oh i'm john berman in washington d.c. and here's what's up tonight on the big picture more than two years after the housing market crash has crashed more than more americans on the brink of losing their homes this wall of banks toure's and we've bailed out people lining their pockets tonight a closer look at one that will see a real recovery for the middle class then as the video sting that ended two high profile jobs today to n.p.r. this type of gotcha journalism a new way to report news again ratings i discuss this topic with my guests. but

first this breaking news out of wisconsin and i'll tell you the real story behind the ongoing labor protests here's a hint it goes back thirty years and more weighty for governor walker the tea baggers. breaking news the latest play in the wisconsin koch funded scott walker theater is that the republicans are trying to get into and through their committees so they can vote on this thing their so-called budget repair bill the odd thing about it in order to pass the budget repair bill they have to strip out all the financial stuff

all the budget stuff gone so all that will probably be left will be bustin unions and selling off to billionaires the state's power plants and other assets. i want to tell you what's really going on in states across the country like wisconsin what's really going on in washington d.c. our nation as a whole faces a massive federal budget deficit too and what's going on with this democracy upon which the united states was built although wisconsin may be the epicenter of the battle today or the apparent epicenter the real story behind what we're seeing right now scott it started way before scott walker was elected it started way before people began hanging teabags in the tri corner hats and calling themselves a party and it started before barack obama was elected president the truth is what we're seeing now is sort of more than thirty years ago when a group of people who wanted to make radically remake in fact america radically may

remake it for decades to come finally came to power in the united states with the presidency of ronald reagan these people will call him the radicals he used to call themselves birchers libertarians objective was these radicals wanted to transform america from an egalitarian democratic society into a pit in a republic where the wealth is concentrated into the hands of a very very tiny group a very elite group of millionaires and billionaires how let me introduce you to a concept called starving the beast essentially what it means is cutting off government revenue by lowering taxes so that you can force the government at some future time when it's facing a massive budget deficit because of those lost tax monies you can force the very same government to cut spending the government in this case is the beast very

biblical. and it's exactly what reagan serving a very intentionally began the process of starving the beast. reagan cut taxes on the wealthiest americans from over seventy percent to under thirty percent drastically reducing government income and since he didn't cut spending at the same time in fact he radically increased spending reagan ran up a national debt that was larger than every other president in american history from george washington jimmy carter combined but in his mind that wasn't a bad thing it was all part of the plan it was the first piece of the puzzle enormous debt and as you know today that plan is working his local state and federal governments are all facing deficits and going deep spending cuts the second piece of the puzzle was massive financial deregulation and bankers knew how much

money they could bake if they were able to kick government regulators out of wall street and turn our markets into basically high stakes has seen no games and thus these same radicals who engineered starving the beast drafted multiple pieces of legislation over the last three thirty years was three decades with the help of an army of corporate lobbyists to slowly free the stock market from governmental oversight and thus the age of market bubbles begin and with the wealth of the financial sector group exponentially as people were hit and big at the tables in the casino we call wall street where there was the tech bubble or the oil bubble or more recently the real estate bubble banks were stuffy billions of dollars into their pockets and that money was barely taxed because remember we're still starving the beast in fact wall street banks are spankers often pay only a maximum fifteen percent income tax thanks to bush's tax cuts other janitors

and secretaries can pay as much as thirty five percent these radicals creative bass new class of wealthy elite in america. future feudal lords who profited off the market just before it went bust and when a did finally go bust when that particular piece of the game seemed to be up the beast bailed it out and the bankers made off with another few trillions of dollars in taxpayer money while the rest of us lost our jobs in our homes further creating a gigantic gap between the rich and the working class in america which is rapidly becoming the working poor but again that was the plan to create a new wealthy elite and further starve the beast by forcing it to expend what little energy had left and bailing out the billionaires in wall street it was the second piece of the puzzle and perhaps the most crucial piece because it created

a crisis in america and times of crisis radical changes all that hard to make so facing massive budget deficits and huge national debt our elected representatives are now faced with a simple choice either raise taxes or cut spending as we saw at the end of last year the bush tax cuts were extended even democratic lawmakers don't have the political courage necessary to raise taxes on the rich the starve the beast strategy worked as direct only in spending cuts are now coming down the pike both in washington d.c. and in states all across the united states every republican governor is justifying these cuts and all these other massive changes privatizing the commons destroying the unions by saying the same thing we're facing that nassib budget crisis top everything off most of these cuts are accompanied by tax breaks for corporations and the very very rich and with the government shrinking there's more room for the

