john harwood in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. the wisconsin budget showdown continues on protesters increase their numbers today and not to be outdone the koch brothers stepped up their support as well but which side will blink first strength in numbers or in dollars so let's just say strength the numbers winds up i'll tell you what else governor walker has inus arsenal against wisconsin's middle and working class and taking notes in wisconsin we'll debate whether or not

policymakers can learn anything from the still stalemate in america is to really. getting to know this after nearly two weeks the labor protests in wisconsin are not slowing down in fact in picking up so the biggest crowds yet more than one hundred thousand people decided upon the state capitol in madison wisconsin on saturday to speak out against governor scott walker's ideological war on unions the largest demonstration that states since the vietnam war and the protesters were joined by crowds nationwide as move on dot org held rallies in every state capital to show solidarity with working people whose concert on sunday for police ordered people in the state capital in wisconsin to leave by four. pm riscoe rest of the deadline

came and went with hundreds of people running camped out and those who stayed were allowed to sleep overnight there for the thirteenth night in a row back they were joined by many off duty police and firefighters police officers and firefighters meanwhile not to be outdone the billionaire koch brothers whose corporation is based in kansas at pleasure continue advocating for their interests in wisconsin a state statement released by koch industries read with the left trying to intimidate the koch brothers to back off from their support for freedom and signaling to others that this is what happens if you oppose the administration and its allies we have no choice but to continue to fight we will not step back at all on top of that americans for prosperity executive director of michigan scott said this race. so we fight these battles on taxes and regulations not really what we'd like to see is to take the unions out at the knees so they don't have the resources to fight these battles sort of the koch brothers and their interest groups have any business getting involved in this was constantly

a dispute if so what is here to speak to this issue phil kerpen was president of policy at americans for prosperity philip welcome my pleasure great to have you here you know there's a kind of a joke that's gone viral around the internet today that there's a c.e.o. a tea partier and a union guy sitting at a table with dozen cookies and from the c.e.o. grabs eleven cookies and starts eating them and then says to the tea party guy look out that you know i was part of your cookie is that really what's going on here that the bankers are crashed our system they made off with billions arguably trillions of dollars we got c.e.o. pay at literally record high higher than it's been since the founding of the nation and the middle class is being wiped out and in wisconsin we've got a governor wants to blame it on union employees well i think the financial crisis which in my view was largely instigated by left wing policy priorities and the lack of oversight over fannie and freddie and so on although clearly there are bad actor . and why are you well bystander contributing factor here no question the economic

decline is one of the reasons state budgets are in crisis that they were in very poor shape before that largely because of pension and health benefit promises that were made to workers that are run sustainable and so we had some structural problems in the same budget even independent of well first of all a lot of those pensions crashed because they were addressed in the market the market crashed but beyond that one hundred percent of the dollars paid out by pension funds are paid by the workers but i don't agree with that at all and i was a time when david cay johnston i think that's highly misleading the reason the pension benefits are so much more attractive to politicians than paying higher current salaries is because they dine future tax payers and therefore they have a concealed cost because they have has set us up for these crises in the states we need to move i know there's a tragic contribution system which is what everyone in the party in the private sector has got right now we cannot make good on these defined benefit promises that . so basically you want people to move to savings accounts and that's the same argument in social security which is which is more of a pension system where you get to see you know well you know

a lot of positives it's not a bad thing if mr if alford ponzi or whatever his name was isn't skimming pieces off the top there's really nothing on him a great place for growth it doesn't work and that's the demographic crisis we now facial face and social security no it still you know i mean you have to know that if people making over one hundred six thousand dollars a year who right now don't pay a single penny into social security paid the exact same amount of so security that you and i are or anybody making under one hundred six thousand i don't know what you make but the paid that pay that then there would be no social security because well if you raise the bases are people paying so many more for an already bad benefit i'd much rather make everyone wealthy by allowing them to get a real market return we're off the topic here i think and i think you really do a disservice to the people of wisconsin when you suggest that this is anything other than a genuine budget but then determine whether that's a set up that if you have a good government that it can afford it has everything to give away a bunch of tax breaks to throw a state into. into

