from the. missions. in the. book in the alone a show of the real headlines with none of the mercy or if you live out of washington d.c. now today was a busy day on capitol hill will tell you about obama's plan for reducing the deficit over the next twelve years and we'll find out if that has any chance of going anywhere and the cia is having trouble when it comes to hiring and keeping the best and brightest for the government intelligence agency i'll tell you why there's a brain drain and where government employees are going for

a more profitable job and then what's going on in afghanistan capitol hill hasn't been talking much about the war and the white house has said absolutely nothing on the schedule of troop withdrawal that's supposed to begin in july so we're turning to contractors who are on the ground to give us some insight and then think on this and the u.s. student loan debt has for the first time surpassed credit card debt shocking we thought so well could this encourage teens and young adults to avoid college and opt for a different option for their future and then it's a bipartisan effort to keep your privacy private we'll tell you about a proposed bill that's going to protect your online privacy from data collectors and we'll find out of the bill really goes far enough and keeping you safe details on all that and much more in tonight's show but first let's move on to our top story. today speaking from george washington university president obama outlined his deficit reduction plan for america now this comes in response to paul ryan's plan released in. middle of the budget showdown that almost shut down our

government and months after the president's deficit reduction committee came up with its own recommendations so in this plan obama wants to reduce the deficit by four trillion dollars over the next twelve years for the final balance of achieving three dollars in spending reductions for every dollar generated and additional tax revenue this would include defense cuts saving seven hundred fifty billion dollars in domestic spending reforming medicare and medicaid but keeping both and keeping the affordable care act here as well as ending tax cuts for the rich now the anger responses from both sides of the aisle have already begun but was this speech good enough to sell the nation on it and to get the people excited or is this just going to be the beginning of the battle from hell joining me to discuss it is david these political reporter for politico thanks so much for being here tonight good to be with you about this speech i guess it wasn't supposed to be the most exciting the most inspiring thing in the world because obviously there's a lot of members involved

a lot of percentages thrown out there but i do want to show you one very important clip of what the vice president thought about the speech this is a guarantee that you'll hear. it in the voter is worth enough to buy the insurance that's available in the open marketplace well so what. out she's sleeping during the speech i mean is that because obama is so boring or is this joe biden just kind of blowing it again god bless joe biden keeping entertained with you know he's continuing to get maybe at a lunch call not sure what it was maybe knew the details before but. speeches about the deficit and aren't always exciting this was a long speech but it was an important speech because this is what people are talking about right now and it's certainly what the republicans are focused on but it's still like one thirty in the afternoon i understand maybe he was giving his speech at ninety yes maybe biden had a long day you come on oh we're ready for my no the me. they're

a bit with the cutaway shots the you know they're going to have in cameras the vice president you can get away with it maybe the lunch is that you get a little sleep you have to have lunch too now i don't want to get into too many numbers here but let's look at paul ryan's plan right he wants to reduce the deficit by six trillion dollars in the next ten years obama's deficit reduction committee wanted to reduce the deficit by four trillion by twenty twenty obama says four trillion but give me twelve years so in essence he wasn't kind of the weakest of them all right i think the most important point here is that obama went for the middle he said we need to use a scalpel and that's why he did the speech to show that he's serious about cutting the deficit and the debt so use a scalpel but not a machete which is how he framed the republican plan and he went after paul ryan's plan he did it i liked it and he went right at the you know the medicare cuts which democrats believe are a winning issue for them for the republicans to say you're going to reform transform medicare take away that guaranteed health care benefits for seniors is

a winning issue to be believed because seniors who vote may vote in important states like florida where they were tired which is going to be important for the president so he went right at that but i do think you know give the republicans credit they sort of frame this issue paul ryan's budget has framed the issue for the president now he is responding to it a week later so if you think that obama lost out perhaps he entered the game a little bit too late i mean as i mentioned the deficit reduction committee that was last year that was in december then republicans came out and they were the first download this budget in the middle of the whole budget debate you know just for the for the next six months that we were going through i think it's important to point out that the president embraced some of the proposals in the commission's plan which he sort of steered away from right after it came out but now the debates been reframes i do think there is some reactionary. sort of a reactionary effort by the white house to respond. to the deal that was reached in the stopgap measure last friday. the republicans think the democrats want to. you

