our chief. 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. he

did 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 said to be unveiled thursday night with a price tag of three hundred billion dollars a number that is likely too 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 and it's also a number it's far too low for many progressives so 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 as 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 that 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 welcome great to 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 you out of extending unemployment benefits he says alan alan krueger rode a little bit of a little fired water whack a doodle in the white house who said you know that all employment benefits none of us to move a fact 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 when this is adam smith one hundred one it doesn't necessarily add extra stimulus to the economy it helps people if it's enough there or it's taking you this is. it is something but it's

also deficit financed and that's what krueger was arguing his economic advisor cut the deficit has nothing to do with it with whether or not the economy has been stimulated you've had it you've got a deficit it's george washington was president we've you know jewett the guy who put the deficit on steroids the two guys who put the deficit in the spirit for ronald reagan george w. bush and barack obama to 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 and any single year during the george w. bush administration but 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 fix up bridges we're somehow going to add all kinds of value to the economy unless you're shortening commute times making transportation no i think the vision i think that the not going to do if you're proposing high speed rail i'm all in favor of it but i but i doubt you are

and my guess is that the they're thinking in the end you know this is put some people to work put some money in their pockets and so instead of they're drawing unemployment benefits indeed a net negative in 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 posed by a democrat from maine like me show what he would do is allow states to have heavier trucks on their highways as long as they agree to pay or i or fee have a fifth back salon their trailers sounds arcane but what that does is help everybody sounds genuinely arcane the you said earlier we've got to protect the middle class from tax increases can you identify any time in the history of the united states with tax increases on the middle have led to two crashes. when tax increases on the middle class available it's certainly impoverished them the shrinking of the standard deduction in the one nine hundred fifteen story magically increase the tax burden on. actually you do these it's an if you go back and you

look at year to year if you look into and through your transfers not one year or six months what you find is that whenever taxes on the middle prize go up wages go up with carol 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 then 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 that's why and that's why in denmark with an average tax rate of six fifty seven percent for average working people there you know there that's why they had their economic growth and upward mobility assessment is rocky and they are i'm sorry i want to socially mobile with throughout the one nine hundred seventy s. the middle classes plight worse and because our tax system was not indexed for inflation all it will economists think knowledge that that's why they support is not during the ninety's during the late one nine hundred seventy s. wages for working people fled out and they flattened out in the seventh in the late

seventy's throughout the eighty's and throughout the ninety's not because of taxation policy federer had nothing to do with the exit polls and it had to do with all that money going to the very wealthy was because i think it agri cuts you know it's because there were tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires why was that the average middle class family whose wages were barely keeping up with inflation ended up in higher and higher tax brackets that murray only set aside for the rich in the one nine hundred sixty s. that's because all that inflation even if they're at 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 attack we're not anything other than their taxes killing it it's the it's the fact that the labor unions are being boston or 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 to me turn to mend a certain necessary minimum level of we're. in security there was any time workers

started demanding higher pay start cutting you know cutting back on the economy back the economy by jacking up interest rates and this is what's been killing is that it's simpler it's reaganomics thirty years are going to strain the 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 projects somebody get said the trillion dollars of corporate money that they've made overseas comes back and doesn't have to and raises revenue actually on a net basis so i gem a crap 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 his

own economic advisers told us but he decided to compromise with the republicans in the senate by reducing its size and throwing in tax cuts as a result the republicans can now make the argument that have failed and now it looks like president obama is making the same mistake twice the stimulus package is too small to work the reason why he's backed himself into. a 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 wood in schemes a republican strategist and he laid this out in his memo it was too cynical as three memo and what he said basically is in in this memo was that historically the democrats have been always the santa clause party and they brought social security and medicare and unemployment in the five day work week and all these other kind of goodies and the republicans were always the scrooge is there we 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 in office that republican as president should spend like a drunken sailor borrow as much money as possible which would stimulate the economy may 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 of office of the democrat comes in 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 shape of democrats in a 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 one of reagan come by george w. bush made it into an art form so but this is the george herbert walker bush called was 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 jude when is he too cynical a strategy that the republicans have been successfully plain since the one nine hundred eighty s. they did it to bill clinton he could call that out and he could say these guys they 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 when in fact go along he can 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 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 be tough. for a daily pull your chest and tell. what you think yours that is question of president

