The Exchange; Interview With Chris Dodd

From New Hampshire Public Radio I'm Laura Hanoi and this is the exchange. Even though he's trailing Democratic rivals like Clinton Obama and Edwards you can't say that Connecticut U.S. senator and presidential candidate Chris Dodd isn't trying as hard in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire dives everywhere in person on television on radio and online. Dodd even has his own Internet TV network called Dodd TV and the campaign may top all others when it comes to sending out e-mails to reporters often criticizing his rivals and outlining the strength of his position. But for all this energy and effort campaign has failed to catch fire. Here in the granite state polls from the University of New Hampshire consistently put him at just 1 percent. Still don't give up on Chris Dodd yet recently fueling his supporters hopes is the endorsement of Dodd by the national firefighters union. That's the

organization whose support is often credited with boosting Democrat John Kerry's sagging campaign way back in 2000. Three today in the exchange. Democratic presidential hopeful and Connecticut U.S. Senator Chris Dodd will be back with us. He'll be in our studios in just a moment. The exchange number is 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 1 800 8:19 and HPR. You can e-mail your comments for Senator Dodd at and HPR dot org. Senator Dodd will be with us in just a moment. I want to remind you again that to get your comments and questions in your head and you can call the number right now. Our phones are ready to take your comments and questions. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 1 800 2 to NH. Now Senator Dodd was last with us in April so couple months ago and we spent much of the hour with him talking

about Iraq. However there are lots of other issues voters care about in this campaign and we want to spend time this hour talking about some of those. So with Senator Dodd this morning going to focus a lot on the environment alternative energy and health care Senator Dodd's proposals for those again 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 1 800 8 9 2 and HPR. Let's go now to a little bit of Senator Dodd talking recently about Iraq. Well I don't know if you saw the follow up stories to my colleague and friend John McCain's visit to Baghdad when they went to that shopping center or the market. They had that literally I think it was a a company at least a company of troops. I don't know how many Humvees helicopters hovering over them. The merchants when they left said this is what you mean normal they said this was no casual shopping day. This was no casual shopping trip. You know we have these photo ops and these efforts to paint a different picture. And the reality is of course

that there are certainly pockets I'm sure in Iraq where there is some normalcy. But when you have 2 million people who've left the country a million more who've been displaced. When you literally lead on an average 100 people are dying a day because of roadside bombs and suicide bombers in the country. Not to mention of course the casualties we've suffered and others with little or no hope when you realize that she is a killing she is in some cases and Sunnis back and forth tearing each other apart here. Neighborhoods are just been decimated there are ghost towns because people have had to leave over the violence it's occurring here. How can anyone possibly suggest that this is sort of getting better somehow here. There's no evidence whatsoever that that's the case and I'm not suggesting that our departure is miraculously going to create a different situation but it might just be a bit different. I know the continued presence of our military in those situations is not helping. We've done what we can do. I still believe there's a role if you wanted to some border security some training functions you could probably maybe help with remember they have 300000 people now in uniform in that country. And these young men I talked to at Walter

Reed yesterday said that the actually the military guys aren't bad and they're getting better all the time. The Iraqi military they were very. One fellow said to me I wouldn't trust the Iraqi police he said as far as I could throw them. But the military they said they're getting better. So you've got you've got what have 10 divisions thirty six battalions 118 actually battalions. This to me it seems to me they ought to be enough people to begin to provide that kind of security in Baghdad and elsewhere for their own people and our presence there I think again I'm just repeating myself but our presence there I think creates more problems and obstacles to achieving that stability again that's us. Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd he's a Democratic presidential candidate talking with us on the exchange. Back in April about Iraq. But as I said when Senator Dodd gets here we're going to shift our focus a little bit. Today Iraq has taken up a lot of the time and energy of his campaign and others. But there are other issues that voters want to know about including the environment including health care. So we're going to focus on those two issues with

Senator Dodd today. You can join us at 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. Before we go to our conversation with the senator we're going to check in just real quick with any HPR full membership campaign. Good morning. This is Andrew Perille a production manager for New Hampshire Public Radio. I'm here with Abby Goldstein our program director and we're in the middle of our autumn membership drive. We're trying to encourage you to go to the phone and make a pledge to an HPR 1 8 8 8 8 0 5 6 4 7 7. Or you can join us online at HPR dot o r g. The exchange is your forum and is your opportunity to weigh in on the conversation. And here we are today with with Chris Dodd coming in. We have Hillary Clinton last week during the primary. This is your chance to talk directly to the presidential candidates and what a valuable forum this is the primary coverage that you've been hearing on New Hampshire Public Radio keeps you

