so let's sees this moment to show why the united states of america is still the greatest nation on earth really mr president the greatest nation on earth in the middle of armageddon how about a little less talk and a little more action on the debt ceiling and some americans think taxing times call for taxing measures. and he's known as bitter number seventy that his look bad to save utah ecosystem from oil and gas industries could land him behind bars. on missile mind again first there was the reset button on the start treaty but could a missile shield blow up all those agree.

it's tuesday july twenty sixth i'm christine for now in washington d.c. you're watching our team. all right everyone let's talk about the economy and what's going on here in washington you may have seen the last night both president obama and speaker of the house john boehner standing their ground and continuing to duke it out on the airwaves over who's right and who's wrong in the debate over how to solve the issues surrounding raising this country's fourteen point three trillion dollars debt ceiling president obama says this needs to be a balanced approach that both spending cuts and revenue increases are necessary speaker boehner says it should all come from cutting in this whole game of chess there's a lot of talk about the moves the other side is thinking of making but here's the reality we're basically a week away from a stalemate in case you're counting six days six hours fifty eight minutes and

seconds until some pretty scary thing can change as far as this country's credit rating and economic standing in the world well so far wall street seems to not really notice and if you lived in washington for a while like i have there's a chance you're thinking this will all happen as it always does at the last possible moment but there are some important aspects of this discussion that need to be looked at closely and i want to sift through this because a lot of it is murky so earlier i spoke to two people about this from different sides of the aisle but who agreed on quite a bit in terms of what's gone right and what's gone wrong heather sermo is an associate with blue skin solutions and daniel connor is running for congress in two thousand and twelve as a democrat from new york city more and more this debate seems to be boiling down to the who's right and who's wrong question rather than bettering the economy khana me so i asked them if obama's speech last night proves that obama has already lost. so i think that obama has taken a long time he still that does not have

a really specific plan the democrats under harry reid brought something to the table but really it's been republicans trying to get their cut cap and balance proposal through cut cap and balance right yes and you know i think in a day that's probably not going to be the case but the republicans who were elected in two thousand and especially have to show the american people who they feel gave them a mandate to cut and balance that they are doing all they can to make that happen and the reality is it's probably going to carry over into two thousand and twelve yeah and dan this is an issue that you're going to no doubt face in some capacity if you do you win this election in two thousand and twelve talk to me about what you've been thinking is that the core of this do you think that obama has already lost this one any sort of trying to justify that four twenty five all for himself. but i think i think it's not only obama who should be shouldering the blame i think everyone in d.c. should be shouldering the blame for this more so even than even the republican

party because they they want to a lot of the elections last year on the platform of cutting of cutting spending and they haven't really done anything significant and they haven't offered any sort of significant cuts especially on the issues of defense which they're never willing to cut on you know president obama of course talked about this last night and i want to play when i think it boils down to i spoke for fifteen minutes but there's one little part that i think sums it all up. the only reason this balanced approach isn't on its way to becoming law right now is because a significant number of republicans in congress are insisting on a different approach a cuts only approach approach that doesn't the wealthiest americans or biggest corporations to contribute anything at all. either why is it that republicans say you know we don't want any individuals to have to have their taxes increased but not only will companies that continue to get more and more revenue in these tough times what about you know goldman sachs which you know call them job creators if

you want but they're actually laying off people these are huge companies why can't they pay a little more well the reality is that doesn't really work that approach we already have today nine percent of the wealthiest americans paying. way out i'm sorry the wealthiest americans are paying thirty one percent of the federal income taxes right now we have forty seven percent of americans who don't pay any federal income tax and you know you could very well argue that a lot of people that are not paying those income taxes are some of the largest corporations like g.e. like apple well yes the corporate tax loopholes you're talking about you know i'm going to the opinion that though should be closed and i think that there's a fair way of doing that where every corporation takes the same load and you don't have the corporation to go for the high powered lawyers and get them out of taxes to do so i think that would be a fair thing the reality is a lot of companies aren't talking about that because that's something down a rabbit trail and you know a lot of them get paid by corporations the honest here but i do think that the

