oh i'm sorry but i washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture now that we have a debt limit deal in place what's next for taxpayers the democrats finally be able to stand up for the middle class and refocus the debate on the economy i guess tonight congresswoman donna edwards shed some light on job creation and where this country is headed to next speaking of bad economics there's a major wealth gap in america and it just keeps growing so how much longer can this

country country function with low taxes for the filthy rich plus shocking details coming out of the sexual assault case against polygamist sect leader warren jeffs see how this high profile case could affect the mormon religion and two republican presidential candidates. getting to know this is a bad taste in the collective mouth of democrats around the country one day after the republican written debt limit deal that slashes the way of programs assisting working and middle class families around the country became law and to make matters worse with this republican manufactured debt crisis resolved for now at least and democrats finally able to get back to work doing what americans worry most about stimulating the economy and creating jobs republicans decided to shut down the house of representatives and go on a five week vacation once again putting the economy on the back burner so what

happens next but can democrats do now job creation the top priority again and how can these tea party republican momentum in congress to harm our economy he reversed her offer her take on these issues is congresswoman donna edwards representing maryland's fourth district congresswoman welcome thank you it's good to be with you thank you great to have you with us. you voted no on this debt limit deal i did i think it sets a really bad framework for the future when you really look at the details of the of this debt deal number one it says war funding is actually exempt from figure out how you say the president of iraq and afghanistan and iraq and afghanistan as we know is contributed hugely to our long term. debt and to our deficit it takes off the table the ability to be able to raise revenues we all know that in addition to doing what you need to do to make sure that government is more efficient in all those things nobody disagrees with that you have to raise revenues you can't just

starve government you have to raise revenues and there were no revenues on the table starve the beast was it for is it came out of the republican or the reagan white house i mean we've been playing this song book since june i mentioned before one of your trade winds could wrote the piece so the six can say because three reagan played it and he invented the phrase. while i really are playing it they are really playing it now and i think you have only to look for example at what's been done congress leaves leaves town and the f.a.a. is not extended so it means aviation workers four thousand federal workers and almost ninety thousand and seventy five to ninety thousand contractor workers at the height of the construction season at a time when we're facing nine point two percent unemployment and they're furloughed without a paycheck having to pay their mortgages and take care of their families and so this is been part of a progression over the last thirty years that this so-called debt ceiling agreement something that we have done more than one hundred times over the last several

decades raising the debt ceiling and instead the republicans decided that they were going to play hardball and i say we're going to play hardball back with them well do you think that there's so is there a strategy on the table for even a technique to do that and specifically to bring congress back into session actually the house hasn't adjourn. session in the senate has been adjourned session i was kind of forced bet on the senate so that the so the president obama couldn't get his appointment to the. protection the bank the consumer protection board through and so if they're not if they haven't adjourned isn't it fairly simple to call back i mean is that something that the president can do well the president can't but it's up to the speaker this is his house speaker boehner his house of representatives his republican majority his republican majority that is leaving four thousand workers stranded without a paycheck ninety thousand construction workers without a paycheck and construction work to be done at our nation's airports and so speaker

boehner can and should call us all back to town let us do the business of the american people and then if you want to take a vacation fine but you don't go on vacation when america can't go on vacation so so beyond speaking about it is there a specific strategy in place well i think i mean i think all of us need to call on our leadership and say it's time for us to come back in town i mean that you know short of that not a lot that can be done but the public pressure i think they can be put on our side because all of us i mean this is the height of the traveling season people are taking vacations they want to know that they're traveling you know in airlines and airports that are safe and apart from that if you really care about how we're spending we're losing thirty million dollars every single day of this shutdown of the f.a.a. by losing the tax revenue that would come in you know who's taking that all in their pockets the are lots stand delta was one of the major lobbyists and you know in favor of this because they didn't want the unions in there. but in any case well