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Dodd. He's returned to our studios to talk about a number of issues in his campaign. And Senator Dodd Good morning and welcome. Good morning. Good to have you here finally and talk a little bit of holiday racing over there. OK I know how these campaigns go. I've covered one or two of them before. Senator Dodd I was just explaining to our listeners that last time you were here in April we spent a ton of time talking about Iraq. So I don't want to do that today because you've got some big plans for health care and the environment and alternative energy and one and I want to spend our limited time talking about that today. So let's jump right into it. You have talked a lot about alternative energy and the environment two issues discussed hand-in-hand. You've called for a corporate carbon tax on certain industries that would generate about 50 billion to help pay for research into cleaner energy and so forth. First of all Senator Dodd who gets taxed. Well it would be the polluters. That's the whole idea here. And let me tell you why look I'm not insensitive obviously being in New Hampshire and people react to taxes here. So obviously there are better way of

doing this. Believe me I would try to come up with a better solution to this. But I don't believe there is. Let me thank Al Gore and Bill Bradley both of whom have called this proposal have made the boldest the most honest of the energy plants its energy environmental plan. I think energy the environment are almost the same coin. Two sides of the same coin you talk about energy policy and the absence of talking about environmental policy I don't think you can do that global warming. I think for most of us in this country no longer is a debatable issue. It's a reality how do we deal with it. And while every other candidate is talking very very laudably about dealing with global warming it's mostly goal oriented It doesn't tell you how to get there. What I've proposed here is a proposal on how you get there. How do we reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and move to the alternative technologies and alternative fuels which are within our grasp here reducing our problems in national security reducing our dependency improving our health an issue I don't have to raise in New Hampshire given the high levels of asthma that people have in this state and also of creating new job opportunities for people in this country. So the corporate carbon

tax is designed to deal with price primarily lore if you don't deal with price then you're always going to have a problem moving to the alternatives because average families cannot make the decisions about cleaner technologies when you're trying to put food on the table take care of a mortgage or rent a holding your family together economically particularly in these days with health care costs going through the ceiling which we'll talk about here and so dealing with price. As long as the oil industry can drop that price of a barrel of oil down to 20 $15 a barrel how do you make these alternative ideas competitive. At $80 a barrel they're relatively comparable as long as the price goes up. These alternative ideas I think we can make very competitive. So you're going to tax the oil companies. The need for fossil fuel producers here these these carbon producing the CO2 emitting producing fuels. This is why. Why is carbon tax free. We know what's causing health problems. We know it's destroying the environment. Why is it free. OK that centered me interrupt you for a minute. You talked about the struggles of ordinary families. You tax these energy companies and they're going to pass that on to their consumers and you know

people could be cold in the winter time if during the heat because it's so expensive. This is why we need to move in this area. And what we're doing today where people say oh this is expensive to do it we're borrowing a billion dollars every day. Borrowing a billion dollars every day to buy foreign oil in this country. And a third of that money is going to countries that are very hostile to our interests. So if you want to continue the status quo that's a tax you're paying all the time. Look at these prices that are going up and gasoline and home heating oil all the time back and forth here. Why not become energy independent. Why not give a gift to the coming generation. My bill cost $50 billion. And I take the money and invested in these alternative technologies and fuels and provide tax relief for lower income people that would like to buy cleaner appliances or automobiles that are cleaner and more efficient here so that's where that money goes. Given the choice. Fifty billion dollars a year to become more energy independent cleaner technologies and cleaner fuels. Or the status quo of borrowing a billion dollars a day over 300 billion dollars a year to become more and more dependent on part of the world that is very hostile to our interests. I don't think the

choice is rather clear. Another question on alternative energy. You're calling for an increased investment in among other things bio diesel. But lately Senator Dodd. I hear a lot of criticism of Bio-Diesel especially corn ethanol is kind of an environmental bust. I mean you got to use fossil fuels or other types of energy to turn the corn to fuel. You got to intensely cultivate the corn in ways that could harm the soil up. What are your thoughts on some new environmental criticisms of bio diesel that may not be the savior that they're not legitimate concerns at in getting to these getting to these materials alternative fuels is really getting the cellulosic materials which you can get that grow corn switch grass trees here in New Hampshire. Now we're discovering you can get this from a lot of other sources other than corn sugar cane sugar cane is the most successful in Brazil right now. That's where all of their alternative fuels are coming from. So the issue about corn is not illegitimates driven the price up which has been great for farmers but most of huge agribusinesses and not small farmers anymore. So they've been doing well a price. But of course that