reality is what they're saying is we need to cut and obama and democrats are not willing to talk about the what is not true i mean they're cutting allowed talking about tax what they call revenues which is nothing but they are worthy of being increases then let let's bring you in here i mean they're putting a lot on the table here it's not like i mean here's the other argument here in washington is that democrats are willing to cut well guess what president obama is very unpopular in his own party for some of the things that he is willing to put on the table then what do you think about that argument that how there's making you know that you know these wealthy americans are shouldering so much of the burden already. sure well i think i think a lot of the politicians in d.c. this is both republican and democratic politicians they continue to next of all to neglect the biggest tax and that's the inflation tax this is a perennial tax and it's not it's not politically. beneficial for them to him to mention this because they benefit from this tax because it's a hidden tax and they don't have to impose and they don't even have the vote on it

and this is authentic rats and republicans and you see they allow they got the federal reserve to continue to print money constantly we saw the biggest printing spree in the history of the world in the past few years we see our cost of living skyrocketing we see the cross of gas skyrocketing costs of commodity skyrocketing skyrocketing but nobody in d.c. none of the politicians want to talk about this issue i want to also make sure that we get the other others out of this i mean we did hear from obama and last night right after the president spoke of course speaker boehner spoke alethea what he had to think the president has often said we need a balanced approach which in washington needs we spend more and you. i mean when a small business i know this tax increases will destroy jobs the president is adamant that we cannot make fundamental changes to our entitlement programs all right but the president is adamant according to speaker boehner that we cannot make fundamental changes to our entitlement programs i mean i would argue. fundamental

if it has a different definition depending on who you ask a lot of democrats think that obama has already gone too far with some of the things that he's willing to cut back on so what's the deal here well i'd like to see things from a different perspective because i think what we're really facing here is two different paradigms the economy and two different paradigms of the future of america and what a new pew pew research study has shown is that many people don't think the american dream is alive anymore and the cabin that separating the poor from the rich is is getting wider black or white getting wider and the reality is what these people will want is not that they're going to guarantee they're going to be able to get rich or that that happens going to close but they still have opportunity and unfortunately what's happened is over the past few years and we've said that housing is the most secure thing to invest in and what we see with the housing market bottoming out that that's no longer secure and especially with minorities

they've placed a lot of security and housing so really what needs to happen is we need to put more of our and time and investment in small businesses creating businesses and that's going to get our economy going again because the housing market's not going to be up in that for a while what do you think down well actually i do agree that taxes do need to be removed from businesses and we do need to allow businesses to grow more will be more specific stuff goldman sachs didn't have to pay taxes. they certainly should and they should have the same taxes imposed upon them as other businesses it should be universal at the same time you know with the politicians in between d.c. the republican democrat and democrats they just support one of the biggest bailouts in history in american history and they're getting away with it and the american people have essentially forgotten about the bailouts but this is

a complete transfer of wealth from the government from the hands of the government into the large corporations and the banks. and they've essentially gotten away with it no i think it's really important i mean how do you brought up the point that a lot of people are saying that the american dream is sort of diminishing before our very eyes certainly we're also seeing something that's really important that you know we just can't reiterate enough this gap between the rich and the core continues to be growing so a lot of more people are getting poorer but some of those wealthiest americans the people who we're talking about at the table here they are not they're continuing to make money let's talk about the who is exactly at the table and certainly these are alike to fishel they were voted into office but these decisions will affect the entire country so i want to give you some food for thought here the average american had a real disposable income after taxes of about thirty three thousand dollars according to the bureau of economic analysis as for senate majority leader harry reid and senate minority leader mitch mcconnell well they will each earn one

hundred ninety three thousand dollars this year and when you take assets into account read reported assets of about nine point four million dollars and mcconnell one hundred twenty eight million dollars so you know what about those who have lost their jobs or those who rely on medicare and they're not sitting at this table these are the people who will actually be affected why is their voice not being heard. well i think that there are advocates for them and i would argue that republicans are trying to advocate for them and i think that it was public and they're trying to advocate for people who rely on medicare all right they saying that there should be more medicare cuts i think that republicans are trying to be an advocate for the poor yes those programs are supposed to be for the core and unfortunately too many people have been on that and we can't sustain it and i think if we rework the system as paul ryan has adjusted and we help younger people start seeing their retirement a different way then b.'s entitlement programs won't be so another line or younger people who may be as you're arguing might not get used to what some like to call