will this now that republican hostage taking seems to become the norm i mean mitch mcconnell yesterday the day before said you know this worked out pretty good we'll do it again basically. we've got the debt limit coming up again you know the gang of twelve we've got the f.a.a. we've got a gas tax cuts expire. the innocent child we've got the federal budget reboot in october there seems to be like lots and lots of opportunities for hostage taking how do you see these things playing out as we go through this year and into the elections as well i think the republicans have already laid out that strategy i mean before the joint select committee was so called super committee super congress is named to deal with these debt issues as in the budget deal that was passed the republican leadership has already said we're not going to put anybody on that commission that wants to negotiate in a way that would raise revenues and so before the committee is even name they've already said they're not negotiating and so we thought we saw that kind of you know

back room back door all the time you know dealing in the in the debt ceiling we're going to see it over and over again on several of these fights we still have appropriations bills to get through the congress and so those will be opportunities that these this narrow minority is going to use to hold down this president and try to keep everything off of the agenda of the american people but we need to be focused on jobs and we have to create jobs and the way to do that and we know right away is to build roads bridges water and sewer systems i mean it's the good old fashioned put people to work you know digging and doing and we can do we can do that and the republicans have to hear from the majority of people across this country who want to get back to work and we need to build things we're there are other things that can be done to for example a research and development tax credit coupled with a manufacturing tax credit let's use our tax code to actually incentivize good behavior instead of using it to give loopholes for corporate jet subsidies to oil

companies there was a piece of legislation i'm guessing you voted for that came out of the house when nancy pelosi was speaker of the last legislative session that specifically eliminated the tax deductions for corporations here right now when they shut down factories here in mobile overseas and flipped upside. gave them a tax break if they shut down an overseas factory and brought jobs right here the republicans filibustered. something that obvious i frankly don't think most americans know about it because the democrats if they were yelling about i noticed a few of them were a few or more on my radio show and somewhere here but it didn't seem to break through into the national media what does it take to break through into the national media the fact that the republicans have been so aggressively anti job and basically crashing this economy i mean my personal conspiracy theory is that they're trying to intentionally trying to crash the economy so that they can run against a field economy and pin that around you know put that around the neck of president

obama twenty two well i do do think it seems very clear that part of the strategy even in the debt ceiling deal is to get to november and say you know what fine we'll just take the across the board cuts because they want to eliminate programs that people depend on and so i wouldn't put anything past them but we have a job to do too and democrats hold the white house president obama i believe has to use the bully pulpit of the white house to engage this conversation with the american people the rest of us will be big players and contribute to that conversation about how we create jobs and the need to create jobs but the president really has to use the bully pulpit to do that and i can see actually you know today that the white house announced that the president is going to go on a bus tour around the country around job creation i think that it's past time for that to happen and so i'm looking forward to it but the congressional progressive caucus for example has been running you know jobs tours all across this country the

congressional black caucus is doing major job fairs and you know half a dozen cities around the country even during this month of august well people are supposedly away on vacation and democrats are at work but we have to raise our voices and we can't be you know we can't think that this is going to be cured by sitting in some back. room in the halls of the congress trying to deal with republicans it's not the way they deal and it's not the way that we can be absolutes so well congresswoman thanks so much for being with these kids appreciate it. congresswoman donna edwards. it's time for a daily poll your chance to tell us what you think here's today's question now the republicans know they can play a hostage taker and win what or who will be the next pick your choices are eight f.a.a. inspectors who will be held hostage without a handler stripped of their rights to unionize or be the eighteen cent federal

gasoline tax at least from construction projects the u.s. and is set to expire in september unless congress passes me with a slate or see both and throw the middle class on the floor in the second round of cuts in the deal for good measure i got to tell marva dot com let us know what you think the pole be up until tomorrow morning. after the break it's our midweek lonely liberal rumble so what to my panelists heather servo and daniel helper had to say about the balance that ideal in the g.o.p. shutdown of the f.a.a. . let's not be given that we had an apartheid regime right.

i think from a beautiful sunday well. we never got to the shows the birds can say get ready because their freedom. are we. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so. you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you don't know i'm sorry was a big issue. for

