tv [untitled] June 30, 2011 9:00pm-9:30pm EDT
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well i'm john harbin in washington d.c. here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture democrats are catching on to what john boehner and the republicans real plan is with the debt ceiling debate to crash the economy so what can democrats do to counter this republican scorched earth agenda g.o.p. presidential candidate michele bachmann will be outdone by the rest of the republican party in her bid to screw over the working class she wants to kneecap the minimum wage so exactly will that help americans who are struggling to make
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ends meet and whole iowans are fighting back against their governor's controversy anti-union law so can governor john k six union busting agenda survive a million person assault in iraq. you need to know this group of two hundred forty eight economists six of whom are nobel prize winners sent a letter to rational leaders yesterday demanding a clean vote to raise the debt ceiling arguing that failure to do so could have a substantial negative impact on economic growth the i.m.f. issued a similar warning to saying the failure to raise the debt ceiling could result in a severe shock to global financial markets as president obama drew a line in the sand yesterday in debt limit negotiations demanding that tax loopholes for millionaires billionaires and transnational corporations be closed
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republicans drew a line in the sand on the out of those very same loopholes saying no way no how will they go along with any sort of tax increase on their millionaire and billionaire corporate owners so why won't republicans compromise on a balanced approach that includes both spending cuts and. tax increases senator chuck schumer knows why it's because republicans are trying to crash the economy as senator schumer said in a speech this morning about republicans sabotaging debt limit negotiations wote it is becoming clear that insisting on a slash and burn approach may be part of this plan and it has a double benefit for republicans it is ideologically tidy and undermines the economic recovery which they think only helps them in two thousand and twelve she went on to say republicans are just opposing the president any more they're opposing the economic recovery itself and all that means for america's working and middle class families so is senator schumer right or republicans using the debt
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limit debate to crash the economy for political gain ahead of the twenty two of elections and if so is there anything democrats can do about it for me to shed some light on the issues and equal border for mother jones magazine and seth barron's way eternity in constitutional law expert any so let's go ahead new here with us. are republicans really trying to crash the economy. well if their plan goes ahead and they keep you know holding out and saying that any new forms of revenue for a debt deal off the table then yeah they are going to crash the economy i think economists part of the economists have been very clear that failure to raise the debt ceiling and let in the u.s. the fall it would be catastrophic for the economy and so if they refused to budge it certainly looks that way so this was a this debt ceiling limit was a law that was passed in the last half century of sixty one well the debt ceiling
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still limitations have been a statutory animal that's going around for about ninety years and it doesn't get raised frequently but it has been raised a number of times in the last ten years but it doesn't date from founding. part of the constitution it's not part of the constitution it's just it's just a statute of congress that periodic lee gets changed and it's been something that's occurred within the last ninety years several times that's right when the when the constitution was first written there was no definition in the constitution that said this is for the supreme court decided what was constitutional it was it's not in the constitution in fact in federalist eighty one hamilton went on at length about how those people who were opposed to the constitution because they said that the constitution would give that kind of power to the court were wrong and i mean he was just federalist anyone is amazing about this and then for the first two decades you know decade and a half. supreme court didn't ever try to take down
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a law that it passed by congress and all the founders ideas was that if congress passed unconstitutional law the president would veto it if the president proposed unconstitutional law the congress wouldn't pass it if both of them passed a constitutional law the people would throw the bums out replacement people would fix it would be a public outcry and then eighteen or three more reverses medicine the court took that power and then didn't exercise it again for thirty years and it and the fear kind of died down is it possible that the president could do what the founders had envisioned and simply say this law is unconstitutional it was passed by congress i'm not going to follow it with an exact. it's possible anything's possible we're really approaching a catastrophe which is really just a couple of weeks away i'm not so sure that it's strictly a republican problem i think that there are people on both sides of the aisle that have maybe created some impediment here but i think the bottom line is that there is a technical legal argument under the fourteenth amendment of the constitution which states among other things that the public debt of the united states quote shall not
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be questioned and technically what this may mean is that any statutory challenge to the government in any statutory challenge to cap or limit the payment of the debt of the united states would run afoul of the fourteenth amendment public debt clause so therefore there is a technical argument it could be a viable argument it's also a last second argument to just avoid a catastrophic event because it could also set off you know huge constitutional arguments it would be a challenge of judicial review it would be what it simply provoke judicial it could provoke judicial review but this is another element that's very interesting about how unique this is because in order to have a judicial challenge somebody has to have what's known as standing and it's an open question about who would even have standing to challenge something like this in a federal court such as the united states supreme court so this is i'm sorry secretary of state. well the secretary of the treasury would presumably. support the president and would in fact. you know kind of have joked and hinted to that
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today and he was indicating that he was pointing to the fourteenth amendment it's an unbelievable time we're really looking at potentially avoiding a catastrophe it's a technical argument of the fourteenth amendment and it has never legally been challenged but we're living in a very unique times right now and he had a couple of weeks ago suggested that the president actually holds the final card in this thing because this on the letter that was written a bob packwood back in one hundred five that said in the event of a debt ceiling crisis the president and the times actually the treasury secretary gets to decide what gets paid what doesn't get paid and it doesn't have to be five doesn't have to be first in first out and so the president can go after the projects of the red states and the republicans and make them scream. or we know. whatever guy on fox news at the same thing a couple days ago i mean is there any possibility that the president is just going to absolutely you know do l.b.j. hardball were l.b.j.
