WASHINGTON – Former British PrimeMinister Tony Blair said on Monday that political pressures drivepoliticians to take short-term decisions when long-term reforms areneeded.

“Often more state power is the answer to problems and aresistance to change, and that resistance to change is difficult incircumstances where the answers are about reform,” Blair said atCUNA's Governmental Affairs Conference at the Washington ConventionCenter.

Blair said examples of this in the U.S. are changes toentitlement programs and the minimum wage.

During the Q&A portion of the event, Blair was asked if he was offended by what he haslearned of the National Surveillance Agency.

“If any one truly tells you that they were shocked by the factthat intelligence services listen to phone calls, I think thatwould be a little skeptical, let's say,” he said.

Blair refrained from going into great detail, joking that hemight have to seek “asylum in Russia” if he said anything else.

Blair's administration reportedly gave the NSA access to emailand phone records of British citizens in 2005.

It was also recently reported that Blair offered to help RupertMurdoch and Rebekah Brooks, the former head of Murdoch's Britishnewspapers in the phone hacking scandal.

Blair refrained from giving his opinion of President Obama's jobperformance, saying he respects every U.S. president he has dealtwith in the past.