hello i'm south market in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture in twenty four hours president obama will unveil his job creation plan to a joint session of congress and details of the plan are already being leaked so will three hundred billion dollars be enough to turn our economy around mitt romney's six point six trillion dollars tax cut for millionaires billionaires and corporations the way to go a little bit and so much for the american dream troubling new reports point to the demise of the american middle class so what happened to it and how long until the american people wake up from this american dream turned into

a nightmare. you need to know this three hundred billion dollars fix the economy president obama hopes so according to early reports from the white house the president's job creation plan such to be unveiled thursday night will come with a price tag of three hundred billion dollars a number that is likely to high for republicans to support given that they've held the house of representatives for almost a year and have yet to propose a single job a single dollar even for a job creation plan but it's also a number it's far too low for many progressive soaping the president would go bold and throw a trillion dollar package out there more troubling only about fifty billion of that three hundred billion dollars will actually go toward rebuilding our nation's crumbling infrastructure most of the rest will go to tax cuts that have been proven to not have nearly as much bang for the buck is stimulus president does plan to

extend unemployment benefits also a critical measure to ease the suffering of millions of unemployed americans and stimulate the economy but also a. measure the again republicans will likely target for removal first in the negotiations so now that we're starting to have an idea of what the president's going to pitch tomorrow another we know by and large with the republican plan is after mitt romney put forward his agenda yesterday that included six point six trillion dollars tax cut for millionaires billionaires and transnational corporations and the question is who's got the better idea here offer his take his pizza be a good executive vice president of the national taxpayers union or he could be here great to have you with us why do you hate working people. out at all i think that for one we need to extend the payroll tax reduction that the president called for i think that's a bad move on the republicans part to say well we can't do this because it's only

temporary while republican congresses have handed presidents temporary patches in the alternative minimum tax year after year that's not ideal policy but we do have to protect the middle class from tax hikes we're looking at unemployment benefits well the president's own economic adviser now we wrote a paper in two thousand and two saying they don't have a stimulative effect now they certainly help that out of extending unemployment benefits he says alan alan krueger rode it you might have been able if i was a whack a doodle in the white house and said you know this don't have a stimulative effect but common sense indicates that when you give people money they who are unemployed and they have to use that money and they have to use all of it or they're not going to survive they spend that money spending that money puts it out of the economy put into the economy stimulate the economy i mean this is adam smith one hundred one it doesn't necessarily add extra stimulus to the economy it helps people it has enough there or it's taking you this is or it is something

but it's also deficit financed and that's what krueger was arguing his economic advisor but the deficit has nothing to do with that with whether. the economy has been stimulated you've had it you've got a deficit as george washington was president we had the guy who put the deficit on steroids the two guys who put the deficit in history are ronald reagan george w. bush and barack obama until obama actually we've seen a less increase in the stimulus as a rate of increase excuse me in the dirt under the obama administration that any single year if you're in the gears of the bush administration well part of the problem though if we're going to do another stimulus in infrastructure we're going to have to think outside of the box we're not going to ox the box that says if we simply picks up the ridge is somehow going to add all kinds of value to the commie unless you're shortening commute times making transportation no i think they should i think the plan that i was going to do if you're proposing high speed rail i'm all

in favor of it but i. doubt you are and my guess is that the their thinking on that and you know this is put some people work put some money in their pockets and so instead of they're drawing unemployment benefits and being a net negative to the government they're now paying taxes it's a good idea i think that we have several proposals that can do that without adding to the deficit one it's proposed by a democrat from maine mike meehan showed what he would do is allow states to have heavier trucks on their highways as long as they agree to pay a higher fee have a fit facts along their trail or it's sounds arcane but what that does is help everybody sounds genuinely arcane the you said earlier we've got to protect the middle class of tax increases can you identify any time in the history of the united states tax increases on the middle have led to to a crash. on tax increases on the middle class it's certainly impoverished them the shrinking of the standard deduction in one thousand nine hundred fifteen story

magically increase the tax burden i actually do these it would if you if you go back and you look at year to year if you look into interior transfers about one year or six months what you find is that when. ever taxes on the middle class go up wages go up in peril because people work for their after tax pay if i as an employer know that you're going to work for twenty thousand bucks a year and suddenly your taxes cause you to only be taking fifteen thousand dollars a year that i'm going to have to raise your pay or you're not going to be working but even literally half and saxes hit rich people if they don't affect working people and that's why and that's why in denmark with an average tax rate of six fifty seven percent for average working people there is no there that's why they had their economic growth and upward mobility is yes it is spectacular and they are concerned more socially mobile the throughout the one nine hundred seventy s. the middle classes plight worsened because our tax system was not indexed for inflation only little economists think knowledge that that's why they suppose there is a nazi who during the ninety's during in the late one nine hundred seventy s.