a. crisis and now he wants to he wants to bust the us and it is that i have to live on lies and even if the m.d.c. is it has backed off the lie that this was not a genuine budget crisis that got three points that we've heard so little good on the market it's not a consequence of the relatively minor tax changes they made which were necessary for conformance with things like inferno a lot of it is you're right a lot of it is because the. stimulus federal stimulus funds ran out and because gov walker said no we don't want your money for light rail we're not going to take your federal funds and so we're going to create a budget crisis but to me it but the bottom line is why shouldn't why should billionaires pay a maximum fifteen percent tax rate because of the capital gains tax that income was already on it was a rich and it's a search has my definition of that's right no matter how it was this and the employees of the state of wisconsin should pay twenty five thirty thirty five percent when you add in the social security tax in the state income taxes i don't get it you're saying that if somebody makes their living sit on their butt around

the pool or somebody makes their living as a as a wall street hedge fund manager and these guys you know the top twenty of them have an average income two billion dollars each and they're paying fifteen percent income tax that somehow that's a couple that is that which is the surtax the income with hats that the income tax rates when it was originally on these guys never earned this isn't where the money come from initially it came out of the pockets of investors i mean are you saying the before the money with invested in order to yield the capital gain it was taxed as income capital gains taxes the evidence is that everyone carried every penny of merrily i want every penny in america wants it or not it was a bad economy but i'm sorry this is not simple math single penny in america at one point or another was taxed because it was able to have serious trouble taxes quadruple take it's when the income whether it was the income tax then you're saying again ten years saying that the guys on wall street are not earning income i'm saying they don't deserve i'm saying when the income was there and it was taxed as income it's. i don't care of that happened to me three four billion all taxation

of savings and investments there should be no income taxes at all and it should be i would i would repeal the capital gains and dividend tax because there are so you're saying that i wouldn't think of that i miss it only once it's close to the source that that in other words capital should not pay taxes. capital should not be double tax that should be happening is consumption or is it you know most people in america and you and i both know this don't realize that there's only maybe ten twenty fifty thousand capitals of america the capital is people who live off capital who invest money and then make a return on that investment and you're setting up those. actually if they're not that's not their primary source of income so they're not capitalists they certainly say that we have an interest that has in the in the what you're saying you're saying that for people who earn their living with cash should pay no taxes when people are in their living by working should pay higher taxes i'm saying we should talking tax income once and only once as close to the source as possible should not of certain taxes on savings and investment. so the rich people in wisconsin should

continue to only pay a fifteen percent maximum income tax on capital gains and dividends and instead there's one. point but you know that's sort of misses the point here which is that collective bargaining is created a vicious cycle in which people are able to use tax dollars for political activities to elect their own bosses to get them really this and then repeat that vicious cycle that's what governor walker is trying to break here and i think that's a very worthy so you'd much rather have the billionaires being influence in the fall the political process rather than the you so i mean i'd rather have the results of democratic elections respected instead of fourteen democrats fleeing the state running illinois because they don't like the people voted for bush is going to lose you know the top ten donors in the last election cycle some of them are good corporations and billionaires three of them are unions you guys are trying to take the unions you think that when senators don't like the results of an election they should simply flee the state refuse to do their job well the senator as a republican is the republican senators in the u.s. senate for the last two years to the execs in their filibuster they didn't have to leave because the rules were slightly. it's the rules it's the law and these guys

will use it i would advise you to be criticizing the guys who really serve the law phil i still don't get it why your. claim toady for these millionaires and billionaires and don't give a rat's ass frankly about the working people i. i care deeply about working people then why did why do i have to you know my tax rate and the billionaires today only to me economic growth is the critical prerequisite for any of the other values that we have whatever those are only any country in the world where it were economic growth as you know or any time in the united states actually poll you better example where we're economic growth has been the result of the reduction of taxes we have the highest tax rates our country hampered the fifty's and tommy longs ny and his biggest tax roth in one thousand nine hundred one triggered a twenty year boom that created twenty five million one hundred eighty one camp roth created a recession that's the question of a whole group volcker is ready to reconcile lot of characters monetary regarding cash you raise taxes eleven times over the next seven years old has control and on

