hello i'm tom arbonne in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture there ninety nine percent occupied k. street today to fight too much corporate influence in government so who are the worst of the worst when it comes to buying politicians and how will the backlash against the one percent shake up the republican race to the white house presidential candidate buddy roemer joins just a mom also why are firefighters watching homes burn down in tennessee as my panel of conservatives if this is what

a libertarian paradise looks like in tonight's lone liberal rumble and finally halliburton is out of again this time to dick cheney's corporation is accused of destroying evidence in the b.p. oil spill it makes investigative reporter greg palast joins to expose just out roses big oil. you need to know this ninety nine percent movement continues its raid on the nation's capital it's part of the take back the capitol day of action thousands of patriots stormed the lobbying epicenter of k. street this afternoon for the year which is one of the main organizers of the rally the purpose of the day's action is to track down those responsible for crashing the economy and causing millions of ninety nine percenters to lose their jobs and homes all those people failed to pay their. taxes not the people who lost their jobs and

homes but the people crashed a new report this month by the public campaign names some names for the ninety nine percent movement to target in two thousand and eight and two thousand and ten thirty major corporations spent more money lobbying in washington d.c. than they paid in taxes among the worst abusers general electric p.g. any of arise and wells fargo and boeing these corporations invested millions of dollars buying favors from our lawmakers and in return got millions of dollars in some cases billions of dollars back in tax breaks and other goodies so these guys it's not just a lobby it's a business investment but as we'll see from the actions of today a backlash is underway so what does that mean for corporate influence in our government and what does it mean for republican presidential candidates like mitt romney who depend on these very same corporate interests to get elected to public anger fueled the candidacy of a dark horse like buddy roemer who's spoken out for years against too much

corporate influence both in our government and our political parties let's ask you joining me now in the studio is republican presidential candidate and former congressman from and governor of louisiana and currently the president of a bank in louisiana buddy roemer a community bank one of the big wall street banks for banks let me start off by denying everything. let's let's start out with some of the stuff we agree on money in politics corrosive influence of money in politics or not take in more than one hundred dollars the republicans have succeeded in keeping you out of the debates in large part because of that i guess i'm not really sure i'm the only person running democrat or republican who's been a congressman and a governor spent the last sixteen years building a home state bank a community bank main street we are about a billion dollar bank we are profitable we have a return for our investors we didn't foreclose on the same. mortgage tom we were

nice impressive bank you know what we didn't do we didn't get a single dime from the federal government and i'm damn proud of it you and most small community best and most credit unions and there for us and ok so money in politics you know we've defined that you're less than a shoe money is important i understand you're also trying to raise ninety nine thousand dollars by this friday that's right we haven't told in money bomb or we ask all of our supporters to to kick in donation of one hundred dollars that's the maximum total and a cumulative so if you've given fifty you can only give fifty more we keep up we did faithfully we've had contributions from all fifty states we've raised about three hundred fifty thousand dollars we unlike new gingrich we've paid all of our bills and we've got money in the bank i'm proud of what we've done to when i need a million people to stand with me tom at buddy roemer dot com a million people at no more than one hundred dollars and we can be the republican

nominee well i would love to see you in the debates the very least i think it was on the way i've got a chance i mean to get a million people i need to be included in the debates and i never thought that i wouldn't be but so far they keep raising the stakes every time i go i was my point the last two debates they said you have to raise something like a half million bucks in the last ninety days or something like that well here's where they start you have to officially file for president did i called him back you have to have one percent i got one percent call them back you have to have two percent i got two percent i called them back then they said the last two debates where you have two percent is good buddy but you have to raise a half a million dollars in the last ninety days when is that a test for president of united states and my mom thought tom my dream if you would that reform would be my issue that you didn't have to have a big check to get first in line that plane people could run this government i believe that but it was a sea. but i get on the debates because without

a lot of money that would give me a chance to take my message to be american people i have not had that chance are you going to do the donald trump to. if you'll have me we've already got all the better is this embarrassing that's what i have is all is that i can actually make it worth watching and i was what you my state of on no i do every something just a question isn't this you know apropos of perhaps nothing but every time you were like that you were elected four times as a congressman right we're going correctly and once as governor you were elected as a democrat and twenty years switched to republican just before the end of your last term as governor and you're not you're running as republican oh why the change. we were a one party state and we're not louisiana yet when i looked at the legislature as governor we had one hundred forty four members one hundred thirty eight of them or democrats there was no debate there was no choice it was not

a healthy state we balance the budget we did tax reform every state has to it's every sort of as a result of the constitution of louisiana which i helped write by the way as a delegate of the constitution convention nine hundred seventy four but here's my point a one party state is not healthy it's like a one party nation it's not healthy you need debate i thought one of the lasting legacies i could leave would be to form a second party plus in congress i hated a group called the bull weevils they were democrats but very conservative and we often work with ronald reagan so i head i was used to working with the other party and the final point if you can let me make it to rebuild america and we need to rebuild it it's headed in the wrong direction you start in the center you lay the foundation and i thought running for president as a republican that i would ask democrats and independents to join with me and if you

look at my donations they're from across the spectrum i have as many democrats as republicans i'm not surprised by that so let's talk about some of the issues. federal spending you are suggesting the federal spending should be kept to twenty five percent you say in fact. federal spending is excessive by any standards at twenty five percent i would get lower tom i would take it to eighteen and a half if here's how i would do it well here before we get to that are the the nation in the world that has federal spending twenty five percent actually is total government spending. is togo below you know a twenty four percent is nigeria twenty twenty four point. percent equitorial guinea sudan twenty four point nine percent congo twenty two percent point nine percent when you look at the developed countries of the world in france it's sixty one percent in sweden it's fifty eight percent done markets fifty eight percent norway is fifty five percent now the ones fifty four percent austria fifty four

