more news today violence is once again flared up. and these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada after. challenger corporations rule the day. the eyes are seventy four in the news or twenty six the motion to concur in the house amendment senate bill three sixty five is agreed to so very hard it for the question still remains with all the politicking to get to this point is the way the system is actually supposed to work happening or is it broken and as tea partiers gain ground are progressives now working to play catch up if sell what would it mean for president obama. shouldn't take the risk of default. the risk of economic catastrophe to get folks in this town to work together and do

their jobs but as it turned out it did so who are the winners and losers of this budget negotiation and does it even matter the proc just keeps getting passed around. and tens of thousands of protesters cram into the streets of israel to protest for social change so why isn't anyone in the mainstream media. it's tuesday august second eight pm in washington d.c. i'm christine friends out there watching our t.v. . but start the evening with the way we've been starting most evenings lately have a look at the very latest in the battle over the debt ceiling and that ceiling deal now the debt ceiling law after dominating our national discussion for the last several weeks with the bill

a plan to cut budget deficits by two point one trillion dollars in the next ten years as the day we saw this bill pass in the house with two hundred sixty one voting for it one hundred sixty one against today the senate also passed the bill seventy four to twenty six and shortly after president obama signed the bill or not before he said this voters they have chosen divided government but they sure didn't vote for dysfunctional go so is that debacle in washington evidence of a broken democratic system to help answer that question and more i spoke to seek molly president of less government and dr caroline hellman professor of politics at occidental college here's what they had to say. well i would argue that on many counts certainly this system is dysfunctional this is the first time where we were able to politically cause or manufacture a crisis with the debt ceiling since nine hundred seventeen this is the first time that it has been aligned with a debt deal there's no magic debt ratio to g.d.p.

ratio we have seen it this high post world war two so all of this you know the crisis that we're supposedly dealing with it is a manufactured one and unfortunately it's one that may now have an effect on our rating not because of the debt but because of the wrangling in washington you know what it means for a broken system of government that's totally fraudulent alice's the reason the credit rating is going to go down is because they said we need four trillion dollars of cuts over ten years we did we've barely got one it's not about the debt ceiling it's not about the wrangling lodgings and it's about us spending more money than we take in we're not spending we're not smart spending way too much money we're not cutting enough and that's where we're going to lose our credit rating i think caroline this is an interesting point and as you know you see we look across the ocean we look to you know great britain where this conversation has also been had about austerity measures and what to implement it seems like when we bring that conversation up here in the u.s. that sometimes it's a little too nasty or a little too nonpolitically correct for people to talk about actual cuts at least

until they're for carolyn what do you think about. well i would agree with saying that we do have a structural deficit problem however the big difference between great britain the united states is great britain cannot coin the euro and had to have almost no effect they we have got ability to do that that's why i took and got so angry at us because we are the big economic bully but we don't actually use that because when we talk about the us government being like a household we don't have to balance our budget in the same way and it is dishonest to say that we do and it's generally done in the services trying to get wealthy people tax cuts which is precisely what we just i can't believe you're still sticking to the the ridiculous notion that we don't have to balance our budget that is just patently absurd of course we have to go we haven't for that for many years when asked why we're in the situation we're in now i want to do as i not only on what such a way we're going to or cannot agree also and what situation we're fortunate to have a very factual situation where fourteen a trillion dollars in debt on

a fourteen trillion dollar g.d.p. that's terrible and no steak why is that terrible tell me the magic number seaton please some a cause every day every dollar we borrow from every dollar the government borrows is from the same pool of money that entrepreneurs would otherwise borrow from it which would create jobs create wealth and actually grow the economy seem there's so many instances of some of these big companies getting tax breaks and some of the mid-size companies getting tax breaks with under the notion that they're going to create jobs and they don't but now they're on the other side of that coin is the regulatory and also barack obama's dropping all over the economy grabbing control the internet was net neutrality regulating. applying cap and trade as if it were passed even though it wasn't via the e.p.a. helpline card chekhovian are a big even though it hasn't been passed but a lot of these situations these are regulatory assaults on the private sector that close people to be uncertain and not hire people right but i think the last two

