welcome back to the big picture i'm john harbin coming up in this half hour a public interest company is trampled by a monopolistic read driven media mogul does this scenario consumers gain screwed by wealthy powers would be sounds so familiar plus ten republican representative allen is opposing the dui law proposed by his own party is he saying the bill is destroying a way of life and with a government shutdown possibly on the horizon republicans are pretty much a no win win situation explain it and i still take. who screwed residents of wilson north carolina and for that matter all of us in two thousand and eight the city of wilson created its own broadband internet company named green light to lead wire for all of its citizens to have access to high speed

internet cheap price was essentially a public option for broadband and the residents scooped it up because green light was offering internet at twice the speed as the for profit corporation time warner that otherwise held a monopoly in the state it didn't last long though as time warner dumps six hundred thousand dollars last year in the north carolina state elections by an lawmakers left and right and then last week that investment paid off as every single republican and some of the board of democrats asked a bill that makes it illegal for cities like wilson to operate their own broadband networks meaning the bill make sure the corporations and not consumers are protected in the marketplace so is this the way the free market should work just to serve corporate monopolies here to offer their takes reporter a blogger at think progress and kelly from americans for tax reform joan great to see you both. kelly what's wrong with people banding together and by my. majority

vote deciding to put together bread broadband system that they themselves own well i think the biggest concern is the cost because as taxpayers you centrally vote maybe you are the city council decides hey we're going to put together a public broadband network but everybody's going to foot the bill some people choose not to have broadband internet access some people choose to have broadband internet access and the other component that we're missing in this conversation is only ninety eight percent of americans already have access to move he brought i think you misunderstood my question what's wrong with democracy what's wrong with a majority of people in the community by majority vote deciding that they're going to do something that they're going to tax themselves to fund and then doing what's wrong well first they're not probably all going to sit there and decide to tax themselves to fund it but i think the first certainly did by by our form of government by a representative democracy well first and foremost i think that there are obvious concerns with the cost of doing these sorts of things a lot of the time that we don't think if we're smart well maybe even not but you

have to consider the fact that in their neighbors wilson's neighbors in two other counties that have broadband internet networks public public networks and those networks have been going under for years in fact this year they talk about a six million dollars sale sometimes they feel but isn't that isn't that the right of or you know this is good so this is i think the point sometimes these systems where sometimes they don't but i think that we have the freedom to experiment the roots of this bill are found in an organization called alec the american legislative exchange council it's a gigantic right wing group about a third of state legislators are in it has a lot of corporate funding a gigantic corporate board the majority of its money comes from businesses and corporations like time warner comcast basically shop around temple builds a different state they stop this bill around in north carolina they basically had the state legislature undercut the ability of cities to start their own broadband network that is same thing with living wage laws for example in atlanta passed its living wage law they had the state legislature passed a bill that made it illegal for city says i there always will now i. sometimes this

is where sometimes they're they're not efficient but i think that said we should have the right to do that i don't think that's a just that but on behalf of big corporations and say you have to deal with the private we don't have the right to know what happened clearly one of the conservative notion of the lowest level of government is the best the local you know the jeffersonian notion that we should be governed literally by words and counties here here i think are a couple places of concern first of all here essentially allowing not a corporate monopoly but a government monopoly to come in and have the system and second of all. the people themselves are standing up for governor christie that's its leader put it on ice it's going to ask very fundamental way it's not a monopoly it's going to you can always choose time warner you could use time warner eight years no difference here is a different source than when you use taxpayer dollars to fund the sorts of things you he was centrally create a competitive disadvantage for markets for people operating in the market like time warner or any other cable company or any mobile wireless provider or anyone else to be able to compete for mobile broadband fairly and across the board and i don't