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was famous for slime and people up against walls and yelling at him like they had to be fed up mr miller president obama likes to be the adult in chief so i don't think we're going to see any l.b.j. tactics and i also don't think the president wants the country to get to a point where they're picking and choosing what programs are going to be funded and what programs are there was a bipartisan policy center report that show you know the inlays in l.a. is money coming get money from you out over august you know there is money coming in and you could keep funding parts of the federal government but you then you get into this horribly toxic debate ok what is funded what is not not is just as much of a nightmare but that is going on now when these when these talks broke down the democrats were agreeing to fifteen percent tax increases eighty five percent spending cuts and then they put a try to put on the table well let's take another two percent tax increases or tax loopholes by doing away with the private jet. benefit and at that point eric cantor
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freaks out runs out of the room eric cantor didn't want any kind of fifteen percent he didn't you know i don't i don't think they want fifty percent even that much they don't want any tax increases they don't want any revenue and they want to be spending because until by the by the negotiations have got to about four or should be about two trillion in cuts in savings and four trillion is what people are saying need to get you well if you're talking about a cut and there's no new revenue on the table it's one hundred to zero with the and then you're not going to get to that you're not going to get to that fortunately or go especially when you consider the role that the old one and the other three bush tax cuts played in the deficits we have now so and he said thank you both for being with us tonight plus much much of cultures we i'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more from about this as time goes on i'll have more on the debt limit and what president obama and the democrats can do to gain the upper hand in tonight's guilty.
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it's time for a daily poll your chance to tell us what you think here's the question now that epic is revealing that the church x. ray porno scanners at the airport are getting people answer will you still get scanned and choices are yes or radio ourselves is really the best way to keep our nation safe from terrorists or no epic says t.s.a. agents who work with the radiation machines daily are falling ill with cancer clusters around the town hartman dot com and tell us what you think the cold be open till tomorrow. crazy alert he's back residents of north carolina claim jesus is finally returned to earth although not in human form it point to a utility pole outside the kitty city of kingston it has been overgrown with kudzu plants and now resembles a crucifix one resident can't hard so hard isn't admitted that when he first saw the overgrowth he wanted to spray it with roundup benny had second thoughts and the
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side is will you be kind of me i just. didn't you would indeed you can't spray jesus with roundup other residents of the town are taking the vine as a sign that god is watching over them although the utility company may not see it in such a spiritual like clouds of plants cause about a million and a half dollars a year with the damage to your answer to utility poles so if it is indeed a sign of god and he's telling us this time to update our nation's decrepit energy grid that's not a cutting. workers earning minimum wage are barely making ends meet right now imagine how hard things would get if the minimum wage was a limit unfortunately that's exactly what republican presidential candidate. wants to do. drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through. who can you trust no one who is imbue it with the global machinery see where we had
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expect michele bachmann to do i don't get a read of the minimum wage it interview yesterday in good morning america bachmann suggested that the minimum wage hills job growth and needs to be eliminated take a look. here saying that the minimum wage is one of those regulations you take a look at you try to eliminate it well what i'm saying is that i think that we need to look at all regulations whatever whatever ones are inhibiting job growth that's what we need said the minimum wage is one of them. all regulations storage i think every department we have too much expansion of government and so what we need to do is tamp that down so that the american people can keep more of what they may write tamp down on the minimum wage so americans can keep more of what they earn what if they don't earn enough here's a current minimum wage somewhere between seven and eight dollars depends on where you live and it's already not enough to cover the basic necessities of life as a new study out of michigan highlights one person without children needs to make
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about twelve bucks an hour just to cover all the beer essential food shelter clothing transportation the restaurant bucks it's nearly double the minimum wage so how is getting rid of the already too low bynum wage supposed to help the working class in america you're going to have to answer that question still carpet as president of policy for americans for prosperity about my pleasure tom why do you hate working people i love working people and i think that people need to get that first step on the wrong that first step on the ladder and get their career started and unfortunately right in the face of this recession in the democrats in two thousand and seven in congress and president bush set in place this enormous increase in the minimum wage from five fifteen to seven twenty five and it has put young people particularly teenagers out of the workforce we've got teenage unemployment now twenty four point two we did this at. very very bad time of course you can raise a family i'm going to be sixty in the middle don't try we are exempted from the minimum wage are they not they're not in most places that's not correct and you