years that you know what's happening that's a lot of that you know to have an appetite regulation when it's when things become deregulate. good that's when you know right now it was the reason all things i'm no good at it was regulation that caused the crisis in the first place for the large fannie mae freddie because the idea that it was allowing snowplowing banks are lending institution thinking institution was cries all yeah but i had every major economy without it all under twenty it was forced to work in a bad loans on and then they didn't want to otherwise make it so that it's not value it already had are going to agree to take a break here this is it seems like nobody's mind is going to change or not i want to learn if i can i just add something i got in good time and something that terrified her sixty one percent of sub prime loan holders qualified for prime loans which which means that there was match fraud in that market which was one of the primary drivers blaming it on the c.r.a. is a red herring and one person qualified the other for what he did and that's what destroyed the economy all right hold on guys let me hear that that but thank you let's move

this back to what happened today which is the passing of this debt ceiling deal and i want to take a look at some of the things that the cuts that are here when you take a look at the people who are most vulnerable here who stand to lose the most you know depending on what the supercommittee of course decides we're talking about and i really don't think that this is the point that they can really be argued the people that are left most vulnerable by the cuts in the film are students they're seniors and they're poor and when you look at the other side at people who it was suggested be made a little more vulnerable oil and gas companies that was one that brought president obama said you know maybe they can have a higher tax we're talking about wall street they could actually have these people did not get touched carnot i can't tax people get tax president raised taxes on oil companies they raise the price for us that's not true that there is no evidence and always all right but hold on let's see what president obama said about this today and then we'll talk about it. i've said it before i will say it again

we can't balance the budget on the backs of the very people who have borne the biggest brunt of this recession so it seems to me that you are trying to argue that if we if we give the oil and gas companies this tax that they're going to pass that price i understand the fact is only gas companies are making more and more revenue but people in the middle and lower class have continued to suffer and who are when you raise taxes you don't hurt the rich you are the people who has negated all night taxes because people if you taxes right you know you're out for a second let me finish what i think there's and i'm sorry you should only be doing speaking here and i apologize yes main reason in seattle right now and you can get half the guys if you raise taxes on. the rich if you took every penny bill gates made this year he'd still be rich what you're doing with the high tax rate is preventing people like us from becoming rich so the gap always widens when the government gets bigger and the taxes get i all right caroline what do you think

about that argument. well i think it's entirely flawed the gap gets wider when we start taxing the wealthy at the same rate that we're taxing their secretaries that's when the gap and what's happening with the oil industry i'm sorry can i send what's happening with the oil industry is that they have tripled the price of gasoline over the past what four years and they have doubled their profits they've gone up forty percent and refiners have doubled the cut that they're taking and this has nothing to do with increased regulations or increased taxation in fact president obama has released oil petroleum reserves which i disagreed with in order to try to bring the price down and he has taken many steps including issuing many drilling permits and he still hasn't brought the price down. sooner he's now there should a single permit since the gulf spill that is. up on the internet and that is a lie he has not issued a single permit not a single one since the since that has all got through and that is not true but in

fact you can look it up easily. permits he hasn't issued more permits then at the end of the bush admin it is a totally forgery whatever action let me ask you this because you seem to disagree with the fact that for example secretaries of c.e.o.'s of these you've been is are taxed at the same rate as their c.e.o.'s one percent pay like fourteen or fifteen or sixteen percent of the taxes i'm glad they make a whole dozen i don't or of it's got to first of all i don't want to hear this i want to point it because protection for the law means that a progressive income tax is unconstitutional it is unfair and unconstitutional took punish somebody with a higher confiscatory simply because they make more money ok what about not punishing people what about the companies that we came out very few months ago i companies like bank of america companies like apple they pay their oh yes yes now there is corporate tax reform that absolutely needs to occur because it's

a very high thirty five percent rate guys in the world. then there's all that what they actually say but that's another to actually pay to have you know how do you know i don't want to percent already then all these groups google is a friend of obama they paid four percent last year bank of america president obama betrayed structurally zero percent so what we need to do is win and republicans are calling for this for years dramatically reform both the private individual tax code and the corporate tax code there is only one democrats on board with that that's ron wyden senator from oregon other than that the democrats are opposed to this because they can jigger the system and help their friends with it with the complicated multilevel multi-tiered tax code and we should add here that these companies not just president obama plans friends a lot of republicans all former presidents and also people running the show here on capitol hill caroline i want to get your reaction it to an interesting take on all of this and i kentucky republican senator rand paul he did not vote in favor of the deal i want to play what he has to say and get your reaction. decades america has