handouts what are the people who rely on it who have who are working overnight shifts and rely on food stamps rely on medicare people who will lose these if this passes right well the reality is people who really need these programs which they were designed to help will still get them but we have barred community pl who are on it for one thing you realize that the wealthiest among us billionaires can still get medicare that pay into the system and they can still get it wrong that we don't need and they would even say we don't need that you know we don't even mind paying into the system but we don't need to take that for ourselves but they still get it but little things like that there's pork all over the place including defense that can be removed and we've got to come to the table and and make those serious changes medicare is one of those programs that need to be revamped than it is another program let me get your reaction your head there says republicans are advocating for the poor talk to me what you think. short well first of all people republicans have the best track record and they don't really have

a lot of. they really have much to stand on right now especially when george bush ran on a platform of smaller government he's doubled the size of the government but you know what i actually do agree with there and on on on the fact that we do need to these issues need to be addressed impediments you certainly need to be addressed and i'm actually one of the few democratic candidates that's actually willing to go into d.c. and bring up this issue because the rest of democrats aren't even willing to talk about it but there is we are finally at a stage in our history where we do have to address this issue of the entitlements they are bankrupt they are insolvent and i am actually one of the few democrats out there that want to go up and and actually try to change the system as it exists as well then i mean i would say that you're a little late because that's what they've been talking about for the last couple months here they've been talking about these entitlements i think that you're not going to have anyone always you know on this day in two thousand and eleven saying that they should be given more money or that they're fine the way they are they've offered cuts but i guess the question that we're talking about here is is how far

is too far how much but i think what dan brings up is he's got to have a long term vision i mean right now we're talking about the debt limit which will be decide upon by august second and we're going to move on the economy has many many issues and it's going to take out it by two thousand and twelve big and all going to come in and continue working on it and continue working on it for ten or fifteen years let's remember welfare reform was introduced in one thousand nine hundred eighty four it wasn't signed intel around one thousand nine hundred six under president clinton fourteen years right there we have to have that kind of fortitude and you and vision and to carry that through so dan i hope you're going to be around and i'll agree that if you do. well and i agree it is a gradual process and it's also a very sensitive issue at the same time and it's not something you can attack immediately because this is this is an issue that that really hits home with a lot of people but it can't be conspicuous can't continue to neglected the one thing that could be done abruptly is pull it pull out a lot. these military engagements around the world this is something that can be

dealt with the broccoli but the the republicans in washington d.c. are willing to do this but i'm glad you brought that up dan because that's the problem that the republicans had with harry reid's plan because they're supposedly cuts in there but those cuts all go back to withdrawing our troops in afghanistan and iraq and that's a given anyway so those aren't the answer that's not good enough because we've already taken cancer accounts so that harry reid's plan is a smoke and mirrors plan i want to talk about something that we're not really hearing in the mainstream discussion here but it does come out of obama's speech from last night this was one of his final appeals the entire world is watching so let's seize this moment to show why do united states of america is still the greatest nation on earth. well just because we can still keep our word and meet our obligations well because we can still come together as one nation i think the president here really appealing to those who you know feel a sense of patriotism for this country the greatest nation on earth saw

a lot of people like to believe that i think it's important to talk about a couple things so when you talk about you know social mobility united states ranks tenth when you talk about infant mortality the united states ranks of thirty fourth and in top in terms of the people that are incarcerated in this country you thought there was a lot guess what this country ranks last so certainly the ideals of this country might be you know far above the ideals of several other countries but what about when you look at reality either when i look at reality i see that we still have the greatest democratic system that's been established i see that we have people who can speak freely their minds and can elect freely and then we have an election where people aren't impressed with the outcome they don't you know we're told in the streets i think we do have the greatest nation in the world however i do think that we need to make sure that we are still in tune with the founding fathers wanted i mean people had a kind of government that the founding fathers wanted and that's where we are at