wages for working people flattened out and they flattened out in the seven in the late seventy's throughout the eighty's and throughout the ninety's not because of taxation had nothing to do it that it had to do with all that money going to the very wealthy was because cadre cuts no it's because they were tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires as i was that the average middle class family whose wages were barely keeping up with inflation and it up in the higher and higher tax brackets that were originally set aside for the rich in the one nine hundred sixty s. that's because all that inflation is called that seven obviously inflation but there was also supposed to be wage inflation along with that there hasn't been wage inflation because of the progressive tax system their way it is you know it's a tag we're not a meeting of it's a fair tax it's killing it it's the it's the fact that the labor unions are be boston the ability of people to fight you know alan greenspan in one thousand nine hundred seventy in front page of the wall street journal so that his job was going in turn amid a certain necessary minimum level of worker in security and there was any time the

workers started demanding higher pay start cutting you know cutting back on the economy dial back the economy by. jacking up interest rates and this is what's been killing is that it's that there it's reaganomics thirty years of reaganomics it's a straw in the middle i don't agree and i think that there are many things that we ought to be able to agree on we can't keep having these presidential debates where if i'm president eighteen months from now we're going to institute a new jobs policy and we need to start focusing on common legislation there are democrats in congress who support things like a repatriation window so these profits from battle get several trillion dollars of corporate money that they made overseas where it comes back and doesn't get to and raises red that you actually on a net basis so i democrats support it people going to the rabbit. you get the last word thank you for coming but president obama's stimulus package in two thousand and nine kept our economy from a great depression but it wasn't nearly big enough to reboot strong job growth is

own economic advisers told us but he decided to compromise with republicans in the senate by reducing the size and throwing in tax cuts as a result the republicans can now make the argument that it failed and now it looks like president obama is making the same mistake twice the stimulus package this is to smile work the reason why he's backed himself into a trap trap is pretty simple and it's pretty straightforward back in the one nine hundred seventy s. the trap was proposed by by a guy by the name of jude and schemas a republican strategist and he laid this out in his memo it was too cynical as they read memo and what he said basically innocent in in the in this memo was that historically the democrats have been always the santa claus party they did they brought social security and medicare and unemployment the five day work week it all these other kind of goodies and the republicans were always the scrooge as they always said no no no no so he had to figure out a way aid to get the republicans to be santa clauses and b. to cause the democrats to shoot santa clause and the way that the way that he did

it very simple very straightforward he said whenever a republican comes into office that republican as president should see. spend like a drunken sailor borrow as much money as possible which would stimulate the economy ne and have lots and lots of tax cuts which would make the republican the santa clause and make everybody happy right and then as soon as the republican is all out of office and a democrat comes into office and starts screaming about the deficits don't talk about anything except the deficit's and force the democrats to say ok we're going to scale back spending in other words shoot santa clause in the shoot the democratic santa clause in his own foot when he thought there was a very elegant and reagan actually put into practice reagan borrowed and spent more money in his eight years than every president from george washington to ronald reagan come by george w. bush made it into an artform so this is you know it was george herbert walker bush

called his voodoo economics but the bottom line is that when president obama came into office he basically was faced with a choice he could call out the juda when is he too cynical a strategy that the republicans have been successfully play in since the one nine hundred eighty s. he did it to bill clinton he could call that out and he could say these guys that just want to borrow and spend money and then they want to yell to me about you could do that or he could he could ignore it and then in fact go along he could start talking about well you know we've got to have deficit so that we got to worry about the debt and play into it tragically he chose to play into it and in doing so he put himself in a corner and now he's got to he's got to figure a way out of a corner it's going to really.

