thanks to ronald reagan and the billionaires who are threatened by an expanding middle class billionaires who feared that as more people joined the middle class they'd see their enormous stockpiles of wealth become to be more nearly multimillionaire each and his speech president obama acknowledged this change and the challenge that confronts us now. for decades now americans have watched that compact you wrote there seem to vex too often stacked against them and they know that washington has not always put their interests first the question is whether we can restore some of the fairness and security that is defined this nation since our beginning so the question is are we going to let reagan's raw deal kick more and more people out of the middle class and create a new america with just two classes the billionaires and the oligarchy on the one

hand of the vast working poor on the other or are we going to bring back the middle class a middle class doesn't just spring up out of nowhere but has to be nurtured and actually requires government policies to create requires a government that people have faith in a government that adopts fair policies that promote a middle class taxation policies labor policies trade policies that reagan's raw deal destroyed faith in government it turned our tax policy upside down to give some of the most profitable people and richest people and most profitable corporations in the world tax breaks reagan went after patco the professional air traffic controllers union and triggered a class war against working people and unions that have led to working people's wages flatlining over the last thirty years while c.e.o. wages of skyrocketed. so this is the choice confronting us a choice between strong little class or

a strong billionaire class because as president obama said we can't afford both. i know that some of you have sworn an oath to never raise any taxes on anyone for as long as you live now is not the time to carve out an exception and raise middle class taxes which is why you should. have to ask ourselves what's the best way to grow the economy and create jobs should we keep tax loopholes for all companies or should we use that money to give small business owners a tax credit when they hire new workers because we can't afford to do both this isn't political grandstanding this isn't class warfare this is simple math. this is simple math these are real choices he's a real choices that we've got to make and i'm pretty sure i know what most americans would choose it's not even close and it's time for us to do what's right for our future and that means ditching reagan's raw deal it also means ditching the

nice society a crucial tenet of reagan's raw deal and replacing it with a new deal style we society as the president said one man didn't build the united states of america. no single individual built america on their own we built it together. we have been and always will be one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all a nation with responsibilities to ourselves and with responsibilities to one another but stopping the raw deal in its tracks won't be easy and the president acknowledged that we are in a crisis right now and right wingers like eric cantor and the billionaires and fund the tea party want to exploit this crisis to finish off the new deal for good just cut the head off of our government altogether and let the oligarchy run the show but president obama drew a line in the sand saying that's not going to happen on his watch. but what we

can't do what i will not do is let this economic crisis be used as an excuse to wipe out the basic protections that americans have counted on for decades i reject the idea that we have to strip away collective bargaining rights to compete in a global economy we shouldn't be in a race to the bottom up where we try to offer the cheapest labor and the worst pollution standards america should be in a race to the top and i believe we can win that race in fact this larger notion that the only thing we can do to restore prosperity is just dismantle government refund everybody's money and let everyone write their own rules and tell everyone they're on their own. son who we are. it's not the story of america but it is the story of reagan's america is the story of raw deal america a deal that the president told us all is now committed to fighting against this jobs speech wasn't just about jobs it could very well be

a turning point in our modern history and while it will take a while to correct this massive ship of state that's lost its way this could be the beginning the first turn of the wheel away from reagan's raw deal and back toward the new deal and a rebirth of the middle class of america the spending numbers may not have been as high and the tone not as combative as most progress is made of life myself included but it's a radical shift in posture while reagan bush bush and even clinton all said things like the era of big government is over obama came right out and said it we're a nation of foreign builders not just lone wolf daniel boone and of more and more people get the president's message about the dangers of reagan's raw deal and if the president's message gains traction then he'll be able to go bolder and fight harder the next time and then even bolder the time after that until finally our nation once and for all tears down the myth known as reagan's raw deal and embraces

what made our economy great during the last century the new deal so let's this let's let the speech be the beginning of the end of the raw deal if the president keeps fighting and enough of a show log and take over the democratic party and will win and reagan's raw deal will just be another one of those mistakes that our nation made but eventually overcame to become a more perfect union. that's the big picture for tonight the more information on the stories we covered visit our website to tom hartman dot com free speech dot org archie dot com also check out our two you tube channels the links over time are the dot com this entire show is also available as a free video podcast on i tunes and we have a free trial her i phone and i pad app of the app store the center's feedback for twitter a child under score of them on facebook at tom underscore of our blogs message boards and telephone comment line that somehow going on. and don't forget the

prophecy begins with you get out there and get active today your it.

good evening and welcome to the loaner show where you get the real headlines with none of the mersey work coming live out of washington d.c. i'm lauren lyster in for alona so as we come up on the ten year anniversary of nine eleven tonight we'll talk about what has happened since with the trillions of dollars of defense spending thousands of lives lost erosion of individual rights and perpetual state of war has meant for the country i'll talk to colonel lawrence wilkerson about that his former chief of staff to colin powell and also jake hugo he's host of the young turks but first what is the mainstream media mess.