the monetary side created a temporary recession but we got the economic fundamentals right and those were the radiance we want to see we have a slight difference of. a two week long effort by protesters maybe working this morning there are reports that a republican state senator deal schultz has come out saying he won't vote for walker's bill first republican defections so far schultz's offices since clarified that report saying he's still undecided a far cry from the star support of the bill by most of the republican colleagues if democrats can find just three republican state senators to come across the aisle oppose the bill and scott walker's union busting proposal will fail so let's assume the pressure works and the protesters are able to defeat walker's bill and public employees keep their collective bargaining rights is that mean that the middle class is safe from walker's radical agenda according to a think progress report the answer is no scott walker his republican colleagues to try to slip through the state legislature ten provisions that should worry many wisconsinites let's take a look at those here's the ten provisions very straightforward number one the very

first provision of the wisconsin g.o.p. agenda huge cuts to medicaid appointee the way that this is going to happen is the governor wants to take the guy who's in charge of medicaid and make him take him from me in a civil servant to making him a political appointee so he can just decide because he's the governor's guy he can just say oh you know medicare recipients we're just going to cut your benefits rather than you know being a civil servant who has through his or answerable to the entire legislature the second one. they're going to sell off. with no bid contracts i mean this is really incredible this is arguably insane there are. koch industries the big companies in the state would love to get these public utilities and they'd love to get them for a song so that they can have the consumers by the throat shall we say but this but they had to have the governor say this is what he's going to do this is how he's going to this is just so wrong the next one is. contaminated drinking water they're

going to they're going to let the cities opt out of the state wide drinking water stance. this is i mean this is part of the larger whole republican you know regulation is bad and so what if it causes a few cancers you know it's the you know it's still it's it's the republican way the next one is that they're going to but there's going to be increased pollution of the wetlands these wetlands by the way in large part just happened to be owned by a large republican donor so you know what a surprise let's let's let some contamination in there lower taxes for rich people . two thirds the let me actually explains we saw the same thing in in oregon where i live there it's what it's what happened in california it's happened in number of states we're right wing cranks usually do a ballot initiative to get through this thing with the say you know it normally it takes of a majority of senators and assemblymen and stated in the case of wisconsin house

representatives in other states it only takes a fifty one percent majority to raise taxes to spend money to lower taxes do anything or to say with a fifty one percent majority they can do anything they want the legislature and separate taxes if they want to raise taxes they've got to have a two thirds majority two thirds majority is much harder to get and so what you do is you end up with states having budget crises which then you know this naomi klein's disaster capitalism all over again on steroids which then the republicans come in and say oh my god we got a budget crisis we've got to destroy the unions so that he and the next one here voter disenfranchisement and what they want to do is they want to say you've got to bring a government issued photo id. now my mom you know raised four boys and basically stopped driving in her thirty's i would say she never driver's license for the last forty forty years of her baby fifty years of her life she would not be able to vote was council i don't i live now in washington d.c. we sold our current move here if i don't renew my driver's license and really why

should i i've got no idea except for a passport what about their passport with it and and and it's an elderly voters the urban poor elderly now go in with a vote next massive job losses cutting government workers and turning down stimulus funds walker has actually said no to obama saying hey a couple billion bucks or some light rail you know we'd rather not have a jobs we'd rather not have the money we'd rather have a crisis so we can bust state unions and the next one skip in a stop innovation he killed the high speed rail and he actually wants this is this is a slick little piece of legislation that scott walker wants to ban wind powered interstate now when your largest contributors are the koch brothers oil billionaires i suppose it makes sense to be a wind power but otherwise it seems insane to me and i'm in the next one dismantling of an oversight walker wants to write the rules and ethics for government positions and the final one here a political power grab thirty seven civil servants are going to become walker

appointees in other words thirty seven people who who are you know kind of at the pinnacle of of government positions and survive from administration to administration to their civil servants so they provide some level of stability suddenly they're going to become political appointees and so they're going to be making decisions based on what walker wants not what's best for the state this is crazy. there was going to be alert what do you do when you're a small time crook and former cruise ship lounge singer who went into business with a partner now in prison and bought a radio station a t.v. station a newspaper that another radio station and another t.v. station in the newspaper then another radio network then a t.v. network and ended up owning ninety five percent of all the media seen italy and so silvio berlusconi did that he created his own political party ran for prime minister with his billions in the full support of his own only own versions of fox news fox radio fox news paper and surprise surprise he won three times so far most