drive our daily poll your chance to tell us what you think here's today's question of president obama dump the post partisan entre and start acting like f.d.r. and truman any time soon your choices are yes he will eventually go bold or no welcome to the new post partisan world we're big business dictates the rules are out of the market dot com let us know what you think the poll will be open until tomorrow morning. crazy alert alkie elp a swedish man returning home returned home late last night and came across a most unusual sight and alps stuck in an apple tree that's right a full grown elk completely off the ground tangled up in a tree so much for all those swedes and sarcastically made jokes about you know what else can fly our firefighters arrived to bend the trees down so the un can wiggle out of the branches that's when it became clear exactly how the elk got in

the tree to begin with he was drunk drunken alco actually common in sweden during the fall when apples were being fall to the ground to begin to ferment elks enjoy the tasty alcoholic treats after he was free the elk laid on the ground for a few hours to recover from his bender and then clumsily scampered off back into the woods in a related story speaker that was john boehner denies that he was recently stuck in any tree anywhere and states unequivocally he has no plans to visit a suite. coming up what happened to the american dream jobs the economy and a radical transformation underway in america to conservative experts and sides. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through that sort of people have made who can you trust no one who is in view with a global mission would see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called satchels when nobody dares to

ask why we do our t. question more. it's wednesday that i went on the low liberal and go up against two expert political commentators to debate the week's biggest stories so far on the panel tonight the newly married daniel helper deputy on line editor if they had

a graduation day do you think you are ready to rise again and lines to senior editor of the daily caller and still strangely single. well they thought of him jamie but haven't says ok this is this is the way for talking about jobs from the republican debate to the presidential address apropos of that a couple of new reports came out this week that are worth discussing first the world economic forum just came out with its list of the most competitive economies in the world the u.s. ranks fifth below switzerland singapore sweden and finland lost in the number one spot for last number. loss we lost the number one spot in two thousand and eight the world economic forum said the reasons for the decline. article are gap the loss of faith in government and corporate ethics in other words thirty years of reaganomics second

a new cue report found that one in three americans born and raised in the middle class in the one nine hundred seventy s. have dropped out of the middle class today meaning there's a new trend of downward social mobility taking hold in america which might also explain why our economy is no longer competitive and third a new study out of the university of virginia makes the connection between happiness and a more progressive income tax a study which analyzed nearly sixty thousand people in fifty four nations found that those who live in countries where the rich pay very high income taxes tend to be much happier in nations with the tax rate is flatter than here like here in the united states go through the study psychologist cheryl we she noted the uptake in happiness among higher tax and. it was quote explained by a greater degree of satisfaction with the public goods such as housing education public transportation so after seeing the destruction it's cause it's time to dump reaganomics for good right and raise taxes on the rich so we'll all be. jamie you

give a lot they're trying to tackle so let me i'm going to start with the last study the good because of happiness there's two points i think i need to be made one is that the study clearly said this is not show it's just a correlation it doesn't show causation in fact it shows that public spending goes in translating to happiness even though higher taxes do with there could be other factors there in fact sixty minutes a report on this several years ago where they went to denmark where it was at that time the happiest country the world in they talked to a sociologist that what explains this and his answer the best he could figure out at the time was that low expectations that they very disappointed i was actually one of his throwaway comments a i saw that sixty minutes documentary and he we went to denmark about three months later and did our show for a week from there and he had been interviewed a whole series of human relations experts well he might not have it yet but that's not what the danes which i put the danes would tell you and the conservative politicians i mean i had the need conservative politician from their parliament on

the show and i said oh you're conservative i'm a concert so you must want to get rid of national health care privatizing what are you nuts you must want to cut income taxes what are you crazy and what makes you conservative we don't want any more immigrants i mean that's denmark's idea of conservative the second the second point that needs to made that study besides the fact it doesn't really show exactly what is the cause of the happiness in those countries is that even if that were the case that that was right that it was because of all these things well that can't last forever because they're there in their even worse trouble with their debt than we are here so all over europe generally especially for you is is you know the e.u. countries that have decided to pay. off the banks years ago you know by goldman sachs and even to you could many of them but but maybe they'll only leave only country before the bank crash it was running any kind of significant deficit squeeze but it was the wrong you know it was the long term problem with their demographics they don't have enough to pay for the social welfare say that was the