lived beyond her means a nation that lives beyond her means will eventually live the need for me that day is coming a day of reckoning lubes that day was never august second that day is when the dollar teachers and falls from its perch that day is when prices soar that days when unemployment and a declining standard of living foment this discontent and unrest in the street. so caroline let's talk about this i'm pretty frightening words here it sounds like the beginning of a horror movie the way that senator rand paul is talking when you think about this . well i think that again this is part of the fear mongering of this manufactured crisis we do have an internationally traded currency that we can coin and if we do it responsibly it has very little effect in terms of inflation i think it's the largest transfer of wealth that we've ever had in american history since the one

nine hundred eighty s. onwards that is caused this and i would argue that for some especially the unemployed or the underemployed they're already experiencing these diet these dire circumstances and what we just passed today my goodness had congress spent that much time and energy looking at job creation we would be in a much better place than these draconian cuts that they're proposing on the poor the working class on the elderly not receive knowledge president of the us government and dr caroline hellman faster politics at occidental college. well once again i want to turn this discussion away from the lawmakers and on to the people here how do they feel about what is being decided for them on their behalf and what i think it all means all or harshness of the resident gotten out as i did to find out just that and here's just covered. with a looming debt crisis the u.s. is watching the clock tick down to an economic armageddon what does that even mean

this week let's talk about that they keep setting dates over and over again and nothing happens just part of the negotiation process i think so it's idle threat. i believe so to expect more from the people you like. neither party is going to let this actually happen where they would let it expire and then the united states would go into default i don't think that's going to happen i think that's a bluff but i think what actually is at hand is for real in there they're using it as leverage to push their respective issues but i think americans if i'm speaking for myself as an american are sick of it or a good representative boards if they think that the reverse is any but i don't i think the american people want to see america be one because they're asking everybody really what they really want what do you want i will compromise right now the drama right now is largely contrived there is a debt crisis but will make it through and you know will pay the bills and things will be fine so all this drama i think is just making people crazy why are they

doing that now i mean we raise the debt ceiling every year why is this drama unfolding right now well it's largely political because the upcoming election you know it's a good thing it's finally happening i think the people are speaking up and and hopefully will go away but sometimes it takes a while to realize how bad things really are i mean nobody has given any ground of so you know you largely for for many many years and this is absolutely truly amazing and makes me wonder how they ever get anything done. israel or in italy or any place really of multiport each i would go to portage to an airport is of included and we can't get anything done it's utterly embarrassing you should be ashamed of themselves no matter what happens with the us debt crisis the bottom line is we're bound to the a lot more posturing from all the politicians and it's. all

right so we talked about the game about how it's been played about what people think i think it's really also important to talk about how this changes the game and what we can expect to see ahead in terms of you know president obama and also the president's supporters in order to discuss the plight of the progressives earlier i spoke to our own tom hartman host of the big picture i asked him if the disappointment stemming from this debt deal was the last straw for progressives in their support for president obama shares his take. this is just it's a defeat it's it's a short term defeat i think that what happened frankly was that rock obama tried to do a bill clinton he tried to triangulate he thought that he would cut a deal and i think he thought he already had a deal he was asked back in december but i recall a reporter for the national journal a conservative publication what are you going to do why didn't you know when you got the debt ceiling or when you got the extension the bush tax cuts why did you get to meet with that in the debt ceiling and the guy said this is going to give

the republicans leverage president obama's answer was i will give them leverage i mean he did so in the start treaty and the repeal of don't ask don't tell i remember with the exception of those best dressed tax cuts but it has been an interesting opportunity you've got people are calling in theory is that was there a commonality in terms of the things that seemed to really bother people the most well it did he try to triangulate and blew up in his face because he mis misunderestimated the tea party or because he was getting on the job training or is he a stalking horse conservative i don't frankly believe that but there are people who are starting to think that the war was he just blindsided you know somehow and and i think frankly that he thought he had a deal with john boehner i think john boehner thought he had a deal with john boehner that included raising revenue and they're both going to get to brag at the end of the day that if i succeeded and eric cantor blew it up that very very interesting i'm sure african or watching he'd be very pleased to hear that right now you know in his speech today that president obama was doing

