eight candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, were accorded greater talk-time than the moderator. Barack Obama was accorded the greatest talk-time at 16 full minutes, 2.85 times the talk-time accorded Gravel, who was accorded the least talk-time at 5.62 minutes. On June 28, 2007 in Washington, D.C., PBS held and televised a debate at Howard University, an historically black college. The moderator was Tavis Smiley. All eight candidates discussed various topics including education, poverty, unemployment, racial discrimination, and health in the black community. The debate drew a record crowd of celebrities, such as Harry Belafonte, Al Sharpton, Dorothy Heights, Jesse Jackson, Terry McMillan, Judge Hatchett, and Mark Ridley-Thomas. Gravel's points in the debate included that the "war on drugs" was a failure. He asserted that the prison population of the US had increased 1285% over the past 35 years and that 70% of that population is African-American. Gravel compared the legal basis for the war on drugs to Prohibition, claimed that it made criminals of people who otherwise were not criminals, and that they were disproportionately African-American. Gravel asserted that the money spent on the war in Iraq could have built 4 million houses thus helping victims of hurricane Katrina, or financed 21 million four-year college scholarships, or hired 7.6 million new teachers. Gravel said that the income tax code was especially open to corruption. That the tax code was now so complicated and corrupted that no one alive understood it. He said that with his alternative, progressive sales tax proposal everyone would know what everyone else was paying in taxes. Gravel said that equal justice before the law would only be possible if the people were empowered as lawmakers. Gravel asserted that Free Trade Agreements benefited corporate management and shareholders but hurt most people on both sides to the agreement. This was the first debate during which all the candidates were accorded equal time. The earlier debates were heavily biased toward the 'Top-tier' candidates. By the second-quarter 2007 close, the committee had $31,141 in cash on hand, and had collected a total of $175,229 in net contributions during the entire 2008 election cycle. Third quarter On July 12, 2007 in Detroit, Michigan, all eight candidates attended a debate held during the NAACP convention. John Edwards and Hillary Clinton were overheard—on stage, over microphones—conferring about weeding those candidates not in the 'Top-tier' out of future debates. On July 23, 2007