ok. while the clocks are taken in a few short hours the government will shut down this unless lawmakers come up with a quick fix for spending but is it really a budget battle or an ideological one that will debate. and if a government shutdown wasn't bad enough or giants are negating on their piece of the tax guy and here's the kicker the financial murder of their getting away with it's legal. and the u.s. has been here before a place where top economic giants are trying to make old world a global economy welcome to bretton woods two point zero.

keeping it's friday april eighth seven pm here in washington d.c. i'm lucy catherine of and you're watching our team now just five hours left until the current funding for the u.s. government runs out and even if lawmakers do manage to reach a deal on a twenty eleven budget in that time both sides agree that it is now too late for congress to pass anything before midnight a stopgap measure covering just a few days is now the only way to prevent a shutdown and we keep tracking that for you here on our team but regardless of how this budget fight ends the fact that it has gotten to this point is likely to be a black mark for both parties now earlier i spoke with c.n.n. mostly presidents of less government and john brocker he's the former communications officer at the democratic governors association and i started out the conversation off with you tell me why he believes that democrats will bear the blame for the shutdown. they will not accept

a three point three percent cut in the spending of the deficit they want to pay three percent cut in the deficit level of spending though shut down the government over that i think you get that and democrats are in trouble on this the it is reid and the democrats and doesn't lose it what we're seeing more and more news coverage is americans are blaming republicans for the shutdown they're seeing that the republicans or democrats are trying to get the take time and time again but the most basic of compromise is that we try to get to go more than half way republicans want us in any other direction so i'm going to have to ask i mean isn't there a bigger question at hand here which is why it happened man and woman we elect into office regardless of what letter they have at the end of their and can't seem to agree on a sex paper at registry that's when you know very well they can't find a government where the democrats ran the show they ran the rule the roost in all three branches house senate and presidency last year they didn't write a budget when reason or arguing about this is because the democrats when they ran everything didn't write a budget for this year we're trying to clean up the mess that the democrats left last year there is

a one point six five trillion dollar deficit they're going to shut down the government because the republicans going to cut sixty five billion that's absurd what that's absurd party was in arkansas we had a surplus the drought in the white house the republicans in the house and senate. in the last were in that in two thousand and seven the last year the republicans wrote a budget in the house and the senate and then a republican president signed it the spending was two point seven three trillion dollars in just four years it is now three point eight two the democrats running show that increase spending by a trillion dollars a thirty two percent increase in just the last four years this is not a revenue problem this is a spending problem they won't back off sixty six billion dollars of a trillion dollar increase in the last four years this is the real question is not moving goalposts it was really a million dollars in four years which they can show in dollars in four years trying to make sure that we have negotiations that status half of the one of the two parties in congress right now is working hard to try to make a solution had it's hard to get both parties on the same. sighs it's hard my thought to be if you look at the average american they have

a dinner going isn't you know listening to these kind of discussions grant reading every single detail about who's offering what plan and who is saying yes or no to who and i mean at the end of the day it looks to me personally i think both parties are going to come out with giant black marks and bulk of their eyes because it's going to look like the men and women that we elect into office are not going to be able to get things done but how do you and i'll say with years on i mean how do you convince voters that it's not just the enough it's a matter of our politicians in general no i think it's a step back here to the greater problem in this with the cause and are going to face coming after this trip down is do we stay true to the tea party which is the increasingly extreme wing of their party looking at or members of the house on or do we try to serve the americans who were elected to serve and so if they want to count out of the tea party which they're more than welcome to do they're going to go with a shutdown which tea party your support but that americans don't want to know how good your party is in some abstract thing americans voted tea party aligned with members of congress and for office eighty seven freshmen republicans in the house based on the tea party the tea party is running is driving the train because they

drove the frame last november i agree with what is driving the train them is that you have mainstream republicans that are fighting with those tea party and i judge and a detriment the reason that the reason the g.o.p. numbers have fallen in the house since the election is because we face a one point six five trillion dollar deficit and they're cutting sixty six billion it's a joke and the remember a can people know this and it was even bigger joke is that the democrats won't cut that much which is which makes them look patently absurd out of touch with reality and they have no idea what's going on with the american people basic economics and what starting this nation then we're going to raise a point earlier that democrats have been willing to cut it's just not the goal posts seem to continuously be moved on on the republican side and they've come to the table they said we were going to do x. y. and z. and then suddenly the conversation changes absolutely and really the real job here is how people like speaker boehner is going to deal with the political ramifications of this when you're talking about his lieutenants like eric cantor. like kevin mccarthy who are in the wings trying to undercut him with his kind of

