says once again flared up. these are the images seen from the streets of canada. giant corporations rule the day. long jargon of washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture all our troops are fighting the war in libya back here at home another war is underway against the middle class the great lengths republicans are going to make the rich richer and keep the working class even poor plus if you're a low income union worker and anyone in your family depends on food stamps you better not strike if the republicans have their way standing up for better pay or a safe workplace because the food on your table and

a call to action make bank of america exxon mobil pay their taxes more on the move and called u.s. uncut as in stop cutting benefits for working people to give tax breaks to billionaires later in the show. while our nation is a war in libya in a cloud of radioactivity sweeps across the west coast of the united states speaker of the house john boehner and the rest of his republican cohorts in congress have taken a week off to enjoy the new spring weather. of course for the rest of us any day that republicans are in congress is the day that the middle class isn't getting screwed by their budget cuts unfortunately though in state governments of across the nation conservative governors and lawmakers are picking up on boehner slack and there's a common theme to their crusades if you've heard the story

a robin hood then you know exactly what i'm talking about after thirty years of failed reaganomics that has seen the richest one percent of our country accumulate eighty percent of all the new wealth created on the back of working americans over the last thirty years leading to a wealth inequality gap today larger than it any other time in american history since one thousand twenty nine republican still thing these millionaires and billionaires don't have enough money so they can tailor robin hood story of an honorable thief who steals from the rich and gives to the poor and turn it on its head they're stealing from the poor to give to the rich and the story tonight begins with three states ohio and jersey and maine and three republican governors who are proud to be part of speaker john boehner and robin hood gang of merry men this is pretty straightforward stuff in fact delicious laid out the pick of the first state here the governor's these governors are this is ohio ok so here we have

john k six the governor of ohio he's cut twenty five percent off the school budget he's cut four hundred twenty seven million dollars from nursing homes he's cut twelve million dollars from children's hospitals now these are pretty radical children's hospitals i mean. remember st jude i mean i always thought that children's hospital pretty important stuff of scientists acting like that but he's doing this in order to in order to eliminate the state facts paris hilton facts are facts so that children of rich people who happen to be members of the lucky sperm club. beginning now and it's really it's really quite remarkable that you would pull money from children's hospitals to help the people in the walkies for. new jersey where we have a governor chris christie this problem is that he's kind of little john actually i think he cut the earned income tax credit this is a way. it's

a check basically that's written to the people who are working and but some stay at or below in many cases substantially below the poverty level and cutting the earning income tax credit and that's taking money away from poor people literally. and to balance that out so you raise the estate tax exemption from six hundred thirty five thousand dollars to a million dollars in other words let's help more of those paris hilton types or members of. it's just it's just this is you know what what is it with these guys in maine a governor in the page. he started out with the property taxes he says ok let's raise property taxes on everybody in the state which i know most of the people in the state are the middle class there are four hundred people in the state of maine who are worth more than ten million dollars so everybody else. and of course they

had their property taxes were raised as well but then he said let's raise the retirement age for state workers so you know the guys worked on the road crew so sixty five maybe it work until sixty eight who knows and he froze funding for any health care in the state of the state medicaid program different states have different names for a bad year here in wisconsin dr dinosaur and vermont and whatever it is in maine says you know we're going to freeze this out why so that he could raise the estate tax exemption keep in mind four hundred people million to two million. but actually i said ten million it's one million. to two million dollars now this is something that is a tax frankly i don't disagree with raising the limit on a national basis but to to for a governor on a state budget to simply say you know we're going to cut it we're going to give the rich more money and we're going to take from the problem literally that's what's been going on so here we have you know the robin hoods and their merry band and

that's that's that's where it's going. after the break more of what's going on in bizarro sure would forest or other reverse robin hood republicans are doing their parts to steal from working people to give to the rich. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so. you think you understand it and then you glimpse something

else you hear see some other part of it and realized everything you saw you don't i'm sorry as if we should. be two thousand a bailout of wall street as a person perfect example this reverse robin hood agenda that i've been talking about trillions of dollars sucked out of the pockets of middle class taxpayers to make sure millions of millionaires and billionaires don't take a hit on their stock portfolios and they and many of these taxpayers are in debt thanks to these same banks toure's who screwed them over with predatory loans and fine print credit card contracts but get this would you believe it if i told you that some of these people are actually being thrown in prison for going into debt that's right america in the twenty first century is bringing back debtors prisons