disagree there is out there you have to go to the taxpayers and say hey we need more of your money to cover the i would not disagree with that at all if we were talking about somebody making clothes somebody's making cars somebody's you know government making cars or computers or something i mean i don't want to know what's going on is out profit broadband is part of the public commons when did they just get to see that aeration private companies built broadband networks up to what we know today over the government creating internet between a couple guys sitting around the computer if you don't because like i know is he a system i was working on in the one nine hundred eighty s. it was a huge fragrances absolutely covered with what i didn't know any system is a good story and it connected every university in the. on line retailers who didn't connect the individuals to the internet i think it's completely i think the key is that people should get to the site as a people in you know wilson north carolina so like if they had a really cheap broadband service that was somewhat public that i could vote to abolish or they could vote to abolish their fire service their police fighter is their sanitation workers i mean they could they could. do this i think that they

deserve to have the right and i don't think it's right for big corporations to buy our state legislators to ban cities from being able to do this let's let one say you know try the private way let one city have a public option versus the private to go to the so is dr basis of free public education of free fire departments of free police departments or free public parks people get together and say you know gene we'd like to have we'd like to have a park in in the middle of downtown we're willing to pay for what's what if it's the commons if we're not talking about you know things and maybe does the disagreement i think that is the disagreement because i don't consider you know if you have a fire department you have one fire department you have police station you have one police station these are legitimate public interest organizations they're set up by the government they're a monopoly control the internet is different the internet is run by many private companies some that are online content companies some that connect for their. i mean and in france for example for thirty five dollars a month you get one hundred megabits down ten megabits plus one hundred thirty

channels of cable t.v. plus telephone service for you they see a great recession because the law is that of french don't allow any corporation have a monopoly whoever runs the wire in your house has to let any other company run over that wire and so if they have a competitive it's not the government's on involved at all other than to say the company's sorry you can't have a monopoly right but you're missing the point of the play alec in the villages you guys again nobody is to give corporations monopolies you know the government already has a monopoly but i haven't invited their competitors if you want to talk about prices the average price in the us for broadband is about thirty five dollars but if you look at the prices for some of these government run internet networks they're significantly higher a lot of people tout chad new tennessee as being the one that the only one that actually makes money and doesn't have to keep relying on taxpayers to pour money into the system they have one hundred megabits per second their cost is actually about three hundred fifty dollars if you want to max out your inner speech that's not thirty five dollars if you want thirty five dollars you want but he said i don't have. if the people don't like it shouldn't they have the right eye and i

think my concern is that this legislation says sorry you guys can't vote on this for you know i've had to clean this a pallet he should be able to do this if they want to i don't think stations be able to step in van then i and i agree with that on the opposite side of principle too i think if there was a for example if they want to follow really conservative policies i shouldn't be able to go and then from here again as far as taxpayer dollars being spent for that i can actually be a good thing some industries public industries what a loss of their they can actually use other industries instead of i mean it's worth spending taxpayer dollars with some things and the people in the city should be able to decide that not state legislators dictating to say what they can do because they are in time warner cash we're out of times kelly thank you thank you both sean i think you both made a good case and i appreciate it but it just goes to show that no matter how much republicans really is big government they love using government to protect their corporate campaign donors to screw over the rest of us but there's really another. issue here and this is this is the one that i think is really really important and there's only one industry that is actually mentioned in the constitution the

framers of the constitution didn't say you know it's so important that we make anon's or warships or or guns or something that we're going to protect that industry in the constitution they didn't say and so it's so important we have uniforms look at that but they would protect that no the only industry that they named in the constitution was the press and not only duty in the first amendment it's the only industry in it and not only does the press named but the press was subsidized for the first sixty six sixty or so years of this country we subsidize the cost of newsprint so that people could easily go into the newspaper business from a drawer to washington's day to today to right now we subsidize the delivery of newspapers call fourth class mail the that you can get a newspaper delivered to you for annie's by the postal service it's subsidized by us why because as thomas jefferson said educate and inform the whole mass of the people and they are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. so

in other words it's all about education and informing people so how do we educate inform people and particularly inform people what's the major way that people get their news now back in two thousand and eight. pound that forty percent of people now are getting their news online versus thirty five percent for newspapers so i would submit to you that the constitution is identifying a free press and calling that newspapers then today i'd call the free press broadband and if a city wants to bring it in there would say area it should be allowed to it shouldn't be blocked by alec or any of these other right wing groups otherwise if we start blocking things out particular from the commons i would say this programs we lose our democracy.