drives up the cost of food as well here. So I don't think those concerns are illegitimate. It still is a source of energy. We don't need to be looking at just one source here. The idea is we can develop fuels that are far cleaner from cellulosic materials that can come switchgrass to say trees can cope. So there are a lot of ways for us to go to develop those fuels and that's the direction we ought to be going. But that's only one idea you have in the far west you have geothermal energy. You've got ocean thermal gradients in the Gulf state areas you've got wind in western Iowa the huge wind farms going up. A company was located in Kirkuk Iowa the other day it's bringing 400 jobs to build turbines for wind power and that small community which has been looking for new job opportunities so what I mentioned earlier economic growth is linked to this issue as well as cleaner environment cleaner health. Obviously less dependence on the on the parts of the world that are dangerous to put it mildly. So there are a lot of good ideas associated with this with this plan. What I've said I will do here is not easy to do. I was here talking about some mountains to climb and I understand that and some pain during the transition and it can be. But look at this country with good leadership can

do that. I was told I could never pass the family medical leave act that you're never going to be able to have businesses agree to give their employees 12 weeks off without losing their jobs. It took me seven years three presidents and two vetoes to get it done. But I've got the reputation of people who gets things done that people other people can't get done. I'm result oriented in terms of bringing Democrats and Republicans together. You know one more question about your environmental proposal Senator Dodd. And then I want to go to our callers again the exchange number 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. Our guest today is Connecticut U.S. senator and Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd returning for a second time here in the exchange. Another part of your proposal for energy and environment is to raise automobile fuel economy standards to 50 miles per gallon. Now Senator Dodd you know this as well as I do people have talked about this for years. Congress has debated this endless times. It never changed. How are you going to change it when nobody else has been able to. Well because if we don't we may lose this industry. The auto industry absolutely. You know my wife

likes to point out 1983 she bought a C R x. That's 24 years ago got 43 miles to the gallon. That was before the Internet and cell phones here were still operating on auto bills and an internal combustion engine that Henry Ford designed over 100 years ago. If we operated our rail system which is not a great shakes in the airline industry with the same propulsion systems we'd be falling way behind other countries are developing these technologies here in terms of how they get more efficiency. I'm almost embarrassed to argue for 50 miles per gallon by the year 2017. I think we can do a lot better than that. The consumers given the choice in marketing here will move in that direction as well. I agree I don't. These are all difficult issues but what's been missing is the leadership that knows how to bring people together. I won't wait till January 20th 2009 to start this both on health care and energy environmental policy. I'll start the day after I'm elected to the presidency here to bring people together the stakeholders here to drive this. These are national issues that have huge import for our country both domestically and in terms of foreign policy. So this is an issue that needs to have

real leadership and I think with real leadership we can make a huge difference in the fuel efficiency standards is a mandate. Though Senator Dodd a good idea. I mean if other countries are doing it if the market pressures are already there why not just let the natural market forces take care of this fuel efficiency because you such consolidation here and again I think we want to keep jobs here and so forth. Had we not insisted upon and on cleaner and safer technologies and let the market deal with it. I suspect we might still have other problems we're dealing with today. So occasionally by insisting upon something we get it. Seatbelts for instance save lives here. Smoking for instance improves our health and saves us money with health care costs letting people do just what they want to do without any cost associated with it. I think it causes some difficulties. I'm not from mandating things across the board but I don't want to see my country become any more dependent we are on China today for our economic security because they're buying our debt or the Middle East because they own my energy. I want America to be a self-sufficient independent nation that financially fiscally and energy wise is taking care of itself and we're not doing that today. There's an argument that these fuel mandates would kick Detroit when it's down. If

Michigan is already suffering the heart of the auto industry in this country would say that well how why are they suffering. Because because because other people are producing automobiles the consumers are finding more attractive I mean we like to compete in this country we're not afraid of competition. But you're going to have to compete on a footing here that makes it possible for us to make better choices and that's what the case is here in terms of fuel efficiency standards. Senator Dodd lots of calls let's go to them 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 e-mails are welcome to of course exchange at an HP art Richards in Bedford good morning Richard. Thanks for calling in. Good morning thanks for having me. Senator Dodd is already talked a great deal about the global warming plans and that was that was one of my questions. He hasn't he hasn't talked about the problem of coal being worse than oil and gas particularly for us as far as the amount of carbon it produces.