the wall street journal people who can't pay off their credit cards can be thrown in jail in a third of our states and since the start of two thousand and ten over five thousand arrest warrants were issued just in the nine counties that the wall street journal looked at against people who owed as little as a thousand dollars in that in that one case to a massively profitable corporation capital one so many of the straight here is after the financial crisis where massive fraud was perpetrated by wall street now one bank star is in jail but tens to hundreds of thousands of lower middle class americans who were screwed by these banks toure's are being sent to debtors prison ironically one of the people profiled in the wall street journal story jeffrey stearns who was quoting the wall street journal and cuffed in front of his four children and had no idea he was being sued was thrown in jail for missing payments on his pickup truck to a.i.g. yeah at bat. are jokers sano sold hundreds of billions of dollars worth of c.d.o. those probably want to include

a slice of jeff sterns his pickup truck without having to put up a penny a g.'s money and then when the bill came due went to you and me for a bailout isn't about the ways now living comfortable in the u.k. three hundred fifteen million bucks you got for me i.g. and in indiana the police are so cogs with requests from banks to throw people into jail that they can't access a rest orders for actual dangerous criminals it's such a crisis for the courts in that state the superior court judge robert pigman has asked the state supreme court to sack the practice what's going on here on top of that a band of merry republicans in the u.s. house jim jordan tim scott scott garrett dan burton and of course louie gohmert have introduced a bill that would cut off food stamp assistance to the entire family of any person who's involved in a strike so if you're in debt you can be in thrown in prison and you can strike for higher wages to get out of debt because then you'll have to sacrifice the little assistance you get from the government to feed your family all of this a republican chairman of the ways and means committee another member of john

boehner is band of merry thieves david amp could line the pockets of billionaires with his proposal to drop their top tax rate from thirty five to twenty five percent. starting to see the big picture here how can republicans justify this one here to try and do just that seating model a president or less government good evening welcome back those pesky poor people do you see yourself. we've got the real robin hood thing exactly wrong the real robin hood stole from the tax collectors to return to the people who paid the taxes we. are the rich no you wasn't necessarily from the asshole as in the version of the fairy tale you know the actual very very detail the actual real story was he was stealing from the tax collectors to return it to the people who pay the taxes ok so these so these guys are stealing etc when it's an imperfect metaphor well you guys you're not just there i'm just gonna correct it will think what these guys are doing is they are saying we're going to reduce benefits on working people and you

know lower income and middle income people and we're going to make it all right it's not benefits giveaways that give away food stamps or giveaways food straight ok well let's look at all of that giveaways are you suggesting that we should that you want to live in a society where people are hungry i want to live in a society without food stamps yes there you realize there are i mean literally there are millions of children in america who go to bed every night i go to bed hungry at night i don't want food stamps or countries. you know that you think even there is a car or a kid who's who's you know parents or let's take the worst case example you know born in appalachia and dysfunctional an alcoholic in that kid shouldn't get a decent meal because his parents are screwed up that's the worst case i mean or or somebody who just you know lost their job they'd say i was going better for their tax evaders not tax providers robin hood stole from the tax collectors to return to the people who pay like tag we are we already got better part of it but the point

is that these people are it is an unconstitutional governmental action do you do you really believe that the people in congress. we don't get any go along with the republicans and say oh yeah this is great let's you know let's just forget about you did you not witness last november's election we don't have the money anymore but i don't recall any of those governors running on the platform of i'm in a cup if it's it's not benefits or giveaways well whatever i again i don't recall i don't gotta recall ever getting it and they doing any of those but i don't recall ever getting a thank you ever they just bitch all the time when they get free stuff from us what are you talking about the people who get government money they're supposed to thank you to us and just thank you so much for your charity. when i write thank you no it's a christmas. i'm telling you what was the axis we actually only three or four aces a half trillion dollars in debt thanks to ronald reagan and his tax cuts wrong that's right it all began to mentally and fro that's where it all began he job with national debt now doubled revenue to the treasury the problem was top tip o'neill