a crossroads right now deciding whether we want to rely more upon government become more like european countries or whether you want to continue down the same track of the founding fathers set us on which is limited government ruled by the people revolting in the street so i mean i just gotta say when you compare this country to what we're seeing in greece what we're seeing in spain what we're seeing in israel in terms of frustration with economic measures i mean yes we have wisconsin but we certainly don't have egypt by any means that we're not able to see that we're you know we have but you have a sense of peace and and unity and i think we need to you know attend to maintain that in the way we maintain that is that the people elect people you know represented in congress a congressman listen to the people and do what they want you don't have somebody who thinks that he's king and you know exacting as will upon the people and he's now unity here dan peace and unity may be the case but that doesn't take away from the fact that a lot of people are jobless a lot of people are homeless who's fighting for them. oh

politicians certainly aren't and i agree that america is still the greatest nation but what makes us unique and what does separate us from other countries is that the fact that we have a constitution a constitution that was well written not a perfect constitution the original intent of the constitution was written to restrain the role of government and currently we're looking at it that a government that is is under strain and this is why the idea of the constitution has become popular again is because we're looking at it at it looking at it out of control and unrestrained government and it's going to take people to come in and actually start to force the constitution home in washington d.c. certainly an interesting discussion from both of you think the answer coming out there for all of blueskin solutions and u.s. congressional candidate dan o'connor keep us posted on your race there. and certainly this debate centers around the issue of who will pay because someone will write or instead of just keeping this inside the walls of washington or harvest of the resident dot net to the streets of the big apple to ask regular people what

they thought about whether the wealthy should pay more or if the government has already given enough and should be cutting back. would you be willing to pay more in taxes to save your government from bankruptcy this week let's talk about that. evidently would pay more if any of the. other spending. so do you trust your government to spend it correctly i don't trust any of the parties in our country a little bit i'm just a little but. few percentage points more and that's about it that's about it since fifty percent of the american public does not pay a nickel i would have a problem i believe everybody even if it's a dollar fifty everybody should be in this shared sacrifice more in taxes means

more benefits which means more community programs can save or not but what about the whole notion of people being responsible for themselves and not looking for a handout from the government some people can't help it i mean there are some people who tried really really hard in the us they still need help i mean it's happened so you got to get help wherever you can i mean it all depends on how much work you're actually. working or. you know why the. way for me when people you know. you know you just spend a lot more money in taxes so that more people have more service that she'd you have to pay for people who aren't working as hard as you. yeah ok with that. yeah i think everybody should have it ok so these are very much you know you think people who want to work. if you.

like in the states government to spend all their money increase your wars in iraq. so i would be stupid wars and there you don't need to. remember how you feel about taxes the bottom line is you're probably always going to have to pay them but it's your government to use those funds well. now to a story that we've been following for quite a while now about a man who showed up to a public land option auction excuse me with the intention of protesting or at least causing a stir there to shed light on the issue of climate change this is national park land in utah and it was going to be sold by the us bureau of land management to oil and gas companies back in two thousand and eight instead the twenty seven year old man ended up bidding on the land driving up the prices and winning many of them

however when president obama came into office he invalidated the auction in total but even after that tender christopher was convicted in a salt lake city federal court of making nearly two million dollars in false the federal auction he is out the courthouse right now scheduled to be sentenced but here's the question why these criminal charges and the auction itself was deemed essentially illegal well earlier i spoke to kevin zeese the director of come home america us i asked what he thought of him to christopher's actions here's his take . that's right it was a necklace of the beating inspector and the legal sale of leases the oil and gas industry the sale was illegal and not only the obama administration stop it after the christopher bit on the land but they reviewed believe the leases their upper sale and almost all of them would have been illegally least what this was was a rush to try to get sales done by the bush administration to their friend new oil

and gas industry or for the obama so he came into power and turned to christopher to have a lawsuit that was making progress and tender chris perkins own to stopping illegal leasing of oil and gas plants and i know yesterday artie spoke to him but democrats are about the broader issue that his case and here he is in the big picture last night talking about how corporatism is almost always the big winner i'll play a bit of that and we can talk about. the legal system just the system is a tool of those in power and so we shouldn't necessarily expect that tool to be used against those that are controlling our government i think holding corporations accountable is more our job than it is illegal just assistant jobs and we should be looking for other ways to do that besides just you know hoping for some u.s. attorneys somewhere to to indict some bankers or or all executives and that's really interesting to have and i mean we live in the united states of america and here tim is this environment like this saying it's our job why is this not the