so as the anniversary of nine eleven years on sunday we are seeing mainstream media coverage all over focused on the events of that tragic day and the memorials for the lives lost that the nation prepares to remember its worst attack ever from new york to the pentagon the pennsylvania things here in new york are moving along toward what will be a day to remember as they formally unveil the oriel location here to these sites where the towers used to stand and that ship naval ship was built from steel that was taken from the former towers in new york city it was formerly known as the freedom tower but it's now called one of the world trade center. and in honor of the tenth anniversary of being in war started in response to nine eleven the mainstream media decided now would be a good and appropriate time to drop a correspondent into afghanistan to show americans that oh yeah we're still there

and look at these great things that the u.s. is doing. ten years after the nine eleven terrorist attacks and the start of the war in afghanistan the u.s. mission to train afghan troops is intensifying you have thirty years of war that this country has been engaged in and so there is a generation that has lost what we're trying to do is build an army quickly and you know we're on track to do home afghanistan is it a critical turning point is future uncertain. the problem is that the u.s. has been involved in war in afghanistan and iraq every day for close to ten years now not just on the tenth anniversary of the nine eleven attacks and in that time more than sixty two hundred u.s. troops have been killed in iraq in afghanistan that's according to iraq coalition casualty count that's more than twice as many as were killed in the world trade center attacks but if you watch the mainstream media at all maybe you've noticed as

the folks at pew research certainly have coverage of the afghanistan war is limited to say the least and according to pew more than violence or events on the ground it is policy decisions in washington to create spikes in coverage so this would explain why in late two thousand and nine when obama announced he would be sending thirty thousand more troops to afghanistan covered spight it captured twenty seven percent of the mainstream media's attention in what was an anomaly and it also explains why we haven't heard as much sense when afghanistan has made it into the top five stories that pew research tracks on the mainstream media it captures three to five percent of their attention and that's when it registers at all and iraq i mean iraq's not even mentioned it doesn't even appear to be registering much of a blip at all anymore so for more or less ignoring the ten years of war that the us has been involved in and trying to make up for it in one day of coverage on the anniversary of the attacks there were terrible but used to justify them that is.

but the mainstream media missed. now what we've been talking about the casualties of these wars that doesn't count the money that's been spent too so we want to take a closer look at that in the decade since the twin towers fell in new york city our country has dedicated a huge portion of its resources to counterterrorism efforts both here and abroad but exactly how much has the us financially dedicated to this cause let's break down the numbers so since two thousand and one the u.s. has spent how much six hundred thirty five billion dollars on homeland security and remember it created the department of homeland security after nine eleven add that to our defense budget and america has dropped a whopping seven point six trillion dollars since the september eleventh attacks now believe it or not this is a huge increase from what the u.s.

spent on its military a decade ago so let's take a look at that if you look at the defense budget for fiscal year two thousand it was about two hundred ninety five billion dollars just under three hundred billion dollars it has grown by eighty six percent and the government requested seven hundred eighty billion dollars for the d.o.d. in two thousand and eleven so let's break down those numbers a little and look just at our war budget according to the national priorities project the u.s. has spent one point two trillion dollars on wars in iraq and afghanistan to break that down seven hundred ninety four billion dollars has gone to iraq and afghanistan we've seen four hundred fifty one billion dollars dedicated and how exactly has our country's trillion dollar war funding been divided up or from the congressional research office shows that the total war funding breaks down into three major categories ninety four percent of it right here that huge chunk you see goes to the department of defense this includes military salaries training support

. activities bunging new war related programs military construction and of course acquiring new weapons just five percent this little chunk year goes to the state department and usa id now this is for international development this deals with reconstruction in iraq and afghanistan foreign aid programs and funding for embassy operations and the last tiny sliver what's left the little bit right here one percent goes to veteran affairs now this is involved for a vote veterans involved in both operation iraqi freedom and operation enduring freedom so when we hear about the u.s. war on terror and winning hearts and minds in afghanistan it looks like the bulk of that money to achieve those goals goes to the ninety five percent that is military weapons and personnel so that's something that maybe can make you think so with one point two trillion dollars going to our war let's take a closer look at how much of a chunk of that is it makes up our country's discretionary federal spending so take

a look at that huge chunk of that fifty three percent in this pie graph that's for defense spending so what else is left not a whole lot housing assistance transportation education and health six seven five and five percent respectively so it's pretty obvious where our priorities lie and keep in mind all of our shadow wars you know the ones that president obama doesn't actually label as war and even though we don't have boots on the ground in libya we know the u.s. has been involved and it is spent eight hundred ninety six million dollars in libya now there's also some stats we can't give you we don't know how much we've spent in yemen somalia and pakistan countries where the united states is engaged in drone attacks and in some case missions so you can see the u.s. is throwing a huge chunk of cash into its defense look at that four point seven percent of g.d.p. but how does this compare to other countries let's see how it looks next to our next biggest competitor china two point two percent of g.d.p.