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know we have seen this enormously build up in youth unemployment including in the twenty to twenty four age bracket which is fourteen point seven percent unemployed right now really percent of the do the minimum wage if it had everything to do no know what it has to do with those that he wanted it was jobs are being sent overseas you know and now you've got forty no he was fifty year old going to the going to get on was to get that you know look at that used to be you look at citi and if you look at the first if you look at the tax rate laborers or head for the minimum wage at seven and a quarter you can't hire someone as an employer for less than ten dollars an hour there are a lot of jobs that are not worth that much of the consequence we have a lot of hiring that's not taking place the reality is as an anti-poverty measure the minimum wage has failed makes much more sense of wage subsidies like the earned income credit or to have direct assistance and we have an awful lot of that as well and when you're talking about households there's a tremendous amount of federal assistance for housing for education about a filibuster and tradition on the other we're not going to get going into it ok here we go new york times fifty four economists told congress today to raise the minimum wage would have little adverse effect on the economy six times this
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nation's raise the minimum wage and historical experience offers no evidence of significant employment or business disruption seventy seven in one thousand nine hundred one the minimum wage was raised over fifty percent and five year period employment went up nine percent next year minimum wage increase employment went up nine percent no effect not. a well and the going up is that we've seen enormous the time we raise the minimum wage forty percent and we've seen youth unemployment skyrocket we're not seeing jobs created on the bottom and you're trying to take you're trying to establish causality want to doesn't exist you know how to recession going on of course you've got people price control and anything in artificially raise the price of that you're going to cause a shortage and you're going to you're going to push down demand and that's precisely what we see there's no you already have labor very good you're going to push up to me and you're going to push up then we have right now is because we have a recession we have a shortage of jobs and so in those jobs that are worth less wages or an artificially high wage cannot be created no consequence you've got
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a lot of folks particularly entry level folks for a teenager looking for summer jobs and those jobs simply can't exist now by law so you know i don't have a problem with saying the minimum wage doesn't apply to people under sixteen or eighteen or somebody who hasn't graduated from high school i know probably that's how it was when i was a kid i get a work permit i was working i read hamburgers it was less than minimum wage that i don't have you know that's fine but that's not the point that's not the issue the issue is what kind of country do we want to live in what kind of america do we want to have and we really do you really want people trying to support a family on eight dollars an hour it's not possible it's a very there has to be some basic floor that we say you know as decent and as a decent society we're not going to let people know who i was all for twenty thousand dollars a year people in that situation let's let's let's try to you know the franklin roosevelt had the best welfare program is a good job let's let's just simply agree as a country that any business that that has to exist by basically exploited as workers would probably wages has no right to exist well what you do with what you
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do by putting walls like that in place is you create a huge bias away from labor intensive solutions towards capital intensive solutions and it's very hard it's now which has been very hard for small businesses to compete so you see a resource allocation from small businesses to larger businesses who've got access to capital of got machinery of got technology not once and they can pay people hired precisely without. from seventy seven eighty one we saw the biggest minimum wage in target over the past three years with minimum wage forty percent and as a consequence we've seen over the last three years now and every last three years we're seeing the bush great depression this has nothing to do with the minimum wage and not only that a lot of exotic westerling pressure isn't always about all this is if you want to fix the great depression actually i'd say it's the reagan great depression because thirty years of trickle down reagan only create twenty five million jobs that was terrible it really was the year i was only five million all the the point is that if we want to stimulate the economy put money in workers' pockets they will spend