tea party maneuvering how is he going to move the maneuver around versus very very interesting harry reid who won't cut the talboys totally starts a war who looks more absurd john boehner will not succeed sixty six billion dollars for harry reid lose defending the cowboy poetry festival we've both agreed that cuts need to be had with the power no we don't the problem is that we are one point six five trillion dollars and you want to cut sixty billion the problem seed is that because that rock is going to table time and time again either rely on social agenda kind of items which is great but it also doesn't work that way or or that because it's cut into things we need to be doing right now we both agree we need to be creating charge right now we need to make sure that we're cutting and we don't need to be doing when i was cut even a two thousand and eight we can advisors at the job he was not a conservative that the cuts that are going into this tea party budget right now will cut seven hundred thousand job losses like a fraudulent we can't lose two hundred thousand jobs that's a fraudulent marriage the bigger fight actually we're going to have ever going to be right or not when we rape and that's going to do we have any indication that the

same sort of lines are going to be found in the sand and that's one fran that congress will have to tackle that much more seriously and absolutely look this is we are not being serious about the deficit right now the democrat party is a joke thirty three billion and a one point six five trillion is a joke cowboy poultry festivals planned parenthood which by the way the american goods or even americans want to cut the funding to it and it is a racist abortion mill and so cutting social spending is also cut capital word it's cutting spending and we need to reduce the deficit we need to reduce our level of spending and whether you like it or not cutting is going to planned parenthood is cutting spending john i want to end with you and if the same for partisan divides get in the way of raising the debt run and what are the potential consequences for the american contractor and i think because especially american people are just as dire as they are now we're already seeing the poses put forth by. tea party republicans we had eight hundred border guards away from the border because of this

kind of budget cuts we have hundreds of thousands of jobs in jeopardy we had tens of thousands of teachers jobs in jeopardy so it's really crucial for the american people right now and help the government's come to the table and both of you i mean how do you sell to match the american people that that anything is going to change and i think that also we know that the american people can see who's acting like adults right now who's coming to table and saying we need to meet halfway we need to make a compromise happen it's hard but democrats are doing it we're going to have a lot of clothes he said the cuts will kill suddenly thousand people i don't think that's an adult assessment situation right well a lot of a lot of division growth in our studio and unfortunately capitol hill out lets out not the president of less government and john boehner broker former immediate mediations manager and democratic governors association. well the looming government shutdown wasn't enough this whole issue just adds insult to injury when it comes to people like you and i you see the wealthiest individuals in america and corporations i might add have found more and more ways to beat the system when it

comes to paying their share this means just paying a fraction of the tax rate that most other people do that the us could spend some would say this country's fiscal future so why are these corporate giants getting their way artie's question for us out of story. if you will the economy with innovation with jobs and yes with wind but it turns out not with tax dollars general electric one of america's oldest corporations is also one of america's most creative at least when it comes to doing taxes a new york times investigation found that in two thousand and ten g.e. reported worldwide profits of fourteen point two billion dollars five point one billion of which came from its operations in the united states but its tax bill in the u.s. was zero in fact g.e. claimed a tax benefit of three point two billion dollars according to g.'s website the company paid what it owes under the law and g.e.

is right thanks to heavy lobbying legislation passed allowing companies to keep much of their profits overseas or tax rates are lower and it's not alone google also benefits from laws passed here in washington because it keeps its money here in ireland near its dublin headquarters while the corporate tax rate in the us is thirty five percent it's just twelve percent in ireland from their profits are sent with remuda subsidiary a mailing address where the tax rate is zero if the practice bloomberg news reporter jesse drucker says is common the question is does it make sense for a company to create intellectual property and really us as the majority of its employees in the u.s. is it sound to. it's policy to have the bulk of its profits overseas attributed to a mailbox in bermuda it's a question many are asking especially in the midst of an economic crisis economists estimate that the u.s. is losing between sixty and ninety billion dollars in tax revenue for corporations