new corporate billionaires to step into that vacuum. today states all around the country are selling off their crucial pieces of infrastructure chicago sold off thirty six thousand parking meters to a newly created corporation comprised mostly of unknown billionaires some of probably for years cities are selling their fire departments off to corporations so that we saw in tennessee west you're perfectly willing to sit or a buyer watch your house go up in flames you that's inside guy if you know if me in michigan republican governor rick snyder is trying to pass legislation that will allow him to take control of cities facing massive budget deficits fire a lack did local government officials and bring in a company like blackwater or al a burden to take over managing that city police and fire departments schools hospitals roads trash collectors everything under the management of private for profit corporations not answerable to uni the voters and with only one goal in mind

to squeeze profits out of us this is the end game of these radicals this is what they want to see put in place everywhere in america corporate rule a neo feudal society where we all just work for a billionaire overlords and they're getting away with it under the disguise of a fiscal crisis started thirty years ago by starve the beast reaganomics so today we have financial implosions producing crisis capitalism at its ugliest this is what i am a client talks about in her book the shocked out from the use of a crisis to radically remake america into a bizarre oh corporatocracy these guys are already going elsewhere around the world is nearly done documents in south america to eastern europe the only thing standing in the way of them doing it today here in the united states is that added remnant

of our democratic institutions from unions that elect their leaders their democratic institutions the local governments that are like their mirrors and commissioners that the governor of michigan wants to do away with. the good news is more of us than there are of them every two years we can vote the lapdog politicians out of office but the billionaires have a plan to prevent that too and therein lies what we're seeing in wisconsin and ohio and elsewhere the final piece of the post the destruction of our democracy the final piece of the puzzle started with the supreme court's citizens united decision that armed these corporate radicals with the ability to dump millions of dollars in undisclosed money into our elections poor it in to prop up politicians on their own dime and inject these dummies into political campaigns funded by corporate war chests it gave these radicals and the political party that they've co-opted over

the last thirty years the republican party the upper hand in our nation's elections as we also as november that advantage translated to big wins at the polls so the last leg of the stool the last thing standing in the way of these radicals from winning and forcing our government to sell off what little is left within our once great nation the one last thing stopping them are the public unions and main fundraisers to the democratic party the last vestiges of organized labor of people who are invested in and gala tarion and democratic america and not in a corporate partners this is the real reason for everything going on across the country from the budget cuts in washington to the budget cuts in madison from the bailout on wall street to the foreclosed homes on main street it's all about drastically

remaking america and putting a few hundred billionaires in control of your future but as michael moore so eloquently said over the weekend on the steps of the capitol in madison there are still more of us than there are of them and it's not too late. ten billion dollars in corporate cash is worth very little of it and buy our votes let's grab on to what little is left of our democracy and with a slogan that despair is not an option embark on undoing all the perversions that these radicals have inflicted on our nation over the last thirty years let's under all or insanity from reaganomics to corporate welfare because alterman a democracy of for and by the people it was a hell of a lot better what is the right path is to take than a boardroom at a transnational corporation we should be raising taxes on millionaires and billionaires we should be regulating wall street we should dump global so-called free trade agreements we should end the supreme court struck from the corporations

or people we need to kick the money changers out of the temple of democracy this is our only hope let's get to work. so we got to the big picture the numbers keep growing with no relief in sight more and more americans are struggling to hang on to their office when will the nation bail out its middle class stores that. are flimsy low in fact he has gained the preaching about these women that nothing people are suggesting she's up for no she says she's a stock. republicans

in ohio are creeping closer to passing their own anti-union bill but they have to resort to extreme measures to shove it through the state legislature the bill which actually goes farther in stripping the rights of public workers than wisconsin's passed the state senate last week thanks to a last minute change on one of the committees were a dissenting republican was dumped by the republican governor is basically if you

don't like our bill were place she was somebody who does strategy and it appears as though republicans in the state house are doing the same thing. for more on just how far republicans in ohio are willing to go to push their unions i'm joined by alex sites wall reporter and blogger for thing for think progress thanks for think from alex remy welcome thanks for joining us. first of all before we get to ohio there's breaking news wisconsin i touched on it at the beginning of my last rant if you want to give us an update on what's going on yes so basically completely out of the blue with almost no known predicting it at four o'clock this afternoon the republicans in the senate announced that they were going to push ahead with this union busting bill and they're going to push the bill to a conference committee between the assembly and the senate to merge those two bills they met at six and they're going to vote on it tonight so this thing could pass tonight and no one saw this coming i mean really out of the blue the democrats are still in illinois so they're blocking an official corum and what the republicans