. a. few. years was that i was means it's time for me to play the role of the lone liberal and take on two expert conservative commentators to debate the week's biggest stories on our panel tonight heather servo conservative strategist an associated associate at blues solutions and blogger at other similar dot com and you'll help

or deputy online editor at the weekly standard welcome to you both let's get started i think ok the tea party failed to blow up the economy or maybe nothing else or big but i think yeah. it looks like it's going to be a slow believe the economic policy institute says this legislation which is as is going to cost one point eight million jobs blow a two hundred billion dollars hole in our g.d.p. john boehner says he got ninety eight percent of what he wanted and so if the economy goes in the tank is you know is he going to take the blame for. the easy answer is no the economy is already in the take and this is not one of these if you're almost none of this really in the next couple years but almost none of this actually goes into effect except the amount of money that we're borrowing which immediately goes and i think the average american has any idea about that they think they think a deal was you know it's your job to educate us for the elite media togs you should be educating them every night that the deal was already in the tank when this side was i promise i don't know if this is most americans don't really know but the debt

ceiling means i think you know the economy is bad off and that we need to come up with really good solutions so what's the solution what's the jobs bill was buried in all this i mean just look at the statistics of america this is a washington post a.b.c. poll seventy two percent of americans want to raise taxes on people making over a year at the graphic for here sixty six percent support raising social security taxes raising actually having people who make over one hundred seventy thousand dollars are actually because right now they don't pay any social security taxes over that about sixty four percent support raising taxes on hedge fund managers who pay between zero and fifteen percent maximum income tax and fifty nine percent support raising taxes on oil companies were getting three billion dollars a year in subsidies none of this stuff was on the table why would none of that stuff be on the table it makes no sense i you know i'm going to depart from the traditional republican line which would say that you know we shouldn't close loopholes and you know we should help continue to help lawyers find ways for

corporations to pay no taxes that our government i think it should be close by do you think that there need to be education so much john mccain so you think that there should be education that americans don't think that it's the wealthy to be taxed that's going to help our economy it's not true it's shown time and time again to you know you raise taxes on the wealthy and guess what we're still we still have problems because we still like why is having all these programs we can't sense that any time when the taxes on the wealthy were between seventy four and ninety one percent was the time greatest prosperity in america and the time of the taxes on the wealthy. i don't know what kind of talking about it that much there are nine hundred forty two ninety and it was a much different things i think the reason that these taxes aren't on the table as you propose is because people have the wisdom that j.f.k. had and that you brock obama head back in grade two thousand nine hundred when they are in a bad economy and are sick and in a bad economy we should not raise taxes well promise i don't think didn't so bomb as he did say that and obama said the same thing in two thousand and nine so i think i think you're going to get i think this the suggestion that we should raise

taxes at a down economy is a poor jack kennedy said was that the deficit should only be incurred during times of national crisis. and especially when what liberals oftentimes are concerned about people spending money the best way to help people spend money is to give them more in their pockets to spend not take more out of their pockets which is what tax increases would do well but even you know when we talk to you know when you write about and we talk about the unions are not just talking about billionaires talking about people who make who are not billionaires those are the rich you know the definition of rich is far wider than the billionaire well you're going to start with the four hundred families and the four hundred individuals in america whose combined wealth is greater than one hundred fifty million of the rest of us and these guys are painted an average of seventeen percent of federal income taxes right now whereas the average school two family where you have two schoolteachers is paying over thirty percent but how does anyone have forty seven percent of americans who don't play any federal income tax i mean so i think that there's

something we said for leveling the field to where we all do you pay any sum to the system and that we all also do here somewhere sign up to stay so relied upon the talent programs or had this to say last night about how people can fight back with just turco what we need to have an american spring you know the arab spring the nonviolent part of it isn't finished yet but we need to have an american spring i found of an american tahrir square nonviolent change were people from the grassroots get. involved again not. american spring. here we have a manufacturing lost five percent last month service industries a week his growth in seventeen months the republicans have not passed one job or economic stimulus package it looks like we're going to double the recession how long or maybe even depression how long before an american spring happens so i think that video clip that you showed of al gore he looked a little tense like he needs a massage or something but i won't i won't get into that as