quadruple social spending you know that was the problem he had to pay off tip o'neill with social spending to get the defense spending he needed broccoli got down on his tax rate from seventy four percent down to twenty five and the throat and ran out two trillion dollars of it was a spending problem it was you know president i know it was a spending problem reagan is spent a billion a trillion dollars on star war was not a sign of that a c. that is a totally made up number he did not spend a trillion dollars and still he certainly is damaging to any that eight years and twenty dollars on the national defense he spent a trillion to make not only numbers out of two trillion dollars that something is when he came into office our debt was less than and that was the right have to pony it all and the liberal democrats in congress on social spending to to get the defense spending we were on the soviet union every every budget that has been submitted by any president in the last forty years has come within two percent congress has ended up until obama did alosi in rio now even now has gone away that we haven't seen as we're spending twenty four percent of the anybody right now do

they really collide and so we're reagan really had reagan was proposing those but we're spending twenty five percent of g.d.p. we're only collecting eighty percent we're not anywhere near two percent right now yeah right. collections now we need to lower the spending. bill trillion dollar stimulus which are terribly guy you go to rallies the banks you've got guys on wall street who are earning two billion dollars a year on average as the average pay for that's not the average for the top that's just like your trillion dollars on stalls the last ten years the total frogmen is sort of just a. financial time seat which is how much of the whacked out newspaper well you just quoted a trillion dollars on star wars and that was totally wrong totally bogus kyoto you made up you got to get the top hedge fund managers on wall street making two billion dollars a year and they're paying fifteen percent maximum income tax foreign it's their money this is it it's their money it is a rb they did not earn anything what do you make of value according to you one of these guys accuse all you want to do other than creating collateralized debt obligations that went from zero when it was legalized by phil graham's lobbying

you'll get his wife wendi on behalf of ken lay with enron up until nine hundred trillion dollars worth of c.e.o.'s interest in they have shareholders that the term of that's the worth the only the only business a person gets paid is the person writing the show you have personality it's no because there is they have had a compensation which will have a great line envy is the only one of something that listens that doesn't give the perpetrator a moment's pleasure stop being envious stop this has nothing to do is a god salute to do with the fact that there are no i was your own business a great mind your own business three who are working their butts off for work fifteen hours by ten. hour days like me who are doing so for pennies who are doing so for nothing and they can't make it they can't make it in this country and so cut taxes cut spending in the in the private sector will expand it's not how it's well he's worked it always were it has because he says absolutely never we go why because the government's been nationally growing our year has pretty. up until one

nine hundred twenty one when harding came into office the top tax rate was ninety one percent harding comes in oh that's not true either sent to heart is true twenty one hardinge and twenty one he drops it from ninety one dollars. like percent who would cut it in the winter when he came in and exactly just a bottle economy was not on a global twenty nine hundred so i seem think for this last thirty years that was the price he would tax adds up to what we have seen is one bottle after another we've seen the dot com bubble is practical real estate bubble you always aim higher than we were before now we just as i do it well absolutely will go if we are the rich well right now do what you're absolutely right about one percent more you percent of all the people anyway as a way to the top one most people under reagan moved from the lower fifth to the highest fifth then stayed in the lowest fifth that's of statistical facts so don't tell me globe people don't move up they move up forty five percent talking about during the eight years the rate you know reagan's big tax cut was only a year and a half before and what he proposes doing ninety let's look at the last two or three years of the resolution requires you raise to act as a standard raise tax revenue kill take on incremental and it killed the gandhi was

already dying no way that's what what we have seen over the last that just kills the steady destruction of the middle class and any of us see thanks for showing it's a government that destroys the middle class. tell that to anybody who lives in the fifties sixties or seventies they do you see thank you apparently republicans think their reverse robin hood strategy will not be noticed by average voters or will be forgotten by next november. november of next year after all just a matter of time for break ins massive tax cuts for the rich are going to trickle down to all the rest of us right i mean it's been thirty years and we're still waiting. for a time for our daily poll your chance to tell us what you think here's today's question arrests have been issued arrest warrants of a nation for people who i was little as a thousand dollars in credit cards is the new debtors prison your options are and yes the new world order is robin hood rob from the poor give to the rich or be no americans will see republicans of our country back to the days of the robber barons