know the republicans got thirty eight so you tell me who the winner is i think the republicans were that winner but now we're in a round to the bigger picture and the president is trying to reach that middle ground almost triangulation. and what obviously what's happening when you go a little too middle if you want to call it center right is your base isn't please there are a lot of democrats that aren't he pleased with his plan and then the republican ticket for tat begins you know immediately paul ryan already said that obama's plan is inaccurate that it's not going to work and john boehner came out even before obama even gave a speech and said that you know if there are tax breaks for the rich ending in this speech then that is a complete nonstarter so he does not have the opportunity to go anywhere when you have two parties with fundamentally different views on how to reduce the deficit i think one of the flashpoints is going to be your last point about the tax cuts you know president obama campaign getting rid of the tax cuts for the wealthy and he sort of renege on that promise at the end of this year during the lame duck session

when he had to cut a deal he basically said i don't want to raise taxes on everybody the republicans won't take anything else this is what i have to do so now here he is back again saying we have to raise taxes on the rich and as you pointed out the republican leadership even before he spoke said this is no deal no game when the economy's in the in this type of situation we're not raising the issue of taxes so this is an issue we're going to see continuing to build up through the two thousand and twelve election and it's the same argument that we're having in two thousand and eight if i'm sitting at home and i'm a regular american i'm going to make any progress on these issues or do we just keep going back to our corners and fighting i think the next big flash point in this debate the budget debate is going to be the debt ceiling and whether republicans are going to prevent. congress from raising that which which could cause some huge thing that they actually do that yeah because all the warnings that we're hearing is already that it's going to be catastrophic although you know we are going to see other day on the show if you look at the polls only sixteen percent of americans. the latest gallup poll actually didn't want or didn't want

the debt ceiling to be raised so americans are going to hey why not i think the people just don't understand the record caution is here but we'll see obama's plan actually gains any traction for that of the day they're all full of it lindsey graham was already blasting off on twitter today complaining about fifty thousand dollars in cuts to his state even though it's his party that are proud of your own but cut cut there's. so much for being here tonight thank you. now it's the deadline that's grabbed hold of washington the threat of the nation's debt reaching its peak is on the horizon and analysts claim that the u.s. will reach its debt ceiling a fourteen point three trillion dollars by next month may sixteenth is what treasury secretary tim geithner said but as politicians debate whether or not they should raise the debt ceiling it's clear the u.s. debt has already taken a toll on america so how much could this country stand to lose our two parties marina that. in a city that never sleeps

a clock that continues to tick more than two thousand dollars per second when it was first installed no one was really aware of what the payout was nor could most people tell you the difference between a deficit or that so the backlog stands original keeping track of the national debt jordan borrow it represents the just organization the new york real estate firm that operates the ticker of america's borrowing the clock was installed back in one thousand nine hundred nine when u.s. debt was under three trillion within weeks that number is expected to reach a debt ceiling of fourteen point one thousand nine hundred. seventy s. is on too much money. everybody knows that and everybody accepts that it's how you solve that problem just. yet this familiar problem is being met with a recycled solution he was leaders are calling for congress to raise the debt limit

warning of an economic armageddon otherwise experts say ongoing financial mismanagement by the richest country in the world is gravely tarnishing america's image as a global financial leader we're approaching on a par with the total g.d.p. of the country this is very serious because most economic research suggests that twenty's tend to decelerate in their growth and have more and more severe economic problems once the debt to g.d.p. ratio gets above about ninety percent and we're about to go through that level and if the u.s. government reaches its borrowing capacity it would ultimately can fold on its debt and stop paying investors whose bonds have come due to japan currently holds roughly eight hundred eighty five billion dollars in u.s. treasury bonds meanwhile china america's main creditor owns one point one trillion . the economic landscape. it's causing many to conclude that washington no longer claims supremacy over global economic issues it can no longer act unilaterally

