receives is determined very much

pump numbers into a macroeconomic number but people are basically anxious for future taxes because of greece, because of a million other things. they are still not going to hire. and the psychological switch has not occurred. >> a different jobs question, mark, the offer by the white house of a job, one of three jobs to democrat runing for the senate in colorado to keep him from challenging the democrat who was already in the race. this on top of the pennsylvania. >> well, actually it is the third time. the late bill sapphire had a rule of 3. he had to have 3 separate instances-- incidents before a story really got legs. this is the third one and then the david pattison, the governor of new york, they-- on the day the president excuse me was visiting new york tried to get him out of the race. he later withdrew because of ethical question of his own but then joe sestak against arlen specter and andy romanoff. >> and they all turned it down. >> that's the big thing. there are two factors come out of this. first is it violates the marvelous rule that i learned from speaker thomas p o'neill whic

worried are you about identifying those minorities who want to know about chopin, schopenhauer, einstein, greece, rome -- even if they are not in those fields? what are you doing about that? >> liberal education. you want students to study history, literature, philosophy, and to ask the big questions about life and what kind of empathy they have appeared the best education has to be abroad. but it is not about training. >> it task to be broad. -- . >> it is not about training. >> it has to be broad. >> we have to have our students take more courses in the arts and sciences. >> let's thank our panel. [applause] i hope everyone sees that there are some fantastic agents or changed sitting here. being the optimist that i am, i think we can expect a tremendous improvement as we move forward in this very technically complicated business of education. thank you for being here. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> pulitzer prize winners today on prime time. he talks about the final decade of the cold war. we also l

on other occasions, and greece have not when we may be thought they have been prompted. we look to israel to cede to the international calls for such an inquiry and investigation. it would not be logged -- belongs if they refuse to that we would add our voices in that case for one conducted under international auspices. he is right to say urgent workings should be taken on providing the mechanism for access to aid into gaza and trade in and out of gaza while ensuring israel that will not be used for the smuggling of arms. that is the urgent work we are kicking forward with our partners in the eu and u.s. and it is something we will have to come back to the house on. >> it is easy to beat contemporary -- to condemn issael. the questions we must ask ourselves is that these things taken by themselves will bring about the solution that we all seek. drawing on our own colonial experience and also on our recent experience in northern ireland, is it not clear that sooner or later, however controversial it may be, that hamas have to be brought into the circle of discussions? >>

on other occasions, and greece have not when we may be thought they have been prompted. we look to israel to cede to the international calls for such an inquiry and investigation. it would not be logged -- belongs if they refuse to that we would add our voices in that case for one conducted under international auspices. he is right to say urgent workings should be taken on providing the mechanism for access to aid into gaza and trade in and out of gaza while ensuring israel that will not be used for the smuggling of arms. that is the urgent work we are kicking forward with our partners in the eu and u.s. and it is something we will have to come back to the house on. >> it is easy to beat contemporary -- to condemn israel. the questions we must ask ourselves is that these things taken by themselves will bring about the solution that we all seek. drawing on our own colonial experience and lso on our recent experience in northern ireland, is it not clear that sooner or later, however controversial it may be, that hamas have to be brought into the circle of discussions? >> i

i do not think greece, for instance, it is -- raises a specter of competition so much. it raises a warning flag to us. but what we think about the emerging high energy productive cultures that are going to be challenging in terms of the productivity, like china, and india has great potential as well, i think we have to be careful that we do not find ourselves so burdened with debts that we inhibit our capacity to exercise the leadership that the world expects from us and that we deserve to provide for the next generation in terms of securing freedom. i am very concerned about our finances and i do not think that the american people are so ignorant that they do not want to buy more government. i think they are so intelligent that they do not want to buy more government. i think they understand that being in debts significantly in paris the ability of one to be as free as one would otherwise aspire to be. [applause] >> thank you, a very -- thank you very much. i want to prevent -- presented with the heritage foundation necktie. >> this is good. >> we match. at this time,

i am not one of those hysterical that opponents of this, but if the sovereign debt crisis in greece, italy, spain, and portugal have a lesson i, tn we should be able to learn something from that. i am talking about saving money that could be used to reduce the national debt, thereby reducing our interest payments. i am not talking about socializing anything. i am talking about a more productive government that is able to faithfully execute all of the delaware laws. i think that is a win-win benefits. if we can save a nickel in making government more efficient in these times, it cannot be anything but positive, especially if we clarify what government is supposed to do and give it the resources to get it done. host: phil on the republican line. caller: i like hat you are saying, but i do not know how you begin to dismantle something like this i live in a small town in kansas. we have that in issue with the school district here. there was a real budget shortfall. i dug into the numbers and found out they had a strategic planner. i thought that there was one, but there was a strategic p

think about the charges and range of options being hurled at greece and the debtors states in your. it's virtually the washingon census back 10 years later. >> did you really see death panel? [laughter] >> death. [laughter] >> okay, sorry. i thought you -- we were into the medicare commission. listen, i mean, i have been struck, not by the sort of narrowness perspectives on the financial reform. i have been struck by the range. there are a group of intellectual critics who have taken on the federal reserve in a very serious and telling fashion. the real question is whether sort of policymakers are limited in what they consider to be the legitimate scope for action. i think this, some would argue it's because thy're in the pockets of special interest. i would argue it does mch more to uncertainty. about exactly what went wrong and how to keep it from happening again, what i see the problem is, reverting to sort of ideological convenient positions and stating them with great repetition. it's almost, in terms of the public omain, it's the main now the of public, a public discourse rath

when europe had its crisis just the last few weeks with greece looking at a possible default. concern over contagion spreading to the so-called pigs countries, we saw that tank our stock market. so, these things are interconnected and yes, we have to take your home base, the need to understand we have to look at a world regulatory structure and economy. host: next, an opinion piece this morning from "the wall street journal" posing these questions with regard to the fiasco. one wonders if it would have been possible for ages to sabotage the ships before they left the ports of this incident would never have occurred. or failing that, to allow the ships to have been operable in gaza, and then to disable them so as to prevent any further trips. guest: i think they're many questions to be asked about the flotilla and its intent, why it was on board, why the choices were made. we know two things this morning. one, there was a tragic loss of life in no one can be happy about that. everyone must be terribly sad that it occurred. the second thing we know is that israelis landed on tho