legal system job because we have a corrupted government and come to christopher served our steering committee with me for a project called october two thousand and eleven dot org i'll talk to them to organize an effort to bring americans to freedom plaza in washington d.c. are koger to hold the government accountable and to end corporatism exactly what it was talking about we're going to have a car here square type around we're going to occupy prison and we're going to mandan and corporatism and militarism and people have to be more than status. on election day we have to be certain every day there's a constant work we did many of the done and challenged the corporate state and tim was one of those real amazing leaders where i stood up and i was willing to take the punishment my hope is that i didn't go to jail or where the obama restrictions actually trying to make an example out of them they're actually trying to link these guns and i get a command our fine against him for stopping any illegal sale he stops something

that would be legal and yet the obama's gratian want to put him in jail for years for stopping the law from doing violence it's pretty interesting i know this is a case that all i've had been on i listen to an environmental community hasn't been discussed very much i certainly on the mainstream media and people are confused about it what do you think are some of the biggest mixed misconceptions i mean if the obama administration indeed is making the case that the u.s. attorney's office is making the case that you know he he did something illegal and therefore should be punished for it regardless of whether the auction you know was validated or not and this is someone who was doing fast bidding talk about that well this was an obviously illegal obviously illegal still is not even a question about it and what it was reviewed time was right what should have happened was this position of unstoppable silicone by the court and now that in the course of investigated or or the government has investigated who was pushing this illegal sale and those people have been prosecuted and aggressors are made into

a hero for this and we'll expect the corporate media to cover this fairly because this is anti corporate this is challenging corporate power and corporate and government working together to further enrich big business and so we'll expect a court with a car we really appreciate our people governor thank you for being there because i intend to christopher needs to be known by people he is a hero to many and what he said today is the key thing is don't be intimidated use this injustice to fight injustice more when i know him as also said he would rather go to jail and serve time than be an active and sort of lie down but why then. are there not more tim to christopher's why is this such an individual case and why do so many people except you know the status quo well people are upset he was there as well and also and you really know our biggest insurer to show you the types of videos of the protests going around across the country all parts of the country on all sorts of issues from work closure on homes for banks not being your taxes for schools we still are not changing well they're not true because the court we're

going to careen this is could you look it was legalized later and now you would think a miracle it was in revolt was not being covered interest group is one of many there are many americans not enough it's time for americans stand up and take back our government that was director of come home america us kevin zeese and i want to just bring you the very latest him to christopher is in that courtroom right now in salt lake city from some reports thousands of people have gathered there as some say they're praying for the best but they are expecting the worst some people even wearing t. shirts saying we are all better number sets that are number seventy which is what he was will bring you the latest as soon as we get it. well a pretty important foreign policy issue was discussed here in washington today the issue of how to develop missile defense in europe and it appears the u.s. and russia continue to disagree on the best way to proceed nato says the system is designed to protect the european continent from countries like iran but russia fears the product is aimed at its military and its offered alternatives however the

u.s. still appears to be moving forward with its original plan the russian envoy to nato was in town for the talks today and afterward stopped by our studios to give some insight into some of the major issues here concerning anti-ballistic missile defense. if you will there are questions that remain unanswered if missile threats against europe come from the south why is the us placing part of its military infrastructure in the north close to russia's borders this is the question that we can't get an answer to when we ask for legal guarantees that the system is not ended russia we're told there's a big conflict between republicans and democrats in congress and they start to explain that conflict but we're not interested in that what's important for us is that the u.s. is behind this project and they should provide security for all partners russia is very flexible if for some fabricated political reasons they rejected our suggestion to integrate our means of anti missile defense then there's another scheme they

could be cooperation between two independent systems if nato wants to defend itself it's no problem but if russia wants to provide its own security so be it otherwise it's like when you come home and discover someone else's bodyguard sitting in your bedroom he's been sent to provide your security he's going to like that so if all our suggestions are rejected and if it's understood that iran is just a reason to have a plan while russia's nuclear potential is the real target then russia will come up with its own military response which nobody is going to like and that was russian envoy to nato to meet her because then he also spoke about the ongoing conflict in libya saying quote this is a campaign that nobody really needs this is the west participating someone else is a military conflict and part and that's going to do it for now but are more of the stories we covered at r.t. dot com slash usa also you can check out our youtube page youtube dot com slash r t america.