But that would be covered by his carbon tax presumably. I'm interested in what his views are on exploring for oil in the far north. In particular in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge which the present administration has been trying to get into the great detriment of the native people as well as the wildlife. OK Richard. Arctic drilling in the ANWAR. I've opposed that in the past. Again you're getting very little out for it and the dangers obviously vastly exceed any benefit I see from that again it's continue to rely on a source of energy here that I think is moving us in the wrong direction. And the caller is very and I apologize. Obviously coal is an issue here as well. There's some people talking about clean coal technologies and the like and again I'm willing to listen to some of these ideas. And clearly when you start talking about the grid when where we mostly talk about transportation. A lot of this the issues of foreign oil coming in. I for one and I

certainly want to people in New Hampshire know this. I don't take nuclear power off the table here. I mean one that we've got serious issues of waste and transportation that need to be dealt with. But I think if you're going to be honest about global warming here you can't avoid the fact that 53 percent of our of our grid is operated on a coal base only about 1 percent comes from comes from oil. And so you're going to have to talk about an alternative wind and solar and other alternative ideas for energy can be tremendously helpful and conservation is something we didn't talk about either as a way of really reducing our dependency and dealing with global issues global warming issues. But I want people to know as well I just don't honestly believe I can have a candid conversation about dealing with with global warming if you eliminate the idea that you could have a nuclear program here that would allow for us to operate the grid without depending upon a CO2 emitting problems that are associated with coal. Now that's a position that many Republicans take to Senator Dodd let's keep a closer eye on nuclear power in this area of concern about global warming. Listen the campaigns ought to be about bold ideas and honesty. What bothers me about candidates too often

is they try to skate by during a campaign don't say anything or do anything just survive on your celebrity rather than talking about what you honestly believe. And I think nuclear gives us this is a way we could we could develop this develop the international consortiums because China for instance has huge environmental issues we can't solve this problem exclusively on our own. But building the International consortiums that reduce our dependency on these carbon producing CO2 emitting fuels is in everyone's interest. And so collecting the brainpower of people on how we deal with some of these thorny issues associated with nuclear is in everyone's interest in the United States ought to be leading on that in my view. Thanks for the call Richard and let's go to Keene next door. Larry's on the line. Hi Larry go ahead. Hi. Thanks for taking my call. The top two issues in this election cycle as far as I'm concerned are protecting and defending the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and dealing with global climate change. And I really appreciate Senator Dodd speaking out on climate change. Senator you advocate a corporate carbon tax which we mentioned earlier there.

Go ahead. Yeah well I'm I'm curious just how would that work could the senator give us some details maybe an example of how it would affect a particular industry or even a particular consumer of electricity. Perfect. Thank you Larry. What we do is basically you'd be based on the amount of carbon will be produced by a given industry then that would be tax based on a certain amount of money. Our estimates are as we develop this it would generate about 50 billion dollars based on today's usages of carbon producing CO2 emitting carbon producing fuels. And so you would evaluate based on how many units of carbon you've produced put a value on that and then that would. But you charge that industry that amount for producing that amount. So it is an incentive to move people away. And part of what we talk about here is providing incentives and help you know smaller companies for instance that may not be able to have the resources to financially make that transition quickly. Part of that 50 billion we talk about not only to invest on fasttrack. The alternative energies and ideas as well as providing relief for consumers would like to move to cleaner

appliances and the like is also to provide for those companies in transition that would like to move away from the carbon producing fuels to the cleaner technologies we would help them do that as well. Senator Dodd you mentioned in your answer a moment ago bold ideas celebrity candidates. What's it been like for you campaigning for president as an and celebrity candidate. You're not a Hillary Clinton you're not Barack Obama. Thank you for stating the obvious. You've been pretty know you've been making a huge effort here in New Hampshire and we see your e-mails and your commercials and everything all the time. You're still registering. No way way way way down there in the polls. How come. Well first of all we think the last caller care about the Constitution by the way I list that is it you know the president has two obligations protect and defend the Constitution to keep us safe. And so we didn't get to the constitutional issues but I am grateful to him for recognizing the importance that issue which I talk about all the time. But I have great faith in the people of this state people in Iowa. I've been here I think 17 times the last 31 days we've made about 35000 calls to likely caucus