republicans in montana are now targeting dui laws i guess they're bored with targeting women gays and immigrants but on the subject of dui laws state representative alan hale thinks the they're harming small business in response to legislation to curb drunk driving here's a representative hale had to say on the floor of the state house i have to raise an opposition to this along with all the other dui laws these dui laws are not doing our small businesses in our state any good at all they're destroying them. they're destroying a way of life that has been in montana for years and years these. turns out hails also a bar owner so he must take a lot of pride in serving bottomless points already and you've created customers but does he have a point here to offer his opinion as another former bar owner and currently the president a less government seat mottos a bar owner and ran them for a lot of

a little while in iran it wasn't musician i had to be i misunderstood i was a very big fan of alan helped work in gilligan's island. what problem could you possibly have. the points your way is legitimately to well what happened was it was not too low if you're one hundred twenty pound woman oh yeah well that's the point is it's got to be scale so so you think that if that when the police measure your blood level if you're one hundred eighty pound guy they should say ok it's it point zero point zero eight is two gears is to just two or to what i was shouting about point six in any book will lead to a loss for a good minute and not in any. of this is the. as well as those numbers go to just exciting bets like that's a given by for somebody way nine hundred pounds yes point zero six for just let me get perception peripheral vision and in claire recovery these are really the same minor things this way is the same people who put those charts together said minute

goal should have weighed four hundred eighty pounds and i would have been slow to settle this is the wikipedia. has to be fun because of truth at all times to my point is that people are way way way the people who put those charts together who i used to be a personal trainer so i know about body mass and stuff like that the people who put those charts together are also the ones who put if you're this tall you should weigh this much and which case when you bullshit away eight hundred fifty pounds and he was seven point seven and he weighed two hundred fifty other best kind of thing you can do it is it's you try to elaborate gazan people every year from drunk driving and you that number is inflated and wrong more and your numbers inflated wrong say one person dies drunk right you're still in favor of the borrower but oh yes because what happened was when mothers against drunk driving started drunk driving was a legitimate problem people pull you over you'd be loaded and then and then but let you go home the people that kill people are blowing points or a way they're boring point to which is twice the legal limit and point three they're absurdly drunk and they'd be drunk and certainly one of saying is

a start charging the studies show that middle and carry you enough that you you totally wrong screw up as opposed to next of the mind totally was and i don't even drink anymore but i'm telling you right now i don't we have as a as a people an obligation to protect little kids walking through crosswalks they get hit all the time without it without with my voice over people at the edge of the let's protect them from the drugs book one to mothers against drunk driving started a legitimate concern then they got that they started pushing for point one which i don't have a problem with then they got it the problem was every time they achieve something the fundraising for a dried up so they come up with a new clause one through eight so they can point zero eight which is two beers which should not be that's the death of the happy hour. you know it's the death of a happy hour i decided on it i know several there are women i know several smaller people who two beers will i would want to be in there that's fine i wait your twenty i'm not going to. be in prague paired with three beers but the fact that the point we're going to establish a standard we have to establish

a stand imo i don't resent it when we say why don't which which it was for years thought it was for years how can we ok so you are in favor of government regulation . yeah you are in favor that i would guess all of us are away i told i told i told shawn i want his autograph damn drivers against madd mothers i got that but yes you know how to the rich use a lot of you know who get their own health care and let the poor get some health care if they want or get there and they aren't by their employees health care exactly those those those rich guys how are they supposed to protect themselves from from the person who struck. by a giant eleven thousand people to get killed or blowing point three they're not boiling point zero nine zero zero zero zero zero most of them the vast majority of even if it's a smaller number is what it is an important for us to say no we don't want to let people to die not here arguing that a point three should and should not be ruled a drunk driver talking to people who kill people the people get pulled over on those random stops that will point to look i'll give you a great example i got pulled over and in in virginia they were point zero five