of berlusconi's problems had to do with charges he was having sex with underage girls but now they're starting to look into the business practices that made him a billionaire and led to his becoming prime minister he was back on trial for tax fraud today after italy's constitutional court took away his immunity from prosecution that decision also allows three other cases to move forward as well surprise surprise the current tax case stems from berlusconi's media empire his media said corporations accused of using offshore companies to avoid paying taxes just like bank of america and alabama didn't do it here trails for the bribery and sex crimes will begin early april. still ahead here in the big picture you've heard for a while now other states are keeping a watchful eye on the battle in wisconsin whether or not they can learn something that's a pretty. slim fellow and keep. all the pretty chilled out and then people are suggesting she's.

no she says she's a stock. al .

even though this battle over public unions may have started in wisconsin two weeks ago it's now spread all across the country stimulus money is ending thanks to the republicans the house of representatives in the great recession the bush or great recession i call it cutting tax receipts there are more than forty states with budget shortfalls this year and how governors and state legislatures handle those deficits and append a lot on who wins this political debate it was constant so what lessons can the rest of the country learn from governor walker's proposal and the subsequent backlash by organized labor more on this issue i'm joined by sabrina schaffer a senior fellow at the input at women's forum and erick you know the democratic strategist welcome both of you. scott walker is having the windows will to shut and weld it down so that the food can be handed in to people inside the doors of enclosed abe lincoln famously denied. the opposition party the democratic party

forum in eight hundred forty by jumping out a second story window but if they were there would he be smashing up the windows with a door with a chair or something i mean isn't this a the larger question i guess is isn't this kind of an extreme measure and isn't making walker look. at the drama in the theatrical don't get in the way and puts it really if they care which is a state that is in dire financial crisis and a serious conflict of. philosophy here there is a public sector unions who really do i think probably believe that this is about corporate bargaining but i think that the taxpayers and i think governor walker realize that this is not about collective bargaining this is about the taxpayers' money this is about recognizing that public sector unions are not. the small sort of counterweights that big business but in fact they are very powerful that they have very large coffers that they are very influential in the political leaders of protocol it's absolutely and so i think that we need to agree on a credit reality and it's going to get rid of those unions or well i mean it just

seems like a i mean i think that this is absolutely has nothing to do with it quite frankly i mean the fact is that the union leaders said that they would take walker's cuts that they were going to go she does not want to go to the table with them he has rejected their you know their concession in favor of continuing on collective bargaining so he's really actually made this about collective bargaining and he has made it very much about the unions and specifically democratic unions he singled out the firefighters union the police officers unions saying it was about public safety but he kept the e.m.t. as part of his assault so he has i mean it's not his arguments on who is picking up those unions that originally drew exactly and and the state chapter of the troopers union said that they regretted indorsing him and you seen firefighters have been there the firefighters and the in the capital i think it was last weekend they've been out there in force and police officers off duty officers are trying to get lost in the conversation is clearly there's

a very good people out there who are trying to do their jobs they want that recognition. but i think what's lost is that they were looking at the firefighter the policeman what about that excellent school teacher why is it that she should or he should be subject to the new to the salaries that are negotiated on her his behalf by the teachers union the school board why shouldn't i go to write a constitution and why was. it not for the union i mean they voted for their representative not for their not for the. usual union leadership idea and their representatives if you don't like writings enabled right but the real issue here i mean why is it the i think we've got a clip from fox news don't. we listen. shepard smith i think laid this out and i'm wondering why is it that only fox news is telling telling the real story here we've got this but have you looked at the list of the top ten donors to political campaigns in america the top ten highest seven of seven of those ten donate to

republicans the other three that remained of those top ten unions they all voted to democrats and they're all unions bust the unions it's over yeah so you just told me the whole deal but that's the whole thing as though it was guarded when it started with the koch brothers right yet scope brothers were organizing in the state i'm not taking a side on this i'm going to what's going on glad you think eventually exactly the story i take it i don't know if you want to hear that you know exactly and so just by telling the facts you're angry a lot ok let him get angry facts are troublesome creatures from time to time don't talk like you know is who i really want to be and call that he got out of the rabbit you know very honest. but really i mean there's your your point or the republican leader the conservative point whatever you want to call i think it's probably a more partisan point is that the republicans have been gladly taking money from billionaires since the robber baron era and democrats have been largely taking money from unions destroy the unions destroy the democrats well you're really being