anything but celebrating but he did sort of seem to want to make sure that his base knew that he was still fighting for then i want to play a little bit about what he said and i will talk about it. and since you can't close the deficit with just spending cuts we'll need a balanced approach where everything is on the tape. yes that means making some adjustments to protect health care programs like medicare so they're there for future generations it also means reforming our tax code so that the wealthiest americans and biggest corporations pay their fair share. and it means getting rid of taxpayer subsidies to oil and gas companies and tax loopholes that help billionaires pay a lower tax rate then teachers and nurses all right so it sounds a little bit like i we're seeing candidate obama reemerge take making sure that you know his base his supporters know that he's still on their side he's in full blown campaign mode right now and that's why i think that this was a failed effort

a triangular asian and which would have been a good campaign move forward but you know we'll see where it goes so it's i don't even know if you answered before that do you progress is abandon president obama at this point or i don't think so i think that there's going to a rough time it was just just like after health care just like after the extension the bush tax cuts there have been a number of times where you know people have to get used to the fact that politics is messy and the compromises involved and nobody on either side ever wants compromise and let's talk about the tea party i mean despite the many members of the tea party and not voting in favor of this bill it was largely their rhetoric which is you know less government spending less government involvement no revenue no tax increases and actually not a tea party rather they're not at all i mean less government but the party rather than that was what they used during the health care crisis get the government out of my doctor's office that's that's the koch brothers rhetoric that's dick armey is right well going to sponsor bill partly responsible for the founding of the tea party and you're certainly said warning it but last week in st louis there was supposed to be a big meeting of the tea party three people showed up if the party is as

a populist movement is dying if not dead the average person the average the party or was in their fifty's or sixty's and. wife and middle class they're the people who want social security who are freaked out that they're going to lose medicare so that's very much not the tea party rhetoric that's dick army's rhetoric on the koch brothers rhetoric and that's what's unclear and to an extent eric cantor who had a lot of power and this is you just mentioned their message that these people are incredibly laded gulleys their message that leading up to the two thousand ten election that that translated into action here in washington i'm wondering what you think if the progressive they're looking at this and they're saying you know people even last of the average moderate little thing you know what maybe we should learn from this maybe we should mobilize and make sure the twenty twelve the house looks a little different in terms of the elections is there anything like that happening a mobilization it's happening hugely and there have been huge demonstrations all over the country that haven't been covered so much by the mainstream media you've covered some of them but by and large they haven't seen van jones has he when he

rolled out the rebuild the dream dot com the first nationwide means that they had had more than twice as many people show up for more than twice as many meetings as the tea party at its peak and so it's like you know it's happening and people move out or all these other organizations they are you know wasn't that was archies own tom hartman he's the host of the big picture. but you may be surprised to hear that in israel right now the biggest antigovernment protests in decades are taking place police estimate as many as one hundred twenty thousand people turned out to the streets speaking out against each syria writing living standards thousands also gathered outside the home of prime minister benjamin netanyahu to make sure they were heard there is massive on rest across the entire country but you may know nothing about it because this is a story that very few are talking about archie's policy or however is talking about it and brings us more with a report. tens of thousands on the streets of israel angry.

and protesting for change but is anyone listening when it comes to a lot of the foreign media want to see more of an action movie and the very violent it's been very hadn't been violent at all it's been very positive. well into week three the largest demonstration in israel in over again cade and how did a.b.c. c.b.s. and n.b.c. cover that they didn't a young a woman set up a tent while the editors of france twenty four b.b.c. and sky coughed up just a few meager seconds perhaps not even that interesting to. back. in the studios ok there's a protest well what exactly is a protest a social protest for the river lucia it's not the same kind of story the pollution is not as big and dramatic as some of the bigger revolutions happening around the middle east and i'm in israel isn't surprised by the worldwide lack of media