and wake up so far the majority of you have said yes but you still have time to tell us what you think log on the thom hartmann icon. cast your vote the polls be open until tomorrow but. our next republican president on corruption sure would force as governor rick scott in florida with political enemies on both sides of the al scotus pushing full steam ahead with the staff and the poor scott is supporting legislation that will require welfare recipients to take drug tests that they must pay for out of their own pockets a drug test typically costs about thirty five bucks each for about thirteen cents for the chemicals and the roughly fifty eight thousand people who will be hit by this new law fifty eight thousand people who can barely scrounge up enough money to eat let alone pay for a drug test so the governor rick scott can feel better at night it is welfare money is not going to someone who might smoke

a little dope oh and by the way his wife now on these clinics all over the state where these drug tests could be done or the multimillion dollar drug drug testing industry that can throw some campaign dollars this way either that or scott hopes he can kick a few families off the welfare rolls use some of that extra cash to slash corporate income taxes for the very very rich on top of that scott is also requiring that all state employees be subject to random drug tests those drug tests are going to cost florida over three million dollars at the same time scott is laying off nearly seven thousand state workers due to a budget crisis so how is this good policy and what happened to privacy here to offer their takes on this issue from miami howard simon executive director of the a.c.l.u. in florida and here in the studio daniel alpert and get any online editor of the conservative weekly standard and howard welcome were howard. is there ok. great to have you both here dan with the usa the zoo a reporting that fifteen percent of the time these drug tests come out back with

false positives in this crazy. listen i think you're i think your last guest explained it well in dire financial straits and the states are the ones that are expected but it's not going to get it or that you are not going to look it out in the last segment but i think i think i think it's prudent for our government to spend our money response so that he's that if you're predicating assumption though is that we're broke. bill clinton raised the top tax rate and it's very wealthiest americans by three percent and balance the budget he did a little bit earlier today because if this were al and he was doing if this were all he was doing he would have poor job doesn't always mean this is the smile on your thing which is that he we're talking about rick scott in florida oh you know this is just a very small part of i think it's a responsible book welfare is a nice thing that our government does but it's proof it's alternately a privilege and it's nice of us to do it but we can as the government can i say

we'll give you money on the condition that we get something in return and we don't want to give people money work then decide so it's really a very i mean it's not sleeve labor it's called incentivising and you know listen you have a driver's license i do ok that's all privilege but it was welfare welfare is not a fundamental right well on this not in this country i think it depends on how you look at the country i mean it but but this is i don't want to be litigated welfare why we're you know i don't want to be a rich guy i live in a poor country i don't want to have people in my country but that but that's not what we're trying to about here to give drivers yes so give charity ok well isn't this in your opinion of violation of our privacy rights. both certainly is a violation of the constitution it certainly is a violation of a federal court order and a case that we won and i think it's wrong legally constitutionally and i think it's a wrong morally i mean it's not only welfare recipients that the governor wants to

insist upon taking a drug test every year and says it is also people who are receiving unemployment compensation and as you mentioned tom of the thousands and thousands of state employees as as well i mean i think the governor who is a lawyer gary graduated from law school must have been asleep during constitutional law class because the we have a principle in this country i don't want to argue this with you or your guest on economic grounds i want to argue it on basis of fundamental principle people have a right to be left alone until the government suspects them of doing something wrong including using illicit drugs and absent that the government has no right to to mandate a urine test or get into anybody's private business yet again a the fourth amendment explicitly says that you have the right to be secure in your persons papers personal effects and home in alaska somebody swear right to be your

go ahead and serve the right the right to be free from on reasonable from unreasonable search and seizures and on reasonable search has been the find i think has a search by the government without any reasonable basis or reasonable suspicion the one exception that has been carved out by the united states supreme court i've been for those employees who are in safety sensitive jobs they have to carry a gun as part of their employment or they operate dangerous motor vehicles or something like that but absent reasonable suspicion absent safety sensitive job the government has no right to interfere in somebody's privacy and this is where i'm baffled and why do small government conservatives want the government to be looking at my year in. listen you're not a state employee you're not receiving well i was working for the state. why do you want to go you we're going to get a hundred sixty thousand and one hundred sixty eight thousand employees in the state of florida as your do you and howard think it's unconstitutional for the

