well i'm john harshman 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

ends meet and ohioans are fighting back against their governors controversy anti-union law so can governor john k. six union busting agenda survive a million person assault from the law. 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 that failure to raise the debt ceiling could result in a severe shock to global financial markets but 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

republicans drew a line in the sand on the half of those very same locals 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 schumer went on to say republicans aren't just opposing the president anymore they're opposing economic recovery itself and all that means for america's working and middle class families so is senator schumer right are republicans using the

debt limit debate to crash the economy for political gain or that of the twenty two of the russians and if so is there anything democrats can do about it going to shed some light on the issues and a crawl order for mother jones magazine and sets the barents way it's already in constitutional law expert and so i think it had to do with here with us. are republicans really trying to crash the economy and. 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 are off the table then yeah they are going to crash the economy i think economists nonpartisan columnists have been very clear that failure to raise the debt ceiling and let in the u.s. to follow 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 the sixty's was well the debt

ceiling still limitations have been a statutory animal that's been 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 that's right 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 and what 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 you want to mazie about this and then for the first two decades you know decade and a half. the supreme court didn't ever try to take down

a law that had 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 and people would throw the bums out replacement people would fix it would be a public outcry and then one thousand or three more reverses madison the court took that power and then didn't exercise it again for thirty years and it and the fury 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 of the united states quote shall not be

questioned and technically what this 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 costs to tional arguments it would be a challenge of judicial review it would be to 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 states or i'm sorry secretary of state. well the secretary of the treasury would presumably. support the president and would in fact timothy geitner you know kind of half

joking hinted to that 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 weeks ago suggested the president actually holds the final card in this thing because this or the letter that was written back in ninety five that said in the event of the debt ceiling crisis the president and the terms 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. i believe no it was whatever a guy in fox news of the same thing a couple days ago i mean is there any possibility that the president is just going to absolute like you know do l.b.j. hardball were l.b.j.

was famous for slime and people up against walls and yelling at him like like the head of the fed 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 and outlays money coming in money coming 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 in not is just as much of a nightmare but he's going you know 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 it they try to put on the table well let's take it on the two percent tax increases actually cutting tax loopholes by doing away with the private jet. benefit and at that point eric cantor freaks out runs out of the

room eric cantor didn't want any kind of fifteen percent he didn't 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 on it they want to be spending because it's abide by the negotiations have got to about four or she's now about two trillion in cuts in savings and four trillion is what people are saying you need to get you well if you're talking about all cuts and there's no new revenue on the table it's one hundred to zero with 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 of the you know one of the three bush tax cuts played in the deficits we have now so and he said thank you both for being with us and their pleasure so much motion pictures we i'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more from about this is time goes on i'll have more on the debt limit and what president obama and the democrats could do to gain the upper hand in tonight's debate.

it's time for our daily poll your chance to tell us what you think here's the question now that epic is revealing that the church x. ray portal scanners at the airport are giving people answer we still get scanned and choices are yes irradiate 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 or downtown hartman dot com and tell us what you think of what will be open till tomorrow i'm going. crazy alert he's back residents of north carolina claim jesus is finally returned to earth although not in human form it went to a utility pole outside the kitty city of kingston it has been overgrown with cubs who plants and now resembles a crucifix one resident can hard some artisan admitted that when he first saw the overgrowth he wanted to spray it with roundup but then he had second thoughts and

the site is will be going to be. made into wooden 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 kudzu plans cause about a million and a half dollars a year with the damage to your two utility poles so if it is indeed a sign of god and maybe he's telling us is time to update our nation's decrepit energy grid that's my take on it. going out workers earning minimum wage or barely making ends meet right now mention how hard things would get if the minimum wage was a limit unfortunately that's exactly what republican presidential candidate. wants to do. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through. who can you trust no one who is your view with the global machinery see where are

we heading state controls capitalism is called sessions when nobody dares to ask what we do our t. question more. who is screwed working people as president that's one of the first things we can

expect michele bachmann to do i'm getting rid of the minimum wage in an 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 great deal a sense whatever whatever wrongs 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 complete more of what they may. write camped out on the minimum wage so americans can keep more of what they earn what if they don't earn enough there is a current minimum wage somewhere between seventy eight dollars and so 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