. in two thousand and nine france's military makes up how much two point five percent of g.d.p. is on their military and in the u.k. it makes that two point seven percent of their g.d.p. so check up a staggering difference between the united states and its next biggest competitor china a recent report shows the u.s. spends six times more on its military then china does so with all of this spending done in a post nine eleven world where does this leave us now ten years later that's a question that we would still like to answer let's talk about what the money and casualties have cost us and what it's achieved ten years later has it been worth it to talk about that lawrence works in colonel lawrence wilkerson is a retired u.s. army colonel and former chief of staff to colin powell we're so happy to how do you hear so in the reports that i've been doing we kind of compare the deaths between iraq and afghanistan and the world trade center so sixty two hundred u.s.

troops have died in iraq and afghanistan that's more than double they were killed in the world trade center is that an appropriate cost for in response to the attack of the twin towers that's why i said when george bush said we're over there so they are over here he was right but not in the way you mean why would al qaida come to the united states when there was a target rich environment in afghanistan i mean iraq and as you point out other places do so in that sense george w. bush was right but in the sense that you're asking the question how in the world can anybody say that it's cost effective. how can anybody pronounce of anything other than preposterously nonsensical to take an attack of men laudanum the watery which cost about five hundred thousand dollars and spin trillions in order to combat it how can you say that's cost effective how can you say it's even rational it looks completely irrational to anyone standing and looking at it and saying if i were all mars and i said what is that country doing i would say it is spending

itself to death through the use of its military so then why does it seem rational to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle right here in washington because the military industrial congressional complex has made it very very lucrative for them to vote for military defense spending it's also made it lucrative in a sense it's very pertinent right now for example if you were to look at lockheed and say i'm going to number one defense contractor i'm going to reduce your budget by so much from a douche your income that's jobs that's jobs in texas oklahoma new mexico ohio that's jobs all across the country same with raytheon same with boeing same with other military contractors so it's even more sensitive right now but we're going to have to do something about this and you're here you're hearing it within my party now the republican party you're hearing from people from the tea party for example and others finally talk about how if we're going to really do something about the deficit we cannot leave military standing out do you really think within your party we're going to see

a real political will to make your magic i think you're going to this always happens it has happened since world war two is going to happen again but people who most go after the military in terms of to coney and cuts are ultimately party the republicans when it comes time to actually go after them they will go after them with a vengeance. they will since world war two we have never seen the country to rise we heard i think now we're in one thousand nine hundred rise and i was already about guarding against the military industrial complex and that didn't happen are we just going to see eisenhower fall to military. every day of his presidency and eisenhower i was a heretic through the eyes and i said you know i do know this country you're from and then there was this sits in his office that doesn't know the military the way i do it right and since then we haven't seen any military invasion are we going to never see i d counterterrorism he and you saw a massive cut in the armed forces of the united states after the end of the cold war and when you want to do clinton came in you saw an even further cut on that

which is one reason why we're having trouble with ground forces in iraq and afghanistan and elsewhere in the global so-called global war on terror so it's not true that we haven't cut the armed forces before we have we've got them significantly in certain periods in our history and when the defense budget really comes to be an issue when it's through school sanity or physical insanity the republicans will be in there cutting the defense department as fast as anyone so you for the republicans are going to do that you're going to do that are we going to see that now is that the tipping point now when we see them making cuts you're going to say. you're going to see increasing pressure to get out of iraq and afghanistan you're going to see increasing pressure on the republican leadership from the tea party to that effect you're going to see them increasingly have to answer to the american people about why are we still doing this and you really see it happen as we store the fourteen months now you're going to see it start happening as we start the general election maybe not in the primaries because that's going to be extreme right engaged in the primaries but in

a general election you're going to start to see it start happening and the president is crazy if he's or he doesn't take advantage of this and go after the republicans are well let's let's break from politics and talk about what happened there not can it stand if we see about drawdown and we see that allow i was reading an interesting commentary from a columnist who was saying that afghanistan in two thousand and four there was this hoping this excitement and people were excited about the fall of the taliban but then in the years since then that hope has decayed they have foreign troops on their land they're sick of it they have a corrupt government and their country is gone bad. is afghanistan going backwards i think afghanistan is on the boy in the sense that we would say we want a victory that says a.b.c. you do have salute i think that because three conditions one you have sanctuary for the enemy that you can't go into pakistan principle like two you have a difference in objectives we're fighting a limited war they're fighting a total war to the last man we're not about to fight to the last man as you pointed out less than one percent of this country is bleeding and dying for the other