federal government to drug test its own employees as it does now. but i think that's a whole separate issue i'm talking about rights attorneys and rick scott in florida doing this and by the way i don't hear it getting i don't see you guys getting you know i think they just as they i mean they've they have to say they started pretty soon around if your going to hear at the st petersburg blog rick scott's new gift to slam take this is apparently how he made some of that seventy million bucks he spent get itself elected as governor of florida has just. florida has just under six hundred sixty eight thousand state employees for risk out that means nearly one hundred seventy thousand new potential customers for his or his wife's syllabic walk in clinics. this is what was that over he said seventy million yeah i don't know how you get there one hundred seventy thousand and he needed the snow he spent seventy million dollars getting elected. so you can spend that much of it was i don't understand the want of a isn't what is a there's a conflict of interest and b there's a constitutional issue it could be that people could actually have good intentions

and it could be that just because his wife does do this and just because there is the possibility i mean we maybe we should like confucianism that i didn't know him to be ups propose in this party like there is some truth or so i think he's a complete hypocrite on that so he ran on what's the issue as you say elected he was a he was elected as a tax cutting budget slashing governor promising to protect people's freedom from intrusive oppressive federal government and now here he is doing exactly what it is that he has railed against the federal government doing of course you know this is completely the opposite of what he was a law on the basis of which he was a like that to protect people's freedom from oppressive government i think you're completely wrong look this is about good governance and about accountability and i think him taking him making giant wiser's because if somebody works for the day when it went inside ever going to go on is it ever good government so subject somebody to

a search who was not suspected of doing anything wrong that's not going to go in and that's a lousy government and it's unconstitutional and it's an essential to search it's not to i mean this is a search of your bodily fluids and this is an examination of your body this is first of all it is ironic that i was and you you in particular don't want the government intruding in your in your i have never thought i have absolute consistently my whole entire life felt that i had i think i think the driver let's stop everybody on the road things are and i think you have the freedom to work for the government i think you have the freedom not to work for the government you can choose not to work for the government plenty of private employers through the state drug test or why can't the government say all right we want our people we want the people that are going to work for us not to come to work. i got to come to work still that's not such right that they don't think anybody should be able to be drug tested unless you have some evidence that they are using drugs somebody somebody should swear before

a judge this person i have reasonable cause to believe that this person is put is probably committing a crime using illegal drugs and the judge swears out a warrant and that word is executed in a drug test as is what he's being forced to submit your choosing to submit it by work by choosing to be employed by the state in order in just this country you can't she would not have a employ you if you choose not to be shoes you sure is not what you're not and a life how do we have thirty seconds of your quick thoughts or. the surrender of your constitutional rights as a condition of employment for the working as a public employee regardless of what our other guest says if the government cannot force you to surrender your constitutional rights as a condition over and over employment and i think this is kind of also and irrational and this crossed the bias why don't we put up breathalyzers in every office and see who comes back from from lunch would have three martinis and a war hard after lunch and unable to do their job well i would be focusing on this

one thing if there's a problem in the workplace in america the problem is alcoholism much more that it is drug abuse and that's more in the executive suites than it is that we should be . banned it. i don't think so but any i dand thank you for dropping by howard thanks so much for being with us today thank you i appreciate. it side to stop the hysteria about drugs frankly and the so-called war on drugs nationalized the private prison industry has been lobbying for harsher sentencing and ban lobbying by the drug testing industry you just find in this country no drug laws at all for more than one hundred forty years after the george washington presidency yes that george washington the guy. on his virginia from.

crazy alert a new fitness class called pole dancing for jesus has been started in texas in the workout room you'll see women gyrating and spinning on poles while listening to the wholesome sounds of christian music and ideals in. order to say the cause helps women get fit while staying in touch with their religious savior this is about getting closer to god god gives us these bodies and they're supposed to be our temples and we're supposed to take care of them and that's what we're doing tiffany booth was raised in church now the pull is her temple and you can actually whenever you have that music on and it's singing about lifting up and being closer to god you can feel that getting class somehow i suspect a man came up with this idea and you know it's unclear if jesus would actually approve of the class named after him though he did turn water into wine i just don't think he did it the champagne as for the collection because in church there's been a noticeable shortage in one dollar bills.