about twelve bucks an hour just to cover all the birth. like food shelter clothing transportation the restaurant box as nearly double the minimum wage so how does getting rid of the already two load minimum wage supposed to help the working class america here to help answer that question still kirpan as president of policy for americans for prosperity to welcome back 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 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 that. very very bad time of course you can raise a family i'm going to be successful in the minimum wage people don't try we are exempted from the minimum wage or they know they're not in most places that's not

correct and you 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 with no know what it has to do the things that he wanted it was jobs are being sent overseas you and now you've got thirty you know if you look at the year olds going to be going to look at our lives to get that you know look at that used to be you look at syria if you look at the first you look at the tags laid her 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 that 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 or interest him one of the other we're not going to get it going to time 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 nation's raise the minimum wage in 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 in a five year period employment went up nine percent next year minimum wage increase employment went up nine percent no effect not. a well and even at that we've seen enormous at that time we raise the minimum wage forty percent and we've seen youth unemployment skyrocket we're not seeing jobs created on the bottom end of your you're trying to take trying to establish causality want to doesn't exist you look at a recession going out of course you've got your little price control on anything an 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 areas you're going to push up to me and you're going to push up is going to 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 are an artificially high wage cannot be created not a consequence you've got

a lot of folks particularly entry level folks who are teenagers looking for summer jobs and those jobs simply can't exist now by law so 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 and i get a work permit i was working every hamburgers that 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 do 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 base and it's the war that we say you know as decent and as a decent society we're not going to let people come over well i was all for can give 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 exploiting his workers with crummy wages has no right to exist well what you do with what you do

by putting laws like that in place is you create a huge bias away from labor intensive solutions towards capital intensive solutions and it's very hard now which has very hard for small businesses to compete so you see a resource allocation from small businesses the larger businesses who've got access to capital got machinery of got technology not what's and they can pay people higher it's precisely what the. from seventy seven eighty one we saw the biggest minimum wage in charge over the past three years we raise minimum wage forty percent and as a consequence we've seen over the last three years 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 mistakes of us are going pressure isn't always about it also if you want to fix the great depression actually i'd say it's the reagan great depression because thirty years a trickle down reagan only created twenty five million jobs that was terrible it really was the year i was only five million off the point is that if we want to to stimulate the economy put money in workers' pockets they will spend 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 going to work for it i want 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 three you know mcdonald's was running a help wanted they had a thirty thousand jobs if they were hiring a million people showed up are you going to say to those people i hate you know coming mexico very enthusiastically you can work for three dollars an hour i think they're willing buyers meet willing sellers and i trust the markets allocate resources the lesson of the twentieth century is that intervention in prices intervention in markets mis allocates resources and causes disasters and all the rest of the iranian side don't trust doesn't it and you assign the abolition if you establish boundaries for again then the game can be played reasonably what you're

suggesting is that we should be playing football without referees that 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 and maybe you'd prefer that they not because you think it's undignified to work that way but i think a lot of these people were at work right now with love to have those jobs. you cannot with these they're not these are not in primary breadwinners that we're talking about for the most part these are they were driving phil is the is the great the rich 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 accurate 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 into europe is near collapse and i don't think we should be looking under their knowledge for anything that henry says that all that was the reason here a collapse in the there's a tight interconnection between based on the debt holders you know bill and i agree

that the banks took out a lot of us but that's 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 that's for the banks of the most were regular filth and i thought it was pretty bad and they were because they they followed your advice they deregulated their banks i don't think start to be as many and maybe 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 looking for cheap labor michele bachmann's america a nation of serfs and peons ronald reagan would probably. at the best of the rest the news republicans in ohio really stepped in at this time only three months after the governor jon case of his republican gang in the state legislature passed a harsh anti-union last public employees of the rights to collectively bargain over a million ohioans signed a petition to repeal the new anti-union law the group we are ohio needed two