on any number of things yet out so part of what the united states needs is credibility which can and grease the persuasion with which it can convince other countries to come together with it and moments when it needs to be a guarantor of the global financial system shows no sign of debt discipline nobel prize winning economist joseph stiglitz says it's time to replace the once invincible dollar with a new reserve currency china has close to three trillion dollars of reserves about a third of the global reserves about nine trillion dollars. dollars you have some voice and the kind of reserve currency system you want to have and china has been very clear that it worries about the dollar based reserve system just last week the dollar fell to nearly

a fifteen month low against the euro yet day after day the nation's debt continues to climb higher u.s. congress has increased the national debt ceiling a reported seventy four times since one thousand nine hundred sixty two and it will most likely happen again in the coming weeks but as america continues a growing trillions of dollars in debt question is how much global economic influence does this so-called superpower stand to lose. are to new york. there's still much more to come tonight is there a brain drain at the cia to find out why the government's top intelligence agency is facing competition from contractors powerful asked if it could be a threat to our country's safety and i want to come to the war in afghanistan it seems like capitol hill and the white house don't have much to say so we're going to turn to contractors on the ground afghans. to find out whether withdrawal is really going to happen and it's time series of the right back.

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we often speak about contractors on this program and the rising use of them in our wars abroad as well as work here at home security intelligence defense reconstruction you name it and there's a farm that can provide it there are contracting firms stealing the top talent away from the government and a new report out today the washington post investigates brain drain within the cia it's a phenomenon that began after nine eleven but they continues at a rapid pace and at least ninety one of the agency's upper level managers have left for the private sector just in the last ten years alone it's about money it's about the escape from your ocracy but there's also what our intelligence capabilities are at risk joining me to discuss it is lieutenant colonel anthony shaffer a senior fellow at the center for advanced defense studies and he's also still serving as a reserve lieutenant colonel tony thanks so much for joining us tonight. contracting isn't necessarily anything new but you know from what i gather here these really

didn't hit the cia or the intelligence service until after nine eleven so what would you say is it were they completely inadequately prepared for you know the amount of intelligence gathered intelligence gathering that we would need post nine eleven or were there also people that just happen to be there right time that managed to capitalize on it in the private sector i think it's a situation at all the. one of the things that came out of the middle of the track was this call for new intelligence better intelligence and so what we do is yes they're going to throw money at it and that's what. created a market by the fact. this call for new intelligence and the end result i think was less than adequate by the fact that you have a huge brain drain which i think is not only with cia we're talking about defense tracks as many organizations mentioned today look i have several friends of mine who walked out and left you were trying to psych me we were all trained by cia we do a different mission we were d.o.t. but it's the same the same basic training the same basic experience same basic

abilities and they went over and it literally walked out one day making one hundred ten thousand dollars walk into a job making two hundred fifty and doing the same basic thing but a thing is you avoid accountability and in many ways you avoid the bureaucracy and i think that's what makes it so attractive for a lot of folks to go do this. do you think that the government you know if we can talk about the cia specifically should they be paying these people more the fact that you know you can go get there or do the exact same job but make twice the money somewhere else but i think it's one of those things congress needs to look at i spent most of today on the hill talking with members of congress and their staffs about how to cut back and be more efficient and what we're doing i don't want to mention it names to give away anything but i met with actual american actual members and most spectacular talk to a tea party member i talked to for a number on the left and it's the same issues like climate can we afford to pay we help create a circumstance where the brain drain is going right now and the problem is things like cap chapman happen and you you covered can't chapman the fact is this the most