did is they separated the collective bargaining issue part of the bill from the fiscal part of the bill in order to get past the core and you don't need a quorum anon fiscal issues so. what i said in the in the set up of my rant that this budget repair bill they've removed from it anything it has to do with budget they're setting out over here because they need democrats to do that and what's left is we get so off the power plants are going to post the unions and they going to pass the right exactly and it's got nothing to do with the budget well it's sort of gives away the whole game because this whole time they've been saying that this collective bargaining agreement getting rid of collective bargaining for public employees is absolutely essential to the budget is there for a fiscal issue so by separating it and by pushing ahead without a quorum they're essentially saying they're admitting that it's not a fiscal issue. wasn't there republican on c. f. scott fitzgerald was it wasn't sam scott fitzgerald. who was one of the committee chair people who seemed very wary in fact

a couple of weeks ago he shot down this very strategy when it was first proposed if these guys all go out and phone calls on the koch brothers i think any idea what's causing this sudden change my guess is that because the it was constant has become the rallying cry for the nation i mean today we saw protests you know ten thousand people in florida you know calling out rick scott. because whoever's calling the tune or saying we told them yes it says scott fitzgerald the senate republican leader just this afternoon on fox also kind of gave way the game when he said essentially that what they're doing is if we win this battle he said then the unions will have less money and a lot less money to give to president obama in two thousand and twelve and he'll have a much harder time when he was constant and you're exactly right when he said that we don't want to do this kind of this kind of this this thing that they're exactly doing right now and scott walker the governor should be added campaigned on saying that he didn't like these kind of late night votes this kind of passing bills in the dark and yet that's exactly what they're doing tonight he's ok so to ohio.

isn't this the third time that the republicans replace a dissenting republican in order to push through their version of union bust and stuff yeah it's amazing i mean you have these gimmicks in wisconsin and in ohio but they've done first in the senate they offered a chairmanship of a committee or a vice chairman ship to a senator in order to get her to switch from from being a no vote on this bill to a yes vote those republicans then they replaced a republican on the committee on the labor committee this is the committee that's considering the bill with because he opposed bill he is a very pro management guy he works for the law firm says bill sites you'll see on the on the left there he works for the law firm that was founded by the league. senator taft who's the taft hartley the most pro management federal piece of legislation was named after this guy is a conservative republican thought the bill went too far so he was yanked off the committee a half hour before the vote now today or yesterday to house republicans on the

house labor committee who also opposed the bill were removed from the committee and replaced by other ones who did support the bill that's credible or there are other things that work in ohio like in wisconsin selling off utilities and so after billionaires are like in michigan with rick snyder wants to be able to say to any town sorry all your elected officials are out we're going to let halliburton run the town now yeah i mean there's all this in an all these cases these are actually very large bills in ohio it's a five hundred page bill this is this is part of the budget and you know more dark of the night tactics last week on tuesday afternoon they released a ninety nine page amendment to the bill and then we're expected to vote on it in committee the next morning so there's all kinds of stuff in there there's a there's a provision of that double outlaws gay marriage even though it already been outlawed in the state and meanwhile the house is considering a anti-abortion bill that would require women to listen to the heart be through the

ultrasound this is the budget bill this is not in the budget bill but the house is devoting so much time to this ultrasound law that it's taking time away from considering these other issues and they're actually end up spending more time considering that bill than they are going to consider the budget bill this is pretty clearly part of a long term national republican plan. it's starting to look like they're they're winning i mean they took a bunch of states over the last thirty years the southern states that were so-called right to work states using chapter it was the first result making forty seven. do you do you think that this end game has begun now in ohio michigan and wisconsin at four o'clock this afternoon might end up going to republicans and if so is it really going to like a guy like scott fitzgerald said on fox news is going to make it harder for obama to win i mean we've already seeing a senator de mint just recently introduced a national rights work bill in the senate i don't think it has very much chance of passing but i'm hoping even if republicans win in these states i think the backlash

is going to be so big we're already seeing a massive recall effort for republicans in the wisconsin senate and for governor walker and we're seeing an effort in ohio to enshrine collective bargaining rights in the state constitution through referendum so i'm hoping that the backlash to this and i think people are really starting to wake up and see what's going on see how radical this agenda is and so i hope that once americans realize what's going on that we'll win this in the end of the day alex really thanks for showing up tonight do you as we can see in ohio republicans will do whatever it takes to screw workers even if it means undermining democracy. who is screwed homeowners nearly a quarter of all homeowners in our nation are underwater on their mortgages or meaning they owe more than their houses are worth that's according to a new report released yesterday by the housing firm core logic that shows that more