hundred thirty one thousand signatures from ohio voters to repeal of senate bill five on the ballot in november election but 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 referring to the petition drive this historic number of signatures sends a strong clear message to the extreme politicians who played political tricks to pass as a five so as governor case x. union busting in ohio finished for good and what effect in this huge groundswell against case it mean for other republicans and the union busting efforts around the nation joining me from ohio now is cliff schecter a recipe or strategist at liberty see an author of the book the real mccain cliff welcome welcome back i just how are you buddy great one point three million signatures to this box talking ad who's who's now the governor wake up sleeping giant the labor movement is agenda cooked. he did maybe should go back to his used

saturday night show on fox from the heartland you don't seem to understand our what the heartland wants yes i mean look you know when you heard a lot about what happened in wisconsin look not as many people heard immediately heard the lately about what happened a year ago because the bills even more extreme senate bill five year which also stripped the collective bargaining rights from teachers from firefighters and police officers got the paternal order of police an organization that often supports republicans are apoplectic and so we had this great march yesterday and were one point three million signatures in many children thirty one thousand to get this thing on this november's ballot whether to repeal s.b. five and they got one point three million signatures what does that tell you about how i agree people on you and you know you people are here 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 these right wing

governors are going to be carpet bombing in the state of ohio with ads talking about how here how horrible unions are do you think it's going to work. no i don't i mean i think look to always they're 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 there are people who are in these unions they know who it is who took away their rights you know i mean i don't necessarily caught the koch brothers but they do know there's a republican legislature and you do know there's a republican governor who launched a radical bill against them they are saying you know bills were people who were coming in and having pieces testify we're putting guns in bars i mean it's one radical bill after another and it's you know high i was just swing states and middle of the road see this is now are people going for so i think i think they're you know date really had obama by quite a bad situation and i think they literally are find themselves overreaching as they

often do and polling defeat from the jaws of victory cliff where 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 anti one was away from this passed. i absolutely do i mean look i think chris christie right now is wearing out as welcome there every single time he gets up again and you know gets in somebody's space screams at him looks like he feels like he's about to eat them when you see some of these pictures of him leaning over people at the white their heads i don't know 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 league a lot of the polling i mean again i think the republicans put their heads down for a district that what people put them in office for and not be to sixteen i think democrats are being a lot of trouble in two thousand and twelve but for her because president obama in my opinion is going way too timid but i think he brought democrats back into the

ball game by the way they did i think these are only 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 guest i think you know there's a point where people start as themselves what kind of country we want to be we want to be do we want to head towards being a third world country you know 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 casey her other republican lawmakers on. yeah well 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 seems to me here that you're out in wisconsin where there's a there where they're able to do that and the burden to to get that done is the very high we're start with which case it would but i don't i don't think that

that's going to be very helpful helpful for many members of the legislature because they're up in two years whether they like it or not they all have to run to state house and state senate or half of them have to run and i think they're going to find themselves in a lot of trouble by in two years i mean in two thousand and twelve and what protests six are you know really three years a year to have i guess you're on is so ok and just thirty seconds do you think that this rage is going to carry over till two thousand and twelve or are people's memory short. you know i would be worried that people's memories are short but i don't see any of the eight minute in this republican assault me now he know again whether it's on abortion rights for gay rights or whether it's on guns or whether it's we're just talking about legislation here that sort of semi restrictive ohio right now is about to potentially pass the most restrictive abortion bill mcconnachie staffer six weeks you can get an abortion obviously supreme court would have something to say about that where one of four states is about to put guns in bork's you know what a study just came out from u.c.

davis showing to people who drink are twice as likely to all guns you know i mean it's you know it really really is astounding cliff really is. that cliff thanks a lot for being with us thanks as always appreciate it but our scene in ohio is a symptom of widespread voter amar sweeping the country because the right wing is radical anti worker pro billionaire agenda let's hope it carries of the two thousand and twelve elections we can put an end to republican war against working people for good. coming out bora launching military strikes against a sixth country and here abroad to keep americans safe from terrorists right now here at home or still subject to the t.s.a. is part of scanners again meant to keep us safe from terrorists so these tactics are really working rather making our problems he. needs twenty four seven live streaming news towns like to tell you about the ongoing financial hardship unlimited free high quality videos for download.

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