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it it will create demand raise the minimum wage you will still stimulate the economy except for those people whose labor is worth less than the minimum wage they'll just be out of work and that's why we've said to those people you're saying oh you know your labor is worth less than seven dollars an hour screw you know i'm saying i want you to get started in the three i want you to build up skills i want to move up that ladder i don't get three thirty at home i want people to get their start i don't want to freeze people out with an artificial at the age of forty what about people who are. you know mcdonald's was running a help wanted a had a thirty thousand jobs if they were hiring a million people showed up are you going to say to those people that you know are becoming mexico very enthusiastically you can work for two dollars an hour i think they're willing buyers meet willing sellers and i trust the markets allocate resources the lesson of the century is that intervention in prices intervention in markets miss allocates resources and causes disasters i don't throw ourselves in the obvious i don't trust those that have you assigned to abolition if you establish boundaries for again then the game can be played reasonably what you're
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suggesting is that we should be playing football without referees there's not one without definitions of what the teams are saying that if we were still if i was always in fifteen cents an hour there would be a lot more people working right now than there are at seven in the quarter there and maybe you'd prefer that they not because you think it's undignified to work in that way but i think a lot of these people who are out of work right now would love to have those jobs and. you're not with these are not these are not in primary breadwinners that we're talking about for the most part these are killer driving phil is the is the great the race to the bottom here in the united states really we need to stop being a third world country why is the price the minimum wage in denmark eighteen dollars and seventy five cents an hour and they're doing just fine thank you very much i don't think that marx doing very well right now actively work actually is germany's minimum wage is around sixteen dollars an hour i mean what. i just i just don't get this race to the bottom until europe is near collapse and i don't think we should be looking for another model for anything it has resisted all apps there is that here a collapse in the there's tight interconnection between based on the debt holders you know bill and i agree that the banks took out
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a lot of us but at the end it was worse than the place where they were the most regulated in europe actually no sweden is doing just fine thank you very much those are the banks the most were regular filth iceland was pretty bad and there is because they they followed your advice they deregulated their banks i don't think start to be as. it may be getting rid of the minimum wage is actually michele bachmann's idea of a job program after all she kills the minimum wage and who knows how many foreign transnational corporations will set up shop in america as they do in bangladesh now working for cheap labor and show bachman's america a nation of serfs and peons ronald reagan would be proud. in the best of the rest of the news republicans in ohio really stepped in at this time only three months after the governor john case in his republican gang in the state legislature passed a harsh anti-union laws turning public employees in their rights to collectively bargain over a million ohioans signed a petition to repeal the new anti-union on the group we are ohio needed two hundred
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thirty one thousand signatures from ohio voters to repeal of senate bill five on the ballot in november election and the group got more than five times that amount turning close to one point three million signatures to ohio secretary of state to verify the names a spokesman for we are ohio said referring to the petition drive this historic number of signatures sends a strong clear message to the extreme politicians and played political tricks as as a five so it's another case x. union busting in ohio finished for good and what effect can this huge groundswell against casey mean for other republicans and the union busting efforts around the nation joining me from ohio now is cliff schecter aggressive p.r. strategist at liberty us l.l.c. and author of the book the real mccain cliff welcome welcome back i just how are you going to i'm great one point three million signatures to this box talking head who's who's now the governor wake up sleeping giant the labor movement is agenda
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cooked it did maybe she go back to is used saturday night show on fox from the heartland you know that you don't understand our what the heartland wants yes i mean look you know what you heard a lot about what happened in wisconsin got not as many people heard immediately heard belatedly about what happened a year ago because the bills even more extreme senate bill five year which also stripped their collective bargaining rights from teachers from firefighters from police officers got the turtle owner at least an organization that often supports republicans or apoplectic and so we had this great march yesterday and were one point three million signatures and we need to. hundred thirty one thousand to get this thing on this november's ballot whether to repeal s.b. five and they've got one point three million signatures what does that tell you about how i agree people on you and you know you people are ear well i think that message is fairly obvious the other thing that it tells me is that the koch brothers and the other people who have been funding alec and and these right wing