icelanders are saying sorry we're not going to pay back the bankers screw us back in the us but but everybody else they're paying back the banks is this is beyond the banks that they see on the say so this is all about the baxters but many again you know you not so as reporter a couple minutes ago the world economic forum came out the ratings and the united states place this fifth now as opposed to first where previously you i think erroneous lee stated that it was thirty years of reaganomics where is the personal yes of course that's your personal opinion and it's also wrong what was wrong with the twenty ninth year out when we were first in the twenty ninth here in the twenty eight year i think what's changed in the last couple years has not been reaganomics on the contrary it's been obama nomics and that's what's changing and that's what that's what's different now than what was different before let me ask you i think what's changing i think we're living now under obama's economy he has been the president for more than the last two and a half years he has implemented a lot of the policies that he wanted to home and perhaps most of the ones that you

thought were most important and it will fail in a way of saying this he has we are and for example. it made like all of these you might want to know you know i'm talking about the things that president obama advocated and supposed to go through the house that got stalled in the senate or what was the primary what was the primary economic policy of the obama administration would have to be the stimulus he got that through actually i would say that the largest from the one that would have had the greatest effect was the one that passed again the house and got killed in the in the senate which the which said that no longer can american companies get tax breaks for sending jobs overseas and when those companies who have their jobs overseas. bring them out we actually are going to get the check so it was a mistake i mean if that were the staple of us policy that when the first thing he put he put the stimulus for us that would save us i disagree with you and i mean as you know i'm not here to defend president obama i'm not his i'm not his spokesperson i'm not i'm no i'm not suggesting that you are not let me ask it's a serious question i mean to put this on the table here. how important is the

middle class america i mean one of the things that you're going to find in iceland one of the things that but i found in denmark one of the things you find in most of the northern european countries is that the middle class is most of the population here in the united states we've seen fully a third of the people who used to be middle class now becoming the working poor i think just one twenty or thirty years how important is it to watch out i don't really like government be deciding the rules of the economic game in a way that guarantees a middle class i don't think it should be i don't think the government should be that votes again or in t. if you get there is a safety net and i'm not advocating it i don't think daniel is either abolishing social security but that one study and that's what the safety net i'm talking about a little bit look at that one study that cited one third have fallen out it pointed to reasons they felt some of it was drug use that lead to bad behavior leads to falling out some of it was recorded for some of the population that was but they don't target ratings are at thirty percent in all this what the percentage are but

we know that drug use is it was also it was also divorce was a big thing when you when you ran with your split up that led to the falling out it was it was it was actually in this that that occurred that caused that but what we know is. there was a social compact in this country from the one nine hundred thirty s. and in the mid to late one nine hundred thirty s. until the mid one nine hundred eighty s. it was the it was the social compact that my dad grew up in where and my friends i grew up in lansing michigan have my friends of parents working girls and you know my dad worked until it died and although he mostly did the bookkeeping but you know he worked until the age of thirty three and and if you had a high school diploma. really years of college and and you worked hard you know kept your nose clean you got a good paycheck you could buy a house you could buy a new car every couple years you got a pension you got full health care you had healthy retirement those things were like given that ended in the eighty's it has it has been slowly ending and now what

we see is that what used to be the american dream of being in that middle class and that was very much the product of government policies very high rich is taxes on rich people so that c.e.o.'s basically never took more than thirty times but there were other workers were making it was so if i take it it would be taxed and and trade policies that kept jobs in america that has gone away and now it's like you have not the right to the american dream not the right to a job you have the right to be the working poor there are there are fundamental facts about our economy and our social system that are that that have changed in the last thirty forty fifty years i think that romney pointed that out as i think they have completely altered the way our social policies are working which is why we need to which is exactly why we need to reform medicare which is what people want what you want in other words what you're saying is that she'd go on and keep the downward slide that's not at all not in the least what i'm saying is that we should we should reverse this and there are several ways to do it i think one if we

have to recognize why what has changed why can't people get the pensions that they get one scott why why is that you because wages are for no because people are leaving alone because health care has people actually when you when you can because the people are retiring at sixty two and dying at seventy seventy nine people are living longer with you what you have is your future nineteen years you have a tally out of that people are not living on a particular over the last couple of years people are actually taking a different set of these that is the glee that's not that's not true because it is now in so many places this is not what accounts for whether or not people have good wages whether one wage earner close support of it or not personally i don't think i mean if you're if the question is should the government guarantee. what people are and i had wages i don't think that is that assumption of the government no i think i guess that's the fundamental shift that i think is one of the ship you're suggesting that this was the foundation upon which this country was built you know it was not you're saying you know yes it was the foundation upon this country was built it started falling apart eight hundred thirty s.