senior member of the oldest member of that team who was killed coast was forty five years old and that's when you're just basically getting good experience so to be in charge with a lot of background was probably one of things which led to that that that really bad effect or cia so you think that this is perhaps that hurting our intelligence gathering capabilities perhaps even putting lives at risk because that is one of the factors here is that suddenly we see a very young crop of individuals working at the cia the older guys are are moving on they're moving on towards more lucrative jobs in the private sector and so i wonder you know sometimes can that young fresh perspective be good or is the cia specifically an area where you need the experience in the years where you do there's no substitute for having years of experience one of the first things they tell you when you go through the training farm is that you basically have the ability to learn that's it and it takes to have a seasoned officer with all the understanding of all the different nuances twenty

years just to get their act together so the fact is i think the article very good at capturing the fact that you know people of twenty year mark are leaving and taking experience also for therefore you have this dearth of experience now the other part of this which i mentioned earlier when we do service. is the fact that they didn't report back if you have young kids coming in today we're leaving early so those are the best and brightest see this and exterior and are frustrated with the bureaucracy and they leave early so i think you have the worst of both worlds you have young kids who are very bright coming and going to do good things leaving early after the first tour because they're frustrated and the same time you have those left who probably aren't the best and brightest running the show and those who could probably put them on the right track are long gone so you basically have what's left to be probably the worst possible group running the operations which is resulting in i think less an adequate intelligence collection look we were caught only off guard in libya we shouldn't focus there and other places so i think it's

that lack of experience of knowing where to look and how to look is resulting in the bad outcomes you're seeing right now and you're definitely right in that we have seen numerous examples lately where intelligence has failed and where we were completely caught off guard especially if you look at some of the unrest in the middle east but i'm just curious do you think there's anything i now think all about perhaps you know working for the government getting top secret clearance getting all of your training they're getting a lot of contacts when it comes to people working within the government when it comes to congress members and then taking that outside of it taking not to a private farm or is not just something that we're completely used to these days it's you know on. i become the norm i think that when you can walk it's innes it's honestly hard and some of my friends i believe are great patriots they've done great jobs for the country but it's hard when you know you can make one hundred ten thousand dollars a year and be miserable and if you are a c. or take twice the money and have twice the freedom to do the job you're trying to do so that the problem is this and this is one of the things mentioned in the article you're ocracy is something i face every day it's something i thought

against and truth be told i do a lot of the same things i did before on the inside on the outside with with a lot less oversight a lot more ability to get things done and i think that's what most people in my profession seek to do we want to do good and so i don't think ethically is anything wrong with stepping out and getting more money for what you're doing a problem is becoming become a cottage industry everybody and i think the actual purpose of why we're doing the work has been lost it was just want to make money and hence we have now not only the military industrial complex but now we have this intelligence industrial complex you know a whole row of people all included in what's top secret america with his ossify clearance but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's making the situation any safer better for us so brain drain is what we got tony thanks so much for joining us tonight. of this to live a scheduled withdrawal of troops from afghanistan is supposed to be kept but as of yet we haven't seen any kind of plan for what that would crawl would look like no

timetable no numbers and reports say that president obama himself has yet to be presented one of those plans by general david petraeus so while we wait on washington to play politics with the situation let's get some insight from those on the ground and specifically the contractors who are well aware of what government bits into hell many are planned for in the coming months earlier i caught up with him lynch blogger and founder of free range international and i first asked him what the talk is on the ground in afghanistan in terms of what size of a withdrawal you can expect. here and on the ground we haven't really seen anything that would ensure a significant withdrawal. coming into this theater is still every several months they're played out for longer our contracts are still being led for a logistical support and there's no. contractor talking about immobilize which will take a long long time for quite the contrary do you see a lot of new contracts bids being brought up instead of even you know talk of

trying to wind them down eventually. in the the reconstruction spears certainly they're there they're releasing contracts they're looking at things long term they're planning for f y two thousand and twelve shutdowns of the element or if you did your geisha in system massive massive projects that would he would start for another year or so and that is that they certainly plan to stay for a long time because you can't really work here without a security net at the regional. or. or you know one of the things that i find so interesting is when i think of security i think about what our troops are trained to do but you know now we've had some interesting things last week to the u.s. special ops command announced they were looking for afghan security contractors to protect some of the special ops teams you know some of the really smaller bases which to me just seems at seem so completely backwards.