or primary attendees in New Hampshire in January and over 70 percent almost 80 percent of the respondents are saying we haven't made up our minds yet. So you're saying Kerry is still absolutely. Absolutely. Listen I was with Gary Hart last night. I was a big very hard supporter in 1984. I nominated him at the convention in San Francisco. Really. Yeah and Gary was reminding me that he got 14 percent 15 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses. And two weeks later won the New Hampshire primary when he was not even on the radar screen basically until that time. So if you and I get very good coverage in here I'm very grateful to the New Hampshire press corps that pays attention when I'm here. The national press corps is a problem and I understand that but they've been so wrong so many times I'm surprised that people have a lot of faith in their punditry when they come in predicting what will happen and people in this state want to kick the tires. They want to turn you upside down they want to shake you. They realize you can get well-known in a day if you win in Iowa and New Hampshire. They know that you can raise the money in a short time if you're winning but you can't be as well-prepared to do

this job. And I think people in this state take very seriously this responsibility. So I've always supported first in the nation primary in this state because they take a good hard look at you sit in those house parties in those town hall meetings and they want to drill down. They want to ask the deeper question about your views on things they want to get a sense of who you are as a human being and they've made very good decisions in the years past and I have a lot of confidence that celebrity and notoriety is not going to win the New Hampshire primary. You don't think so. No I don't think those poll numbers don't. Democrats don't like consistently not in the slightest. John Kerry was 20 points behind Howard Dean on the 23rd of December 2003. He was at 4 percent in the polls nationally two points behind Reverend Sharpton and ended up winning the New Hampshire primary after winning the Iowa caucuses. So I have a lot of confidence in this maybe I'll be proven crazy in the end. But but in the end I just kind of believe this and say what you believe. I've 26 years of serving. I've been involved in every major foreign policy and domestic policy issue I've authored major landmark legislation from child care and family medical

leave election reform financial services reform. I'm babbling today on the constitutional issues dealing with the military commissions act in the most recent one here where apparently the Democratic Congress is going to go on granting immunity to the telephone companies that turned over all of our records to to the Bush administration. And I'm stunned that Democrats frankly would be willing to give immunity for violating the law in a sense for invading our privacy as a people. So I care about these issues very very deeply and I believe people in New Hampshire are now going to really start to focus on this and as they do I've got a lot of confidence I'm going to do well up here. I'm a neighbor by the way I come from just down the road in Connecticut I'm really close. Well and one more question about the campaign itself. Senator Dodd before we get back into some of the issues you and most of the other major Democratic candidates signed a pledge back in August saying look we're going to honor the DNC calendar we won't campaign in those states that are trying to muscle in on New Hampshire and Iowa and Nevada and yet you haven't taken your name off the ballot in Michigan. Neither has Hillary Clinton Obama Edwards and most of the others have how come you

haven't. Well first of all I didn't put my name on the ballot. I haven't been in Michigan in three years have no intention of going up there I'm not going to campaign there at all. Our names were put on the ballot in Florida as well and every other candidate has a name on that state too and I've also said I'm not going to go there and campaign. I've in fact asked and lobbied extensively. Kathy Sullivan will confirm this the former state Democratic chairman to get my state central committee people my National Committee people to support New Hampshire in its first in the nation primary in Connecticut. Absolutely. Early on I believe in it very strongly and have stayed in that position. Michigan is talking about having something after New Hampshire and the Iowa caucuses. And I didn't ask my name to be put on the ballot. I'm not going to go campaign in that state or in Florida. Our names are still on that state too and you can petition to have them taken off the other candidates haven't. So it's kind of a silly debate in many ways here. So not a fair knock against you and I don't think so really. And you just call just to make people feel better. Just call Michigan say your guys take money. It's unnecessary it's a silly gesture and in a statement it really doesn't need to be done and people are going up. I won't campaign haven't campaigned up there they put my name on the ballot. I didn't do it much. They didn't Florida.