say the tax rate here should be lowered but the argument is if they bring home cash from overseas argument a tax break to give you that that will enable them to spend cash in the economy now but u.s. companies are already sitting on a record pile of cash almost control you know dollars according to the federal reserve or jordan asked about with national people's action says lawmakers wrangling over the budget are missing the point that it's not a budget crisis but a revenue crisis but the matter is governments on the state and federal level are not raising enough revenue. his organization protests against what they see as corporate greed bank of america in two thousand and ten actually got a tax refund of six hundred sixty six million dollars that's on top of their two thousand and nine refund of three point five billion dollars the. ice you don't forget they give america was given billions in taxpayer dollars in the bailout corporations are now campaigning for

a tax holiday like the one in two thousand and four it allowed corporations to bring back profits from abroad at a tax rate of only five and a quarter percent resulting in a two hundred sixty five billion dollars cash injection it was called the american jobs creation or one of the most interesting examples coming out of that tax holiday was true at packard which brought home fourteen ass billion dollars under the heart of that same year announced it was laying off more than fourteen thousand people perhaps because most of the money was used to buy back shares of its company it's not creating jobs helping these guys i was not creating jobs just line their pockets can be then especially with tax day right around the corner to speak begrudgingly on the government but the government provides services that people use any. joy every day whether they realize it or not things like road repair for the most part the government also fun working with their like firefighters. on the situation that you actually need and both of you say your tax dollars are going

down the toilet. well then they make one in the toilet go away from the sewer and that's not the only kind of waste removal the government pays for they also pay to get rid of your garbage. every day services increasingly funded by those making the least while companies making the most use the system to get around it christine for sound r.t. and unfortunately the story doesn't exactly and there is the wall the budget battle rages in washington the corporate titans and their lobbyists are gearing up for a different fight one to overcall of overhaul the corporate tax rate to make it even easier to keep their profits out of reach and i spoke about this issue earlier with nomi prins she is the author of this book here it's a pillage behind the bailouts bonuses and backroom deals from washington to wall street and i asked her why it is that the biggest companies seem to dictate how our finances are handled here's our take. the biggest companies also pay for the most

lobbying to create tax law benefits for the best and brightest and largest accounting staffs to help them navigate the laws that they create and really game the entire tax system in there. they afford it for their benefits and so that's kind of how we get here and what's going on now is there's this philosophical myth that has been taking washington by storm it's always been around but for some reason recently it's been inflamed that somehow if these companies that have shirked tax law that have taken a lot of their money offshore so that profits can't even be judged let alone tax are somehow if they get a lower tax rate going to bring it all back create more jobs and i don't know fire their accounting staffs and take back their loopholes which is ridiculous but it is the argument that's going on right now in washington where president obama

a democrat in his state of the union address promised to close these loopholes and reform the tax rate and now we're sort of seeing the administration itself on those promises talk about what's happening behind the scenes there i mean i thought you know this this is supposed to be a republican versus democrat issue right. it's a corporate verses regular people issue more than anything else and we we have a government that is not just run by corporations it's funded by corporations in terms of the law but it's not funded by corporations in terms of taxes the revenues the tax revenues which were you just talked about in your earlier segment which we don't have enough of which is why we have a budget problem were two point one trillion dollars last year only eight point nine percent of them were paid by corporations so one hundred eighty seven billion dollars out of two point one trillion were paid by corporations almost eighty percent of what went in came from us it came by the from social security benefits or direct individual taxes so we pay and corporations get the benefit not just of

services but of continuing to dictate the policy that happens the united states when obama originally campaigned on a platform of of helping individuals of standing up to wall street all of that happened in a time where it seemed to him it was politically expedient to recognize there was a problem that there was a crisis that the banks had screwed everything up and now two years later the banks are sitting on a lot of profits they're not paying taxes bank of america is one of many six biggest banks have nine hundred city areas they've created offshore to avoid paying taxes and in a particular part of their profits and it's not expedient anymore to somehow talk about this it's as if none of that happens and none of the crisis happened and we are not really as individuals footing the majority of the bill for everything that happens in this country and it just baffles me there were at this time where this entire country does actually finally seem to be focused on our spending issues our