now they've they've done that for years. the only people that don't do that right now the reason they opened it i was talking to one of the officers and he says they would use a battalion just cordon ourselves they did much better use the the manpower they have the project to protect those security forces outside of their bases and so it's not unusual to see contractors want out for security which again it's one of the big problems when i talk about removing security contractors is i don't think they want the going according but so in that sense do we have enough of can we say that the contractors and the troops have to be there at the same time because i think some would speculate that well they could perhaps start withdrawing some of the troops in order to make it look good politically but then just keep more of the contractors and the two kind of have to go hand in hand. i think they don't and of course you're talking about the iraqi model where they say we're going to stop combat operations but they jam in

a couple hundred thousand contractors were or did and drive around in the six appearance you can't really do that here because it's only told more months before all security companies are supposed to close or do is leave so that if they'd if they did then they would have ever cooperation from the karzai government and they are not going to get it but do you think that karzai is really serious i mean of course he's given a lot of threats to contractors in the past seven he was going to take out a lot of the firms even last year and gave a four month time limit we didn't really see that kind of the fruition so much and quite the opposite i think that one of the excuses that a lot of lawmakers more conservative lawmakers here on capitol hill use as a reason to not withdraw as that they think the path can't stand government that honey karzai is going to think that we're abandoning that so how do you put the two and two together. he really can't because if you look at how he acts he'd look for the question i don't pick sears but you can't beat your plans based on

which is take i mean i don't see any other way around for i think the security contractor sector will grow here and continue to grow and it's going to parallel i reckon but we're going to drawdown of forces i just don't see it happen unless you're talking about logistical or or headquarters s.s. just trying to shrink a number of people to stay on the flop which they could be triggered by tens of thousands right now without affecting combat operations. in my humble opinion. that would require a drawdown and all the other things are doing such as you know completely redoing the home of river valley oh you're a geisha and the military is doing it because they're the only ones who can. and what's the sense either from talking to the local population or perhaps you know local contractors to do do you get that feeling that they feel like it'll be an abandonment if the withdraw doesn't happen or sooner rather than later oh no no no

. there's there's little question that a lot of people in a more interesting here is the southern part of the country have chosen sides. and those that are chosen or so if we pull out are significant trouble so they can play cubans a bit in it for sure there's a lot of people who are absolutely trusting us when we say hey look we're not going to step into here. and those people if we left would. they they would let us look and of course lately we're seeing what it seems like to be a complete souring of relations between the u.s. and pakistan too with pakistan in the last couple days saying no more drone strike saying get the majority of your cia officers which for a while we were bare there saying get them out so you know does that just put a dark cloud over everything as well as the fact that that relationship with pakistan is so integrity to defeating the taliban or to this war effort.

will it be the feeding the u.s. troops too because all the logistics or the best percentage of them come up through a crunchie some look at the state so yeah he considers disruption like that is most concerning this talk about the drone strikes or is goes concerning although i did see in the wire that there was one of those years today where. it again if you look at a lot of this posturing you see you so what's the end game because it always seems in the united things kind of noble in the way that they are and i suspect there's money in our town to thank you very much for joining us and we'll be we'll be catching back up with you later all see what actually happened in july or what kind of numbers obama does give us to thank so much. ok so if you are going to have a dinner. for taking a break but still a concert night she might run for president but first she wants to wait take away some rights from the judges have more on this congress on this plan ahead in our tool time segment and then swimming in student debt to some college bound students

should consider skipping higher education also gathered because of the price tag back in march. let's not forget that we had an apartheid. i think. one well. we haven't got the head of the safe get ready because the freedom. charter here broadcasting along.