They go through this all the time generating a story. How much more clear can we be. I'm going to insist and do everything I can not just this year or in the years past. By the way I stood for New Hampshire in the first well and you certainly been in New Hampshire live this time. You've been on this program before which we appreciate which is more than we can say for some other candidates this time around. Go ahead mention the record. We're still waiting to hear from several. You mentioned just a second ago Senator Dodd experience that you've got the experience. Is that a subtle or less than subtle knock against Senators Obama and former Senator Edwards both of whom have not that much experience in federal office. Well I think most Americans think this coming election may be the most important one in our adulthood considering everything that is at stake both at home and abroad. This is about as serious as it gets. I think regardless of what party you're in there's a sense our country's not going in the right direction at home or internationally and we're putting ourselves at risk. The American President has asked to do two things when he takes the oath or he she takes the oath of office on January

20th to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States to protect us from enemies both foreign and domestic. Those are the two things keep us safe. Keep us strong and protect our Constitution and I believe that you've got to have some ability to demonstrate what you're committed to do by based on what you have done. It's a legitimate question is what we ask of anyone who applies for a job. Tell me your references. Let me call some people and find out whether or not you're competent to do this job or you can do what you say you're going to do. And I invite anybody to call my my colleagues in the Senate Democrats or Republicans. They do not agree with me on everything but they know that I stand up and fight and win 26 years in the U.S. Senate been elected eight times by the people of Connecticut I served as the party chairman for Bill Clinton in 95 and 96 after the debacle in 1994. So I know how to win elections both locally and nationally and I've been able to bring Democrats and Republicans together around very controversial issues. I wrote the first childcare legislation since World War II with Orrin Hatch of Utah. I wrote the Family Medical Leave Act which 50 million Americans have taken advantage of with two conservative Republican senators along with other Democrats. I did the same thing on financial services

autism premature births infant screening after school programs. I was called the senator of the Decade by the Head Start Association in the country. So on every major issue here I've been able to bring people together to get a job done. I can't tell you Laura how angry people are about not standing up for the Constitution about not standing up and getting something done they're tired of the bickering and screaming and fighting and nothing happening and they're seeing our country suffer from it. So I offer my candidacy as someone who brings those result oriented experiences and leadership together and that is what this candidacy is about and what the election ought to be about. OK stay on the line if you're there the phone number 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. Coming up after a short break Senator Dodd and I will turn to health care. Stay with us. I'm Betty Gardella president of New Hampshire Public Radio. As the presidential primary season heats up in New Hampshire you can count on us for outstanding coverage of the

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You know you might not realize just how special it is for you to be living in the first in the nation primary state at a time like this you know can't all the candidates are coming through on the exchange we've had Hillary Clinton today Senator Chris Dodd for his second visit. We've had John McCain Mike Huckabee Tom Tancredo Mike Gravel Kucinich Bill Richardson Brownback Ron Paul. What that ended up on C-SPAN this is a very special time to be in New Hampshire and the exchange is here to bring you these interviews and give you a chance to talk to the candidates. Think about how valuable that is to you and then make a call. 1 8 8 8 8 0 5 6 4 7 7. Thank you. Additional support for New Hampshire Public Radio comes from New Hampton School. In a world that expects you to fit in. Students are taught to stand out. Hosting it admissions open house on Monday evening November 5th details at New Hampton org from Granite State credit union now providing small business solutions including commercial lending business tracking savings money markets and

more online at GSC you dog and New Hampshire School Administrators Association representing school superintendents and administrators championing the education of children every day online at NHS. A dot org. This is an age for your. This is the exchange I'm Laura Conaway. Monday in the Exchange Richard Lui will be our guest to discuss his book Last Child in the woods saving our children from nature deficit disorder it's about the need to reconnect children with the outdoors. You can send us your thoughts and questions by e-mail before the program at exchange. NHP. And of course join us Monday morning live at 9:00. Right now we're talking with U.S. Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut a Democratic presidential candidate campaigning hard here in New Hampshire and Iowa. The exchange number for you to join us with your questions for Senator Dodd is 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. Senator Dodd I want to go to Manchester now Sturtz it's been waiting there. And Stewart thanks for your patience.