than eleven million americans are stuck paying huge mortgages and devalued houses two thirds of the homeowners in nevada are underwater about half of the homeowners in california florida michigan arizona same situation and that doesn't include the millions more who already foreclosed have already been thrown out of their homes or already foreclosed and they're now living in their cars or if they're lucky they sleep in our relatives couch or in a homeless shelter. so what's going on here how long until our housing market recovers and what's going on with the banks toure's who created this problem joining me michael hudson staff writer of business and financial investigations and author of the monster gang of predatory lenders and wall street bankers at least america michael thanks for joining us from our studio in new york welcome to the program thanks very much alan saw what can help that poor her of americans that twenty five percent of americans whose mortgages are underwater. it's

a very tough situation what could help is if we could do what ministration promised when it came in the door and that's actually have some mortgage relief have a bailout not just for the big corporations but for homeowners the hamp the home affordable mortgage. home affordable modification program was supposed to help reduce people's. debts reduce their monthly payments and keep people in their homes keep paying their their mortgages not give them a free house but keep their homes and help stabilize things but that hasn't happened the program has been an abject failure why. it's a good question part of it is you can you can pass all the rules you can have all the programs you want but if you don't if you are willing to take enforcement actions to force the big powerful entities i.e.

the banks. you know to acts not in their own interest but act in the public interest and act in the interest inch of homeowners you're not going to get much done would it be would it be in the political will. michael would it would have been an appropriate school nation to say that basically that legislation bashed up the banks and gave them the tools necessary to bail out or help out the underwater americans but it didn't force them to do it and so the banks just said we're not going to take the money we're not going to do it we're not going to invest the money we're going to gamble on wall street. the the banks actually the financial incentives. actually encourage the banks to go to foreclosure they make more money putting people into foreclosure there's this foreclosure industrial complex these web of companies that most of the big banks have appraiser.

and all kinds of other companies that make money. foreclosing on people you know they don't make as much money when they modify the mortgages can that be changed legislatively and if so why hasn't it been. i think i think it can be it hasn't been changed because there hasn't been the political will to really take on the big banks there's been somewhat of a fear we don't want to cause another you know another banking crisis the banks you know whenever you put pressure on them they start talking about hello well you know we could. you know what happens if we fail then then you're really in trouble yeah it's almost like that cleavon little scene out of laziness. you know is this is a situation going to get worse or better. i'm afraid it's going to get worse in least in the short term and the long term things will get better but it's going to take a long time this was. you know

a catastrophe and it's going to take years for us to for us to climb out especially when we have. we don't have the kind of support from the government for keeping people in their homes because we're just going to get more and more foreclosed homes dumped on the market which are going to reduce property values which in turn are going to. are going to create even more underwater homeowners which will drive great north road closures it's a vicious cycle michael we have a little less than a minute under water main street people see wall street banks are skating bail outs and they see themselves screwed basically why isn't there more of a revolt in the united states or is there one coming soon to a town near you well it's interesting i don't know if anybody has connected the dots between what's happening with sconce and in other places you know those similar kind of actions to what's happening with with with the crisis in

homeownership right now. i do think that there are efforts in places like florida folks like the huffington post are trying to unite the homeowners who are underwater the homeowners who are fighting it to hang on to do something to change something and you know as they say politicians don't don't see the light it's really feel the heat there you go michael hudson brilliant thank you so much for being with us tonight thanks dan. meanwhile the banks toure's who inflated the housing bubble and lured people into signing exploding mortgages are doing just fine now thanks to their government bailout and their tax cuts courtesy the republican party now they have enough money to from inflate another bubble so they can screw us all again have you noticed how gas prices and food prices are both on the rise and think the same bankers for that i'll have more on this and still take .

it's time for a daily poll your chance to tell us why you think the question for today two years after the u.s. housing market crashed twenty five percent of homeowners risk losing their homes will anything be done here are your choices a yes banks are so inflated the housing bubble won't get away with it or be no bankers have enough money to reinflate another bubble to screw us all over again so far the results are one hundred percent no. you still have time to vote go to turn our back on let us know if think the poll be open till tomorrow morning. still to come on the big picture n.p.r.'s c.e.o. is no more following a video sting is billboard's to call it a video of the same right wing activist who went after after the break i'll be joined by a guest discuss the gotcha journalism that i was changing what. drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions.

made who can you trust no one who is you know if you will with a global missionary see where we had a state controls capitalism it's called session so when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question morning. rachel martin here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.