i would suggest that in many ways it led right to the civil war it came back with the progressive era teddy roosevelt laid it out in the square deal with the debt and we're going to have a declaration of unity three on a.o.l. rights life liberty and pursuit of happiness none of those included in pursuit of happiness than a crop or a practical reaction of property no it didn't very clearly change john locks were put on property to have evidence if you look at john to consider if you make a clear way i would encourage you to actually go back and read jefferson's diary on that issue but the point is and he was very proud of the fact that this was the first founding document that had ever had the word happiness or but that's not that's not my question my question and i think this is a really important one is that for forty years in america we had the social compact that the government is going to do everything to keep a middle class even if it means that the millionaires and billionaires are going to be super wealthy and for the last thirty years we've blown that apart and now it's all about the millionaires and billionaires and the stock market and the middle class is like the one with the military look if you look at the biggest it will be

as you've noted many times in the show have really been in the last couple years right the last two or three years don't you know he's just been a thirty year process has a something as rich as and i believe it's a process because there are facts that at that and there is that if you can call her a now it's why these programs are modeled on on facts of life that have changed and that's that's what i believe and then all the facts of life i call them government policy i guess they're not government policies we have different laws trying the growing middle class hell of a hero well he really has we there's i mean that's a good that's what they're trying to try to is middle class starts with what you consider middle class and try there is nothing the poor in america might be. quickly what i was there which is the government to start with that affects whether or not people have decent wages the government policies are going. to be reformed to trade it also reflects a fact of life people stop smoking might be good for from personal health perspective it's bad from public policy people with longer to draw more from social

security may draw more from those so the bottom line that i'm getting from you guys is that the concern that it was effective is solidly that the role of government should not be to make sure that there's a middle that's not that's not true that's why the conservatives are in favor of the forming medicare that's why paul ryan has with friend who is going to have you know what that's what i mean i agree when i say extend that it's not it's not fully you know that from the government's role to do said well what they're hardly saying it out loud you know a lot of it was over thirty years all right a little class not all ryan wants to save medicare if you book part of this is this is a fundamental shift in the republican party with paul ryan look if he's not saying let's get rid of me let me say this i mean even if you don't says you know delineate what i am what i'm suggesting i think i'm not suggesting that paul ryan's plan was going to create preserve a middle class i think what is necessary to preserve the middle class but it would appear the question is a philosophical question should the government be nit picking policies in order directly to foster middle class i don't think that that's what they should be doing and i don't think that would in fact do what you want in the long term because i

think they're going to have to also easier to your politics that are policies that are unsustainable in the longer you know it's very i think i think this is the issue of our day and i don't think anybody starting about this hour. any a last question quick for right where it went nuts this week when the teamster leader james hoffa president john president of the teamsters union said this on labor day . president obama this is your army really ready to march everybody you're gonna. go back and we keep the entreprise lunch take the shot of the bitches out and give america back. however the same right wingers were completely silent when an audio tape was released by mother jones of charles koch comparing president obama to saddam hussein and calling for the mother of all wars .

so the question very question who's one of those class war the millionaires or the workers. with a quote it was unclear to me he was comparing obama to the same charges quoting him but it's regardless i'm not a political rhetoric type person i don't think there's a picture all rhetoric binges something worth considering but it was the rep it put into place when they got all upset over sarah palin who wanted to billionaires of the workers. right now i don't think anyone's winning in obama's economy. going to that nine percent we'll see obama is going to talk tomorrow he's going to give he's going to continue on the same old policy that in trying to introduce a plane that won't pass i think i think this is where i think we're all in bad shape because i'm ok why would say the middle class is in bad shape the billionaires are getting richer under bush they're going to get again richer under obama they're doing just fine. i just i don't see that resolving any. gain of james thank you both you struck them with.