interest he's worked in israeli place for a decade reporting from media both foreign and local there is a box that the international media has put israel is really palestinian conflict also israeli lebanese and syrian conflict and anything that doesn't kind of foot into the. type of of news item which is unfortunate that just makes hundred reyes and others angry for nine days she's been camping here furious that she can't make ends meet as a university student it makes me upset that when egypt decided to stand up and say we've had enough and eleven and they decided to say we've had enough the media was all over there i haven't seen anyone from c.n.n. or fox news or any other big news channel here and it's really sad we also deserve a chance to be heard out on the street has been. it's not a corner by some of the people here an optimism perhaps that they can bring down

the government in the way the neighbors in time is square. but one of the cameras they will stop here they push the absence. of it. so why is the story being so largely ignored by western media or perhaps here in the us we've had our own suffering economy to talk about but the implications of what is going on in israel could be dire and it's really important for people to understand why what happened there matters here and around the world now we pace is the director of communications for the new israel plan and is here in studio to talk about this we saw the journalist in the report we just saw talk about the fact that the only time it's a story for largely for western media is when there's a conflict between israel and palestine israel lebanon do you agree with that i think unfortunately there is a bias in this country to think of israel as the locus of conflict and what's interesting are the endless permutations of the peace process and what is the

american government doing and what are the palestinians saying unfortunately there is a huge story in israel this social protest is huge we're very excited by it we think it really shows a change within the body politic in israel in a very desirable way desirable so there's i know there's a hundred thousand people on the streets this is a good thing yes it is a good thing look these are people who care about the quality of life it is a middle class protest but it is also a protest that crosses political lines it crosses ethnic lines across the sector lines some people say yes we know that the left is involved in this protest but we support it anyway because we care about our future we care about education we care about housing and this is in the face of a government that has been sort of playing no no don't look at this look at that man but don't look at the man behind the curtain. because basically what they've been dealing out is fear and they've been dealing out paranoia and they've been

dealing out the idea that well the only enemies that israel really has to fear are the human rights groups so let's put them out of business or the people who really are marching for democracy they're dangerous to israel where the people who say let's boycott settlement goods let's pass a law against them so who then within the country are our sort of the people that are also maybe the enemies but not for front center. who is causing the strife that is growing gap between the rich and the poor and israel i know that last week so many people were protesting housing conditions and housing prices who is to blame for all this well there it goes back a long way first you should know israel has the largest income gap between rich and poor of any developed country except for the united states except for us this is an area in which imitating america is not such a great idea so there is a lot of reasons why it's happened there is

a sort of imported extreme free market ideology which is popular and braced by the netanyahu government you have also billions and billions of dollars being spent on settlements and the security that's necessary to keep those settlements protected that's money that could be spent to repair the social safety net which is very very frayed inside israel. when you're spending your money on defense when you're spending your money on settlements and when you're not taking any steps towards peace you're going to get you know a restive population even people who may agree with the netanyahu government on some aspects of the peace issue i have are just fed up with what's going on domestically really really really interesting stuff and i think you're right it's very very underreported all of those could be you know headlines are this real let's talk about the implications though and you know whether it's as it relates to the peace process or as it relate on a global scale why do these economic conditions in israel matter to the rest of the

world i should say well they matter because it's certainly going to affect these stability of the current government the governing coalition is made up of people who have some extreme ideologies in common but in other ways they're very different you have people in this government representing. grandparents come from the arab countries you have people in the government representing the. arrayed in the extreme ultra orthodox and some represent the national religious and some of the settlers not all of those economic issues coincide it may be that this huge social protest bringing people out into the streets in this number is finally going to communicate to this government that we can't just manage the crisis the status quo as it is isn't going to work so perhaps we will see some movement not just didn't what israelis are getting from their government but in how

israel behaves towards its neighbors towards its minorities and towards the palestinians in many ways the u.s. government is very close with the government of israel does that relationship affect at all what's going on i don't know if there is any american input into social protests over the price of cottage cheese or the price of housing that is definitely perceived i would imagine as an internal matter but look democracy and peace for israel are inextricable you have to be a democracy to make peace and you have to make peace in order to keep your democracy now it's about the welfare of naomi pace director of communications for the new israel fund thanks so much and that's going to do it for now but for more on the stories we covered that r.t. dot com slash usa or youtube dot com slash r.t. america or you can follow me on twitter i'm at franzi thanks for watching christine . what drives the world. by politicians who makes decisions.