a cheap shot what i will say is that what he's saying is pretty much despicable to suggest that that our president is like a side and so like a syrian dictator who kills his own citizens is completely inane and i'm not suggesting now that i pointed out the manufacturing lost five percent last month i mean the economy is crashing and what that's like to people say no good for me at that though not if you're the analogy to suggest that obama is this dictator that we're we're bubbling up against you know and the reality is that you know and the biggest agree to this thing that's happened i can see our democracy is a health care bill that was jammed down our throats and that's what's fueled a lot of the arab spring as you know happening in saudi arabia where the saudi king said ok we're going to make sure that everybody in a country makes at least thirty thousand dollars a year and everybody has free healthcare that's not what was going on in egypt which is one of the reasons why people were voting in the saudis are are more resources that the saudis don't have freedom that doesn't mean that just does not

far more resources but people are not revolting against them because there were precious to much to revolt look this syrians are an example and you know i mean the saudi you know it was those who are worse than assad i'm not saying that it's worse because it's probably not but i'm saying assad is is a good thing and that it's not as willing to give. i'm not i'm not saying that it's worse i'm saying that these protesters are exceptional in that way that's why the president should be slow to get this youth out. wasn't in elections were largely about health care and they were largely about how that was not a democratic process the people who were elected the tea party candidates were elected on this wave really just outrageousness that it was like that on a wave of democrats saying ok democratic house a democratic senate we got a good good democrat in the white house the first african-american president let's not show up because you know you look at have at the voting polls in florida for example forty two percent of the eligible democrats show sixty seven percent of

eligible republicans that you know that know that's i mean candidates who won they were they were there was excitement behind those candidates they came in with excitement that we are not going to be opposition to you know that you're making my point but here this is a viewer wrote this in let me just ask this it's not rhetorical why is taking away benefits for oil drilling a tax increase or taking away benefits for drilling children's cavities a spending cut why is taking away benefits for aging airplanes a tax cut for taking away benefits for aging grandparents is a spending cut why is it that taking away benefits from hedge fund managers as a tax increase for taking away benefits for social security and medicare is a spending cut i think you're misguided i think you're missing the point when the economy is look here in lies the problem of of be getting the others hearing where your in-laws are here in lies the problem of the deficit deal the problem is is that tax increases are still on the table which means that for the next six months until the super committee reports back i don't think will happen necessarily but

they're still on the table and for the next six months there still remains a certain amount of uncertainty which is the what's played the calming part of what's become of the last two or three years that the uncertainty that taxes and the various other regulations for businesses might be changed and what their needs get certainly thing the business or service about is whether the economy is or needs to be a certain amount of stability so that investors feel comfortable investing moody said that it lets me deal with our entitlement program and the way that we are. and we go out kast for these items that were feel that down to the movies report their biggest objection there is a play at the congress's dysfunction no the latest one that came out after after the bills passed and we probably got to move along to the next topic here to make the economy worse the f.a.a. is now pushing i guess this is an extension or is talking about we have two and a half billion dollars worth of projects that right now and. thirty million dollars a day instead of going into the into the f.a.a. is going right into the pockets of the airlines they didn't drop their prices they

are there they're taking the money and run it. seventy thousand and ninety five thousand construction workers as the congressman pointed out just a moment ago. we're losing two hundred million dollars which is what we have to say about this the white house. members of congress could easily have put seventy four thousand construction workers and if we employees back to work but instead they went on vacation i'm asking congress to come back and do for the american people what the been talking about put seventy five thousand people back to work in good paying jobs that's what congress should do. take a little detour from their own vacation come back to washington and paris a clean bill so isn't this another hostage taking scenario yet the democrats in the senate should pass the already passed a bill by the house what is the one that says that if you don't vote in a union election that's considered a no why don't we pass a bill that says listen if you don't vote in the federal election you're considered