transparent about it on this point or i really have a listen to life is not nothing like the saying oh the unions they protect the little guy they're they're there to do this counterweight to big business what you know exactly what i'm. doing when asking is twenty and a half million dollars the democratic campaign they're the largest supporter of the two thousand and ten midterm elections the democrats we have to be we have already said organizer because they support the big government policies i think it's more about community disasters and workers' rights right is that the democratic party has long stood up for workers and i think this is going to mean it's been a very partisan line here and what these jobs are these are good middle class jobs these are people who are teachers who are on trash collectors who are. our tax auditors in various county why should i run hard worker i'm in the private sector and i'm nothing who's going to stand up for my tax dollars should you worry there are you know if i could only have the kind of health benefits and and can you. going to. do you think i agree with you it is that big that big government agenda

you said the democrats are supporting you know social security medicare and employment insurance all those things that the republicans have fought against for the last one hundred years i mean you know all those things that big government agenda is what the democrats are standing for it's what the unions are stupid for but the problem is that that's what most americans well and of america i i don't want to i don't want to engage you know i think most americans are still really on social security no actually it was a huge mark you were not exactly you know an arm of the republican party just did a survey on social security reform this fall and they found that seventy percent of people under the age of forty support partial privatization of social security there's some form of know to use a right wing smear i call another three in here and we're going to turn into a heritage another everybody security and i are now i want to make sure that you understand the country is not they do not endorse these policies but they do but

the public doesn't dorce collective bargaining is what we're seeing in wisconsin and we're seeing across the country is that the polls are showing and walker folder going down people do support these workers ability to collectively bargain and public sector unions and employers in wisconsin are actually underpaid compared to their counterparts in the private sector where you see that people who have a college degree are making twenty percent less than they are than they would be in the private sector so it's not as if that they are this that the public spending that people aren't getting their money's worth you're getting all of these professionals at a bargain basement price and you know the thing about education being at a crisis level at state government i mean if if we're not hiring good people in these roles or auditing and puncturing for the government i mean do we really. i want you know these these jobs for these workers to not be in the public sector we still have to get so competitive in the process we still want to attract good workers and educated people and the best the brightest into public service well i guess you do if you want you know government run education for instance which i do

not i mean i think that these teachers and the students of wisconsin would benefit from an expansion of. the center education system over the billionaire's what it will sure if they're going to say that they're going to provide you know scholarship funds for kids who would otherwise not be able to attend then absolutely but that then leads the way back into the hands of the wealthy and not into the story i mean i don't really hear the farmer strongly i don't see the individual who is able to imagine no no no it isn't alimony because they don't know if you don't write every thousand dollars it doesn't matter i wish it were going to use you know all about and so how much money i mean then to find out it was going on there i mean we're no we're not begging billionaires for sure right i mean i think that the idea or distorting this i mean the fact is both in italy i think that people do better when they are able to negotiate enter freely into contracts on their own terms between annoying an employer rather than a like that. thank you. frankly in my opinion this isn't just about was constantly more this is about the future of our democracy i

sure hope the billionaires and all the guards don't run this one. crazy alert baby bank robbery parents of a fourteen month old toddler had some tense moments inside a wells fargo bank in georgia on friday night well visiting a family member who works at the bank the toddler wandered into one of the bank vaults and was locked inside for four hours a locksmith had to be called and a large rule was needed to reach the wall before the young girl could be rescued fortunately the ordeal ended affably but it's unclear how much cash the toddler was able to stuff into or diaper before being freed from the fort. pillow the big picture was seen demonstrations against austerity measures cross the pond while the vast majority of americans just sat and watched but now it seems the us may have finally caught up plus president obama now says some states can choose to opt out

of his affordable care act well sort of i'll take a look at what the president means. brides the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through that sort of need to be made who can you trust no one who is in view with the global machinery to see where we had it state controlled capitalism is called satchels when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more. martin here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.