Go ahead. Thank you Senator. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. So there's a group of scientists at the University of Massachusetts that want to do clinical research on marijuana's medical value for patients with chronic illnesses. The answer is yes right. And this research to allow for FDA trials to finally be conducted on medical marijuana. Well as you know the DEA is blocking this project even though a judge so should go forward. Senators Kennedy and Kerry I know support long medical marijuana and marijuana legalization but isn't. Well you also and the obstructionism and let well-designed medical marijuana research go forward. Stuart thanks for the call. Great question. Absolutely. In fact we think you know more about this than I do. Obviously we had a vote recently and our and our health and education committee specifically on the subject matter. I think there are 11 or 12 states that have already allowed it and I thought it was the FDA that was still was prepared to make judgments about those conditions. And so you want to go through the proper process and you hit the note right in the head you got to be safe and make sure things are secure and for people. But I believe

very strongly that if this relieves people of the pain and suffering for a number of illnesses and so forth in the medical usage of this ought to be permitted and as president I would do what I could to see that that was tolerable for people. Well and Stuart thanks for the call and you know we should talk about health care more broadly. Senator Dodd your plan is for something called universal health Mart. It's privately based though this is not single payer Canada style medicine. It's an attainable plan in many ways but by this I mean look it takes the the things that are working and keeps them and gets rid of the things that are not. And it changes the incentive structure. The incentive is all cost driven. So it's a universal plan. It bans discrimination based on pre-existing conditions in the country. It's portable it travels with you not your job. Everyone benefits everyone pays in. And for those who can't afford to initially we subsidize that and that's not an expensive. It's about $70 billion a year to bring those people into the system. We're spending about 2.2 trillion dollars on health care annually it's not that we're spending too little money on health care we're we're spending way too much on health care. We don't provide the same incentives for

people to keep you out of a surgeon's operating room as we do the people who then operate you want. So prevention chronic illness which consume 50 or 73 percent of Medicare dollar administrative cost improvements and so forth totally universality. These are all the things that I invite people to go to our Web site Chris Dodd e-comm and and this will provide all the the details of the plan. And there are a lot of plans out there look and I and again there all these candidates have various health care plans that deal with universality and in it I agree with some of this disagree with parts of it. Here Laura is what's missing in all of this. In a sense putting aside from it that we have I believe that you ought to use the Federal Employees Health Benefit structure. Is this for every member of Congress gets this a million people who don't have to invent a new one. It's a national way to provide and deliver health care. Really what it is is who can do this who can bring people together who can get it done in a sense. This is really what's been missing in all of this here and that's what I'm advocating and what I bring to this. It's been argued that the family medical leave act was the most significant change in health care in the country since Medicare was adopted and that allowed people to be together here allowed for recovery

to occur more quickly after after a birth or adoption of a child and an illness that makes a huge difference. And that's what I bring to this debate here and I've said I will not wait till January 20th I'll begin the day after my election to bring together the people to do what we should've done 15 years ago. I know people talk about the scars that they've suffered politically because they didn't get the health care bill. Hillary Clinton well frankly the scars are deeper for those who didn't get health care. I was part of that debate. I supported what they tried to do. It was terribly mismanaged terribly mismanaged. Yes there were problems with outsiders who are opposed to it that's always the case that always people are going to oppose what you want to do. But we don't we can't afford to have that happen again. So in a sense I bring that results oriented experience of bringing Democrats and Republicans together. This is an issue that is hurting us economically and the country is costing us a tremendous amount. And so are 16 or 17 percent of our gross domestic product. That's the cost issue. It's gone up 87 percent premium costs in the last six years. So it's not just the uninsured it's the people who have it who can't continue to afford it and businesses

are going crazy because it costs them more and more and more every year to cover their employees. And under your plan Senator Dodd as I understand employers would have to provide insurance to employees. How are you going to convince businesses that this is a good idea given that many want to offer health care right now but they just can't and it's too expensive. Again everyone pays in to this. We don't abandon the part of the private system and I know there are those who advocate the single payer that's not going to happen. I appreciate what people are arguing for but just not going to happen here. You're going to retain this in a way that works well. You're going to have to continue to provide that if you spread out risk. So it isn't just the healthy wealthy and younger but as well as people who included older sicker and less well off than you can bring down those costs tremendously. By insisting for instance that we negotiate price on pharmaceutical drugs we could have saved 300. It's estimated $330 billion over the last six or seven years much as the VA does for instance. We did do that nationally in my view 37 percent of the health care dollars