a democratic vote all that hasa protecting the unions though and. it's destroying news that's the legislation is still what i'm saying is that the reason that harry reid and rockefeller said that they're not going to support it is because that this is crazy but the reality is because of because they have taken the stance they have lost a lot more money than they thought they were going to save by being in support of this provision so i mean that's the reality is they're the ones who are holding hostage and they are the ones who are the high for you i mean they're the ones are costing millions of dollars to the government every year it's a clean bill it's you know ok we reauthorize the. i mean right now you've got safety inspectors who are who are not being paid for their overtime and are not being paid for their travel time and are having to pay for the travel out of their own pockets and these people on average every week visit five different airports around the country to do so if you inspections you know this is like this is just happened you're saying that this would happen on the hill all the time it does you have these disagreements all the time in the reality is we have this i don't say

there is something that is not the best for my district but i have to do something that's best for the american people but not a mildly rosalee right now shut down here organ town going to do general he said you should be more important the american people i consider you be more important than passing this bill so it's his it's really rockefeller's out. counties more like switches it affects for democrats for states that have democratic delegations the united states that's what it does the i think i think the issue here we had set up around the four thousand effie. that aren't working now under seventy five thousand upwards contract employees for the f.a.a. that aren't working i'm not saying that we should cut all of them surely surely some of them do well but if it does show us how building has. an example of where perhaps there are so you are just that could be there is a virtue is there literally a government who has survived so because we still have the essential if he's

working good for them the point is that their own with perhaps this is an example of where we can trim down we don't have a lot and i'm not suggesting that none of their work is valid only because i just question about denies it entities doing this work that the current leaders are private and they slow very late and all are at loose or private entities that have been laid off or is the contractors these are not government employees one hundred times i go to the local it's a hundred times that our government there is a federal government is not here to control everything that's a real issue next week the first republican state senators in wisconsin are facing a primary vehicle the koch brothers funded americans for prosperity mailed out. ballots with a letter that says return your ballot no later than august eleventh august eleventh this two days after the election. this is this is election fraud shouldn't these guys be in jail ok i i i contacted americans for prosperity i've done work with them before and they told outright that local media as well as the national media

that was a typo to their own supporters who are republican if they went and democrats yes their own supporters who are republicans and democrats you perpetuate this false notion that the only people who support every i'm on the air in madison wisconsin i know you're a democrat see there are a number of democrats who were i never supported if he identifies surveillance there are too many many democrats who are to support the and they're on their mailing lists going to check out and they are the ones who are personally not sure all of them a person this is kind of thing to show what a ludicrous. what a ludicrous idea of a scandal this is they do. democratic party in wisconsin i don't know if you've gotten callers on this topic the milwaukee sentinel journal reports today that the democratic robo call is making calls issuing the wrong date the point is that both sides make typos humanity is fallible this is not a scandal this is a mistake and i'm sure they regret it and it would be but one thing on their

consumer side of it prosperity were just contacting me any random democrats but they were contacting democrats on their own wits and who have already know that we can buy what they want to his needs their guys democratic party do the same thing on the flip side because of all the tension that this is received now people know when the real filing date is which is very good it's not horrible getting actually about that maybe the any one of it with you because there's a word citizenry and press quickfire the super congress gang of twelve has until november so to come up with a deal will they will it pass congress or will the trigger people ninety seconds. they were competent deal i don't know if it's going to be good or bad you know as daniel said before tax increases are definitely still a possibility we hope not you know painter is trying to assure his constituents that's not going to happen but you know me they only control one half of one third of the government you know so there's only so much that republicans can do to see obviously the come up with something i'm actually inclined to think that they'll pass something just because the triggers or are bad for medicare which republicans

care about are bad for friends which republicans care about and democrats care about medicare too so i am inclined to think that they would. that they would pass something it's not no one's going to like it the whole thing was. it's nothing like a silly. and in a year's time will make make a prediction this bill will burn two years time this bill will be nobody will care about it at all because we have done so little and absolutely nothing for either side except the democrats go consensually agree with that you are my guess is that the committee is going to do nothing that there will be no recommendation to. it will be polled and within the year or two congress will clean up the mess and you know because so many of these things are back road but you know time will tell anyway thank you both for being with us thanks thomas or more. help or really pressure. coming up what will this debt limit deal do to income inequality in america and which form of president should president obama be.