ninety nine plus percent we have a foreign legion of people don't care people don't even know that iraq is going on in afghanistan is on the step occasionally when the mainstream media that as you point out very well cans to focus on which is very often and the third reason is that we simply cannot afford this we simply cannot afford it in the congress woke up after ten years in vietnam and use the power of the purse eventually they're going to wake up and use the power of course here in the in that sense it's ironic that the tea party and libertarians within the tea party in particular are the ones who are starting to talk about you've got to go after the defense budget if you're going to restore fiscal sanity to this republic and they're right and we'll have to see if that happens if afghanistan is and when it will if it is going backwards and the u.s. pulls out and the situation deteriorates they just how to take our something is that the outcome big that the u.s. should accept after spending of billions of dollars there and losing more than

seventy looking at i wrote the united states this is twenty twenty hindsight but what we should've done was gone over there did what we did in the first year come out and said if you do it again come back and do it again it would cost us maybe fifty billion dollars to do instead we've lingered there for eleven years unsuccessfully getting worse all the time pakistan is the real issue and about to implode and we are scared to death to leave afghanistan because we want to be there of talk and stand those employed but we've got to leave we simply cannot afford these wars on the fringes of in car which are bleeding us to death both. literally in terms of our young men and women and also physically in terms of our dollars you've pointed out in i don't think you win the people know you but you know you. work at that so you say it's way worse but what about you mentioned the media you mentioned a political you think that the police actually have some political will to cut but as far as the word terrorism which we are seeing all over the mainstream right now

as we talk about the tenure the decade that has passed since nine eleven is using the word terrorism for america's political only and media elite is that just potent and justifying wars and the patriot act and spying and infringing on civil liberties today just as much as it was in the aftermath after nine eleven we have painted ourselves into a corner in that respect and you've summed it up well we have indeed done that but i see the american people awakening to the fact that we've gone there and saying ok we're more resilient than we know we may get hit again we know it may be a catastrophic attack we know that it will happen some time in the future so what let's get on with business let's get on with building more jobs let's get on with restoring our infrastructure let's get on with building our economy back because that is ultimately the essence of national security not standing around in sievert in his supposed room of another terrorist attack so you're saying our country's

priorities are all wrong i think they are and i think the american people are going to shift and i think they may throw every single member of congress who is serving now out in the next election there is a. colonel lawrence wilkerson i certainly appreciate coming on the show and talking about the ten year anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on u.s. soil and still to come right here do an american citizens really know or care about increasing encroachments on their civil liberties in the wake of nine eleven j.q. their host of young turks joins us for that discussion in just a moment. inside only when there was a mechanism to do the work to bring justice for accountability. i have every right to know what my government's doing it want to know why i pay taxes. but i would characterize obama as a charismatic version of american exceptionalism. you

know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for like the plague you think you understand it and then you live something else you hear see some other part of it and realize everything is ok if you don't i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. says. let's not forget that we had an apartheid regime right now. i think iraq is beatable and one well. whatever government says they're going to keep you safe get ready because you're going to have freedom.

for. a. few. welcome back ten years after nine eleven aside from less wars that we've talked about the country has come to accept what some would call a war on our freedoms we walk through body scanners at the airport and take off our

shoes for t.s.a. yesterday's mall cops today are military trained counterterrorism professionals sizing you up as a threat as you shop warrantless wiretapping and spying are provisions passed by congress without much debate obama on the tenth anniversary of nine eleven wrote this in an op ed that appeared in usa today this is part of it he said the perpetrators of those attacks wanted to terrorize us but they are no match for our resilience today our country is more secure and our enemies are weaker you know what we have delivered justice to osama bin laden and put al qaeda on the path to defeat we must never waiver in the task of protecting our nation but just how much do americans have to give up in that task of protecting our nation and is the country really more secure as a result earlier i talked with talked with janke ugur he's host of the young turks to ask if he thought the body scanners and warrantless wiretapping and wars were signs of that resilience that obama is talking about. two minds on the

other one hand i think that we have done some good work in. as we do with osama bin laden and i think that we have really deteriorated their ability to strike us now i don't think that we went about the most efficient way and that's a massive understatement obviously we wasted a tremendous amount of time resources and blood unfortunately in iraq which didn't help us at all it only hurt us in afghanistan we've long been past the peak of the war helping us in any way shape or form but here internally we've taken some. caching for example some yemenis that were considering putting bombs on cargo on airplanes etc on the other hand our civil liberties are a great legal road and and i don't think that's helped us with security at all so overall i would say i'm disappointed.