spent on administrative costs. If you reduce that by 10 percentage points you'll save $150 billion a year just in administrative costs. So again these are all the pieces of it. But what's missing in again here what's missing is the national leadership they will bring Democrats Republicans and stakeholders together to get this done. We can't go another four eight years talking about health care and not achieving what needs to be done. And so I bring that experience background and ability to do that. And that's what I'm underlying all of this. Whether you agree with my point or someone else's point here what really you need to be asking is can you get this done. Can you move this forward. Can we get a national health care plan in place that reduces cost and covers people in the nation. We rank Laura forty fifth and infant mortality in this country in the world. Forty fifth in the world. We're Forty-Second second life expectancy in the United States of America. They're fourth world countries that do better on health care than we're doing. That's intolerable. And I'll change that. Senator Dodd you mentioned Hillary Clinton's health care plan and why it didn't get

done. Are you saying that it's her fault that it didn't get done because she's saying look the country wasn't ready at the time. Well look I mean I was there I was I'm not wasn't a casual observer and I was a supporter. You can't have secret plans in the White House and come out and tell people after you're going have to accept or reject this. It's my way or the highway in a sense. And that was what happened to a large extent. Now again I'm look it's fine. You want to talk about this. The idea that somehow this is demonstrating an ability to get things done. We didn't get it done. I was 15 years ago. We've paid an awful price for not getting it done. So I'm just pointing out the reality of what happened it wasn't the only factor but it was a factor in all of this. National Leadership cannot blame everybody else for not getting the job done. If you're going to be in a leadership position you have to assume the responsibility here. It didn't happen. It fell apart and it shouldn't have. In my view. Well Senator Dodd and I've been following your campaign as well as the others pretty closely and just again based on your performance in the debates and the e-mails that we get from your campaign everyday you've been critical of your rivals as you just were right now. How come it's not sticking.

Well I'm not sure it is. I mean I again I think you're assuming here that everyone's paying as much attention to this as people in politics are. The average person gets up this morning Laura and they got kids to get off to school they're worried about their jobs that what about their health care costs and whether or not their retirement pension is going to be there. And frankly they're angry. They're very very angry at the fact that the political system in this country seems more preoccupied with itself than they are with the people who are elected to office. And they wonder if anybody out there is listening to them here. Are you paying any attention to me at all. Do you have any idea what I'm going through. Do you know what it's like to worry about your job being there tomorrow. What about whether a kid gets sick. You're not going to take care of them because you have health care where you but you've got to take care of the kids and your parents. I mean these issues go on in people's minds and frankly who's going to win the New Hampshire caucus as a primary in Iowa Caucuses is not number one in my mind Senator. So three months away from. I'm going to post them you and I want to pay some attention now getting closer to this. Tell me why. Tell me what you've done. Tell me why I would trust you with this incredible job you're asking me to vote for you. What have you done over your 26 years to make a difference in my life or the lives of people in this country. What

experience and background do you break. What sort of a person are you what's your character what are your values. Who did you grow up with. What is your family what all of this that I want to know about you before I decide to be for you. And I'm not going to be impressed with just because someone is a well-known name or well-financed as a candidate. That's not how you do it. New Hampshire Senator Dodd we've run out of time. Thanks I will be back. Really appreciate you coming in covering a couple of these issues with us. I'll be back any time you do a great job. All right. Thank you. That's Connecticut U.S. Senator Chris Dodd again a Democratic presidential candidate. This is the exchange on an HPR. Here's what listeners like you are saying about the exchange. Hi. Great. Good morning. It's a great program and I've just been prompted to call in many times that this is the first time I've gone through a good subject you have a great show. I just wanted to comment on that because I listened to it almost religiously. I think it's a great show. Hi came a first time member on Monday so I was like No I can call and feel good about it. It's your calls that make the exchange great and it's your support that makes it all possible.

Call 1 888 8 0 5 6 4 7 7 to make your pledge to end HPR and thanks. And thank you. If you've already made a call this is Andrew peral I'm the production manager at New Hampshire Public Radio. I'm joined by Abby Goldstein our program director. We are in the middle of our fund membership drive. We're trying to raise $2000 by 10:00 o'clock which is very doable we're at. We've raised about we have about eleven hundred dollars left to raise. You can help us get there you can help us keep on track and and keep the program strong like the exchange that you've been listening to today. The number to call is 1 8 8 8 8 0 5 6 4 7 7. Interesting discussion today with Senator Chris Dodd about a couple of big issues in the primary and of course your calls and your e-mails are what add texture to these conversations the exchange is your forum. I've been traveling around the state over the last year holding community forums I've met with over 100 and HPR listeners so far in places like Berlin and Littleton in Hanover in

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