obama dump the post partisan entre and start acting like f.d.r. and truman anytime soon your choices are yes he will eventually go bold or no welcome to the new post partisan world where big business dictates the rules like out of town art dot com let us know what you think the poll will be open until tomorrow morning. crazy alert alkie elk a swedish man returning home to return home late last night and came across a most unusual sight an elk stuck in an apple tree that's right a full grown elk completely off the ground tangled up in a tree spoke much for all those swedes and sarcastically made jokes about you know what old skin for our firefighters arrived to bend the trees down so the elk and wood a lot of the branches that's when it became clear exactly how the elk got in the tree to begin with he was drunk drunken alka actually common in sweden during the

fall when apples would be fall to the ground to begin to ferment enjoy the tasty alcoholic treats after he was free the author 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 sweet. coming up what happened to the american dream jobs the economy and the radical transformation under way in america to conservative experts in tonight's. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through that sort of have been made who can you trust no one who is you know in view with the global machinery city where we had a state controlled capitalism is called satchels when nobody dares to

ask 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 online editor and if they had

a graduation date you think you're on your way to last weekend and weinstein senior editor of the daily caller still strangely single. welcome jamie but it's 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 at last the number of. loss we lost the number one spot in two thousand and eight the world economic forum said the reasons for the decline. article are debt the loss of faith in government and corporate ethics in other words thirty years of reaganomics second by nucular 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 where the tax rate is flatter than here at like here in the united states the author of the study psychologist shigeru oshie we she noted the uptake in happiness among higher tax name. 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 caused it's time to dump reaganomics for good right and raise taxes on the rich so we'll all be happy again jane you give a lot there to tackle so let me let me just start with the last study the good that

because of happiness there's two points i think that 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 their public spending doesn't translate into happiness even though higher taxes do with there could be other factors there in fact sixty minutes in a report several years ago where they went to denmark where was that the be 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 they don't know very disappointed either i was actually one of his throwaway comments a i saw that sixty minutes documentary and b 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 you know education's experts but he might not have it yet but that's not what the danes which i put the danger to you and the conservative politicians i mean i had the lead conservative politician from their parliament on the show and i said oh you're conservative i'm

a conservative so you must want to get rid of national health care privatizing what are you nuts you most want to cut income taxes what are you crazy and what makes you conservative we don't want any more immigrants that's denmark's idea of conservative second the second point that needs to be 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 or that can't last forever because the they're in very even worse trouble with their debt than we are here so all of your generally especially if you are as is you know the e.u. countries that have decided to pay. off the banks years ago ripped off you know by goldman sachs and even to the not even many of them but but maybe there are only people only country before the bank crash it was running any kind of significant deficit was greece but it was the wrong you know that was the long term problem with their demographics they don't have enough to pay for their social welfare it's like that with the icelanders are saying sorry we're not going to pay back the

bankers screw us back about us but but everybody else they're paying back the banks it's this is beyond the banks that this the on the face of this is all about the baxters but any of daniel you so as as you reported a couple minutes ago the world economic forum came out the ratings and in the united states places fifty now as opposed to first were previously you i think erroneous lee stated that it was thirty years of reaganomics where his personal yes of course it'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 eighth 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's 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 implement perhaps most ones that you