driving while impaired they pulled me over they took they gave me the field test i didn't have a coat on it was december so what's great what's a way to raise a fail so i go i bought a point zero five they give me a driving while impaired ticket and then release me to go back to my car drive home because i'm such a menace to society it's absurd that is yes they should have predation of what you're in jail for ten years or are they can't put me on the points or five it's driving while impaired drunk driving it's not driving while intoxicated driving driving while impaired so as it was a lesser offense and i was such a point zero five it's below the it's below the energy of the average and the hit points are waiting points if i didn't realize i had the best car was needed at the u.s. attorney because i had to trim. for to be adjudicated in texas where there is no driving while impaired they have but let me go it's interesting all right so we're finding out the basis of your of your concern i don't even read anymore but it by the way it had one beer hero five one beer i'll try to drive out stupid not to let

it let me just wrap it up by saying i'm really pleased to hear that you are in favor of the government involving itself with i don't want more violent street think i'm murderers i'll get on drugs on the street ok they are safe and thanks for your i've become drunk yeah thank you. remember this is the same state republican party tried to declare a global warming good for business makes you wonder what's in the kool-aid or the whiskey. coming up how corporate media is siding with the bad guys the republicans details and i still take. this number given that we had an apartheid regime right here in the us.

i think rather funny beautiful and funny well. we never government says they're going to keep him safe get ready to give her freedom. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else here sees some other part of it and realized everything you saw. i'm sorry is a big. fat

. crazy alert and now first stalkers in an effort to highlight online privacy agree graduate student has created an app they can track people's tweets facebook posts and flickr photos and then based on that information get a detailed map of that person's whereabouts and the places they frequent the app is

appropriately marked named creepy i and i just so happen to have downloaded the app this morning and i'm currently tracking speaker of the house john boehner is movement at the government shutdown looms at the end of the week it appears he's a hotel bar a golf course in the rotel bar upscale restaurant and another hotel bar that's creepy. with or without a government shutdown republicans have already won the debate on our nation's budget why is the corporate media is on their side i spoke with many

lawmakers on the issue of the budget and there's a common theme coming from the left take a look and simply roll back the reagan tax cuts we would have no problem at all is why why are no politicians willing to talk about these things we are you know they were those of us and i've been saved it makes no sense we're giving tax cuts to the wealthiest one percent of america and i thought that i'd go along with the american people who say the best way to deal with our debt and deficit problem would be to ask for the the very rich the millionaires and i go up to the billionaires to pay their fair share what i am saying and others are saying but not a not is you need shared sacrifice you've got to ask the wealthiest people this country but also to contribute to deficit reduction you've got to make the wealthy pay their fair share a budget shouldn't just focus on spending cuts directed at the poor and middle class it should also include revenue raisers like closing corporate loopholes and

asking millionaires and billionaires to cough up a few extra bucks a year let's cut some wasteful spending but let's also raise a few taxes just make sense. but this common sense narrative has been lost inside the mainstream corporate media where there's only one question that's been asked today and that is how much spending needs to be cut not why aren't some of the most profitable corporations in the history the world skating by pain zero taxes not why are the wealthiest americans enjoying historically low tax rates during his directly i budget deficit. the corporate taxes used to account for roughly thirty percent of the revenue collected by our government so the numbers around seven percent probably you didn't because the corporate media which would prefer not to pay its own taxes only wants us to focus on just how much republicans and democrats can cut out of pleasure take