spending problems now that the government shutdown is looming. and i just don't understand why nobody neither in the mainstream media night or some of the politicians i mean not all politicians are beholden to corporate interests so why is it that nobody is bringing up this point that we're centrally asking this country to sacrifice on the backs of the working class while giving these giant companies a complete break a free pass i don't understand. you know it's like those voices have disappeared they certainly are not coming from the administration they're not coming from the republican party they don't seem to be coming from the democrat party and yes there are some politicians who might see this but somehow the dialogue has transformed from the budget being an actual revenue problem not collecting anough taxes not having enough money go into the government and almost have and having such a very small percentage coming in from corporate america anyway to begin with and to us having a spending problem now our spending did increase our debt increased by four trillion dollars in the last two years when the treasury department issued another

four trillion dollars worth of treasury bonds to effectively help the banking system and the corporate system that funds itself through the banking system continue to chug along that's why they have an extra two trillion dollars of cash on hand that's why there's an extra trillion dollars just for the banking system sitting at the fed doing nothing except basically being there is a cash reserve for for the banks and you have money around you have revenue around you have the ability to to tax and to take back and to balance the budget in a different way instead of the argument continues to focus on cuts and we can cut and cut because the reality is if revenue doesn't get increased it won't matter because there is too much of a gap in terms of what comes in that was newly friends all of it takes a village. from a government shutdown to tax breaks for the corporate giants in america sometimes it seems like this country's financial troubles are just too big to solve so

handful of economic leaders have decided to get together to discuss what's ahead for post u.s. dominated economic world it's called the goods conference and it's going on right now in new hampshire but you may recall back in one thousand nine hundred four this was the birthplace of the world bank and also the american dollar as the reserve currency now there's a place where think tank that i think tank backed by george soros has decided to bring together some big names to quote remake the financial order so what do people around the world think about this conference over from this time the resident decided to take an economic pulse check on the streets of new york take a look. billionaire investor george soros is holding a conference to be attended by the world's richest and ten most influential people up the agenda to reform the global monetary system how do you fix the we're at the time i mean this is let's talk about that well number one this billionaire and

these people that they're getting together with they're not trying to figure out how to fix the economy they're trying to repair it or wait what's already going on which is the government of long since lost control of the monetary wealth and it's become. corporate so what would i do i'd actually draw a line between the two corporations and government which right now that line is very blurry i think a lot of the economy is actually the problem for the economy added to the environment actually in terms of fuel efficiency and still needs a lot of the problems that are called an economy could be remedied by fixing environmental issues my and most important economic trade which is triple bottom line which means you look at what's best for not only the businesses. only for the employees involved in businesses the society as well so that becomes your economic standard then you're improving not only the companies and the global economy but

the. the area that that that companies working in as well from a strong perspective everything seems to be going ok because the toll of the parity with the american at the moment so i wouldn't change much i would. do more free trade agreements. it's going to be global argemone as well they will try with the waiver without having areas which is not necessarily good for the missing economy but from an international perspective it is a lot better as a lot of people feeling like it's time for the galaxy that down because there's always been animosity against the u.s. why. it was best. i wasn't jealous. you know i do i think a lot of people what we had were a free country you can come from nothing and make a million dollars or you can make a million dollars and lose it all but you have opportunity do you think people are willing to bet a global economy on a petty emotion like dallas. i love things you love the americans and everything it

stands for and i think america is stronger. and it will get better time do you think that whatever america stands for is still something that metallic can stand for out there as well absolutely yeah i just got back from italy and i got crushed by the. thirty percent of the dollars losing weight no matter what we think well look i remember back when i used to go to sixty yeah to the dollar now it's maybe a hundred eight so it was time for a global monetary system do you think now you can either a socialist. no matter what you or i think should be done to improve the global economy the bottom line is those decisions will always be made by those with the most money for better or worse. and they'll forget our team because we're going to be having live coverage of this event all week long party financial correspondent lauren lyster is there in new