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governors are going to be carpet bombing the state of ohio with ads talking about how horrible unions are do you think it's going to work. no i don't i mean i think look at it they always are going to have some level of trickery and success tricking people they're going to be here there i'm sure they'll be in florida be in wisconsin they'll be everywhere but you know it's different when people feel something viscerally every day and people right now know people who work in these unions they know who it is who took away their rights you know they may not notice early because the koch brothers but did you know that is a republican legislature and you do know that there's a republican governor who launched a radical bill against them they are seeing you know bills were people are coming in and having fetuses testify or putting guns in bars i mean it's one radical bill after another and it's you know i always just swing states of middle of the road see this is now people voted for so i think i think the ino date really had obama quite a bad situation and i think they literally are find themselves overreaching as they
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often do and callie defeat from the jaws of victory cliff why you live in ohio and you're a pretty keen observer that i know you're also looking at the entire country do you think that this sort of thing could be happening in wisconsin or new jersey were similar and so when the legislation was passed. oh i absolutely do i mean look i think chris christie right now is wearing out his welcome every every single time he gets up again and you know gets in somebodies face creams and it looks like he feels like he's got to eat them when you see some of these pictures of him leaning over people at the white their heads i don't leave that works very well for him and it was constant people already know what walker is about you've got to recall elections democrats are in the leave a lot of the polling i mean again i think the republicans put their heads down trying to stick to what people put them in office for enough b. to sixty mm i think democrats would be a lot of trouble in two thousand and twelve but for an hour because president obama in my view is going way too timid but i think he brought democrats back into the ball game by the way they behaved and i think these are only
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a couple states you know when you look at florida is another one i mean there's just any state that has a republican legislature and governor right now seems to literally have gone insane you know and again i think what you're talking about your previous cast i think you know there's a point where people start as themselves what kind of country we want to be that we want i mean we want to head towards being a third world country so we want we want people that need dollars an hour and not be able to support their families and starving and we want that kind of division between the very wealthy and the rest every poll tell you that's not what people want so i don't think these guys have given everybody what we really want in wisconsin or seen recall efforts underway as their talk recall against other republican lawmakers and. you know what i mean we don't have the same kinds of laws we can do that here so you know we don't have you know the same seemed to me here that you have in wisconsin where there's a there where they're able to do that and the burden to get that does not vary i we're stuck with which case it would but i don't i don't think that that's going to
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be very helpful for many members of the legislature because they're up in two years whether they like it or not they are off the road to state house and the state senate half of them will have to run and i think they're going to find themselves in a lot of trouble and by in two years i mean in two thousand and twelve and fourteen and starting to really do yours and you're to have i guess the arm is so ok and just thirty seconds you think that this rage is going to carry over two thousand and twelve or are people's memories short. you know i would be worried that people's memories are short but i don't see any of the gateman in this republican assault i mean not you know again whether it's sort of or should rights for gay rights or whether it's on guns or whether it's right just going by legislation here that sort of semi restrictive ohio right now is about a potentially pass the most restrictive abortion bill mcconnachie said after six weeks you can't get an abortion obviously supreme court would have something to say about that where one of four states that is about to put guns in all orks you know what a study just came out from u.c. davis showing that people who drink are twice as likely to pull guns you know i
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mean it's you know it really is astounding clip really as it were admissions from that clip thanks a lot for being with us thanks as always appreciate it what we're seeing in ohio is always something the widespread voter of more sweeping the country because the right wing's radical anti worker pro billionaire agenda let's hope it carries in the two thousand and twelve elections we can put an end to the republican war against working people for good. coming out we're launching military strikes against a sixth country in the arab world to keep americans safe from terrorists right now here at home or still subject to the t.s.a. is porno scanners again meant to keep us safe from terrorists so these tactics really working are making our problems even. with twenty four seven live streaming news towns what can tell you about the ongoing financial hurricane unlimited free high quality videos for download.
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