a look at this montage that was featured on imus in d.c. this morning the apparent liberal wing of the mainstream media you have to address the drivers of our debt addressing the drivers of our debt we're going to touch the drivers the drivers of our long term debt all the major drivers of long term debt these are. drivers all but it's day to day let's talk about how much programs like social security medicare and medicaid dry long term get a little snow so one driver was missing i had so you know i saw that i was yelling at the t.v. this morning the driver of tax cuts that had more of an impact on our long term deficits than anything else is the one that's missing the media does not want you to know the tax increase could actually solve our budget problems how can we possibly have a national conversation about raising taxes if the media won't even cover the issue so why is the media ignoring these calls but really it's simple. corporate owned

media outlets won't call for tax fights on hikes on corporations and rich t.v. personalities won't call for tax hikes on the rich and talk of tax hikes just doesn't exist in our now consolidated media which is really a shame because the republicans who seem to have already won the debate have a bad idea i mean this is genuinely and really and fundamentally a bad idea to just do what's at stake there road let's cut all the programs for poor people in america let's throw every middle class family out of the bus let's say poor and sick americans who rely on the government for health care assistance to walk it off if we did all these things that the republicans want to do you know what we still have a massive budget deficit why because our government's really doesn't spend all that much money helping poor people relative to the larger budget but we do hand off

trillions to corporations and their multimillionaire and billionaire c.e.o.'s to buy from them everything from bombs to fighter jets to chertoff inners for ports so if we let the republicans win this budget fight as the corporate media seems more than willing to let happen in a few years from now we'll be asking these same questions about what to do with the soaring budget deficit and at the same time wondering why the middle class seems to have completely disappeared the solutions to our budget problems are simply wouldn't believe simply in fact i can tell you the solution using only six words roll back the reagan tax cuts heck roll back the bush tax cuts go back to clinton levels where the wealthiest americans paid an extra three percent just three percent three measly percentage points and we take a huge chunk of our debt out of our deficit just like that. remember the clinton

budget passed without a single republican vote the house not only gave us a balanced budget but a surplus and if we roll back the reagan tax cuts and made billionaires pay at least seventy four percent like they did for more than half of the twentieth century when our nation prospered and the middle class grew and we'd actually have a budget surplus a budget surplus can you imagine how different life in america would be with a budget surplus we'd be pain down our debt year to year we'd be able to use that extra cash to do things that our nation hasn't done in generations since reagan started starving the beast and his words that his government would build new bridges roads new schools we build new science programs like nasa from scratch we renovate our national energy grid we invest in clean energy like denmark did were

one thousand percent of our energy now comes from windmills or like germany did by putting solar panels on people's roofs and now after ten years only solar power is generating more electricity in germany the second cloudy is country in europe in the u.k. they're making more power that eight nuclear power plants just off those rooftops this is what america could be doing today putting people to work rebuilding the middle class and reclaiming the top spot the world economy we need to change the debate in america today that's why i'm proposing my own budget resolution unlike the republican budget budget proposal passed a few months back it's nearly two hundred pages of dreck cronie and cots after all we know republicans hate bills more than a few pages i like their budget bill minus just one fee page in fact it's just one sentence it simply says one thing restore the income tax it's top income tax rate.

seventy four percent as it was the year before ronald reagan took office in one nine hundred eighty and by the way we had a debt crisis that. if we can get this bill passed or even just get at the debate we can fix americans probably america's problems so call your congressman tell him or her to vote for the simple solution the right solution to roll back the reagan tax cuts i mean we saw how this could be done bill clinton new congress one of the floor of the house of representatives and said if this this three percent tax increase and clinton's tax increase is passed we're going to have a great depression. he was not only wrong we had a huge surplus that's the big picture for us and for more information and stories we covered visit our website at tom hartman dot com and. if there are shows available for free podcast on i tunes also check out our or you tube page at youtube dot com slash the big picture archie you back on social don't forget democracy begins with you tag you're it suitable.