hampshire and we'll have live reports through sunday. now the u.s. state department issued its annual human rights report today in the heart of china iran venezuela and all the regular usual suspects and therefore came at a sort of interesting time in world history right amid the arab spring awakening where citizens across the middle east eat up to brutal regimes in many cases only to be silenced with bullets the missing from both the u.s. report and the mainstream media coverage their own role questions about our own role in supporting these regimes i'm talking about egypt saudi arabia off name yemen join me out of this class this and much more is the legendary norman solomon he's the founder of the institute for public accuracy and the author of many books including this one here made love got war close encounters of the americas there states thank you so much for being here it's really quite an honor well thank you i don't actually want to focus on this human rights report what i want to talk about is why there seems to be so little honest discussion in the media in our country

when it comes to that reality of our foreign policy so for example we don't talk about how the united states essentially supported the mubarak regime until it becomes so close that the regime falls we don't really talk about yemen i mean there are some reporters doing an investigative reporting and and sort of showing how our operations there are undermining both the security of the people but also supporting the regime but again there really isn't any incentive it seems for honest discussions about this but i think you're there will sort of very well those who control the past control the future those who control the present control the past and the capacity to rewrite history and to be silent about it could be you know aspects is really crucial and so for instance if we look at the u.s. support for years regimes in the middle east it's very convenient to omit but support when they fall out of favor or they're about to fall overboard because of a rebellion of their own people i think there's

a very symptomatic problem which is certainly true in the united states and elsewhere in the world that when you have government and media so closely tied to a. other than the deceptions and the tap dances coming from government is reflected in the media for to a large extent i've sort of summed it up by quoting the great journalist who worked in this town for many decades of stone very independent who said all governments are the i and nothing they say should be believed well he wasn't conflating all governments they don't lie to the same extent but you can't take or shouldn't take anything they say on fifty five and to the extent that mass media are doing the bidding largely of the media in terms of messaging and you can't really trust media too much either and this is something you got into in a war made easy but since then we've had this huge explosion in social media and social networking sites and alternative blogs and sort of the internet and so i wonder shouldn't all that have changed the debate shouldn't that have sort of allowed the actual message to come through through the gate keepers who are

seemingly fairly trying to you know sort of people get close and i think email the unit social media have helped in that you might say the ecology of the media has diversified still and all of the mainline media the most powerful networks print outlets and so forth cast a very large shadow and you might say more diversified media outlets are trying to shine a light in different places so this is a struggle really for the capacity to get information from different sources it's really stunning and i mean i think this is true again whether you're talking about the major countries such as the united states china russia france britain they don't get in very deceptive and destructive military actions and at the same time their own media have largely been willing to parrot in and if the reliance on official sources by media that has so damaged people's capacity to act

in a democratic well informed way at the grassroots in those countries. well focusing back on the united states i mean we we've seen very little questioning in my opinion of the intent and how this military operation in libya is actually can get played out and so i wonder if you can compare contrast the propaganda. issues that you've raised another buildup to the iraq war and vietnam and now libya you know well there is a continuum whether the vietnam war or today in terms of libya afghanistan and so forth we're the assumption often implicit is through the media that uncle sam has a halo overs and he's trying to do really good sometimes he screws up but basically the usa has the best of intentions now if there was no will in libya or rock and the main export say was q cumbers i don't think the u.s. would have invested billions of dollars in military actions but that is part of the

equation that's often left out when we explain events to us but what's wrong with this picture that i mean we've seen how we were misled and like to essentially in the ramp up to and the continuation of vietnam we've seen this in iraq they've been i mean where he is he has a movie based on kind of very famous line narrated it why has nothing changed the system why are people not willing to ask the tough questions and sort of look beyond the spin that where we're forced well that were made easy a movie based on my book was shown nationally in twelve countries and also in europe but not in the united states on any major network and it's just a very big i mean it's a painful reality in terms of. us coming to terms with our own country that shadow that is very different than what we like to tell ourselves and i think that's an ongoing challenge i call it in terms of policy and media coverage and sort of a repetition compulsion disorder we're we're in that pattern and new work comes along the details are different but the paradigm underneath is often the same the

norm and i hope that you keep supplying attention to these issues and provide. because we really do appreciate your work thank you was he. was norman solomon founder and president of the institute for public accuracy. actually that as for now for more on the stories that we've covered this go to arky dot com sasha say so what are you two pages you tube dot com slash r t america and as always feel free to follow me on twitter as well it's to see catherine of siena right back here and how are. we. right here in the yeah i think. the the on the well yeah yeah. we're never going to get there safe to grab me.