thought were most important and we have failed in the way of saying that she has an r. and for example. and i'd like all of these you might want to know i'm talking about the things that president obama advocated and supposed to go through the house that got stalled 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 one 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 home we actually are going to get the check so it was a mistake i mean if that were the staple of us policy that would the first thing he pushed he pushed 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 not his i'm not his spokesperson no i'm not suggesting that you are not let me ask it's a serious question i mean you 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 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 and i think it's one hundred thirty years how important is it to opt out i mean i government be deciding the rules of the economic game in a way that guarantees of middle class i don't think it should be i don't think the government should be that involved to guarantee because there is a safety net and i'm not advocating it began as either a policy in social security but i'm going to study and that's what i want to say to you i'm talking about the middle but 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 related aren't thirty percent of this what the percentage are but we know the drug use is it was also it was also divorce

was a big thing when you when you buy it was written about that led to the falling out it was it was it was actions that occurred that caused that but what we know is that. 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 their parents worked at all you know my dad worked until i die shop and although he mostly did the bookkeeping you know he worked until the age of thirty years and if you had a high school diploma. couple 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 of years you got a pension you got full health care you had healthy retirement those things were like giving 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 riches 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 have changed in the last thirty forty fifty years and i think that romney pointed that out yes 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 the it's what people want what you want in other words what you're saying is that keep going and keep the downward slide that's not at all not in the least 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 got once got why why is that you because wages are full no because people are leaving longer because health care has people actually when you when you can because people are retiring at sixty two and dying at seven seventy nine people are living longer which are what you have if you're nineteen you here you have a challenge out of that people are not living on particularly the last couple of years people are actually bit but take out a friend or somebody statistically that's not that's not true because of the snow in so many places this is not going to counsel for whether or not people have good wages whether one wage earner close afford it or not personally i don't think i mean if you're if the question is should the government guarantee. what people are into had wages i don't think that is a function of the government no i think i guess that's the fundamental shift that i think is happening within the show and you're suggesting that this was the foundation upon which this country was built you know it was not you're saying you're going to 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 the lead right to the civil war it came back with

the progressive era teddy roosevelt laid it out in a square deal with it better but it would be a declaration of minute three unalienable rights life liberty and pursuit of happiness none of those included in pursuit of happiness in a property correction of property no it didn't he did very clearly change john locks were property to have evidence if you look at john dickinson he makes he makes a clear way that 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 happy 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 middle if you look at the biggest it will be it's 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 they just been a thirty year process has something as is 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 way i think 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 they're not government policies we have different laws trying the growing middle class you help me here well i mean we there's i mean that's a great let's hear china chinese middle class starts when you consider middle class and china is nothing but the poor in america. equivalent to sit and watch is the government to start with little facts whether or not people have decent wages and government policies are going to are zero he has to be reform to trade it also reflects a fact of life people stop smoking might be good for from personal health perspective it's bad for public policy people would want to draw more from social security in a drum or food so the bottom line that i'm getting from you guys is that the

conservative respective 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 that friend who is going to that's what i mean i agree when i say extend that it's not it's not fully you know the something governments role to do already hardly stand out a lot of the you know a lot of it was never thirty years all right a middle class not a whole ryan wants to save medicare if you know 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 believe that 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 will create preserve a middle class i think what is necessary to preserve a middle class but it would appear the question is a philosophical question should the government be nit picking policies in order directly to can 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 in the long term but if the

policies or your politics that are policies. it's very i think i think this is the issue of our day and i don't think anybody's talking about this so. any i'll last question what for right wingers went nuts this week when the teamster leader james hoffa the president jennifer resident the teamsters union said this on labor day. this is your army really ready to march everybody you're going to if we go back and we keep the entreprise lunch take the shot of the bitches now 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 winning this class war the billionaires or the workers but with the quote it was unclear to me he was comparing obama to some the same are just quoting him but it's regardless i'm not a political rhetoric type person i don't think there's bitching all rhetoric binge is something worth considering but it was the weapon put into place where 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 will see obama's 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 get again richer under obama they're doing just fine i. just i don't see that resolving any i'm. saying of james thing thank you both for being struck stuff that was coming out from secret must.