percent of these countries are in trouble are all doing really well the u.k. fifty percent germany forty eight percent canada forty eight percent why do you want to put the u.s. in the category with togo because what you fail to do in your analysis is a look at the total cost of government we have a federalist system we are not just one central government that makes all the dictates we have fifty states we're an experiment in democracy and if you were to count the money that the state spends your twenty five percent number would be twice that we'd be at the fifty or fifty five percent level let me give you an example the average american doesn't pay twenty five percent in taxes when you count sales tax and property tax and local tax total every government spending nationwide as a percentage of g.d.p. is about twenty seven twenty seven to thirty three percent over the last five years whether or not where government alone is twenty five point two percent is a twenty seven or thirty three percent you get today's i don't govern along

counties but you can add the other we add it all together we're below thirty three percent on tell you what us they are going to do you ask the average american tom if he's paying too much or too little for what he gets well as laid out that health insurance for example health insurance we're paying twice as much for health insurance as any of the o.e.c.d. and it's not right and we're getting screwed you know how to change it put a large companies under the sherman antitrust act why you know they have insurance come you know why that insurance is so high there's no competition we have fifty monopolies tom why we need to show is insurance company there are some people that would like to buy some protection against the vicissitudes of olay we are of the a bore. raise society you have the right to do that in a free society just and we should insurance companies should not be given a monopoly in the thirty four o.e.c.d. nations the thirty four richest nations in the country and that goes all the way down to like coast to rico in those thirty four nations there is only one that says

it is the legal it is not a crime to provide primary health insurance i'm talking a secondary level of these countries your i you know a policy where you can get a private room or you know jets or have food brought five star meals brought in a chair a private policy but primary health insurance we are the only nation in the world that allows it to be sold at a for profit basis in every other country in the world if you try to do that you go to prison why should we be that we are here's where you and i differ i think health care costs and insurance are too high i think the causes we do not differ on that i think the cause is not for profit the calls there's no competition we have deliberately because of the money they've given to presidents and congress special interest money they are protected by law there's no competition it's going to you can't buy medical insurance across the state line i would change that tom that's one of the reasons i'm running for president i will so he raced to the bottom no long in absolute will you'll have the season here is your old granny birds were all

of them incorporate do your the lidar cause it's got the lowest and crappy do you like our current system i think that we should have a national health insurer all that really works good it works good for the other three i'm a girl let me give an example like the post office. tom you're crazy for what for. sixty so numbers into a letter going all the way across you won't choice and competition in our society that works best right now we don't have to show you want or profit motive you want the profit motive could mean profit or nonprofit that's up to the person perhaps that's up to you from going to the world they say it has to be nonprofit you know in switzerland they don't have a national audience i think i'm going to get my economic advice from the nations of europe or elsewhere there are only so long as the rate is higher than are their dad is how are they are in serious trouble not now in the americas in trouble truth is what's on what i think. you are you are sailing up the wrong river here

if you use the national government can run health insurance well as i've seen no evidence of it well that what i'm willing to be conveyed be able of the united states and i lived in germany for a year and i use their hot air travel that i would use they have bases to china many times europe many times the system no longer than are you kidding me i'll go on to a party run a very quick a one party nation so that makes sense i think we do not declare a fire differences on the euro and i'm not i don't think we decide you want to raise social security eligibility age now you want to do it over twenty four month period one point four years twenty four year period one a year. why no lower it why not lower to fifty five and suck about ten fifteen million people out of the labor force and drop unemployment to zero and jack up wages and make everything that you've ever talked to a man who's healthy and wants a job if you ever talk to somebody who told they have to retire no i'm not

suggesting mandatory i think if you drop ok i thought you said you would have is about half of those people would retire about half of that you know work. and have to look at it and i've always looked the other way tried to i've tried to work. it was so security i'm sixty eight males you will feel security so i try to work with it where we don't have to raise taxes and we can all benefits the same and the way to do that is to slowly raise the retirement age i'll look at the reverse of that i've never done it yeah i'd love it the buddy roemer thank you so much for drop thanks to you and read the website is buddy roemer dot com it's our old e.r. ninety nine thousand dollars by friday i hope i'd love to see in the debate thanks i don't like appreciate. coming up are republicans still trying to bring about another financial crash just to unseat president obama asked by a panel of conservatives in tonight's liberal wrong.

what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it's already been made who can you trust no one who is imbue it with a global machinery to see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.

it's wednesday night tonight when i play the role of a lone liberal and go up against two expert conservatives to debate the week's biggest issues on our panel tonight heather ceremony conservative strategist and associate with blue skin solutions and blogger at the servo dot com and neil mckay editor of guns in patriots column of human events online welcome to both of joining us great to have you with us starting out yesterday the city council of los angeles voted unanimously eleven a zero to say corporations are not people money is not speech this is like a pretty radical change from the supreme court anyway and los angeles joins a growing list of we've got boulder colorado has voted for this missoula montana madison wisconsin dane county wisconsin pittsburgh pennsylvania city council of cleveland just voted eighteen to one to endorse the occupy movement whose principally when you poll them around the country their principal demand is ending

corporate personhood which these are the cities as did the city council cleveland just voted to indorse the occupy movement and to call in congress to investigate and jail banks toure's no one's talking about debt reduction everybody's talking about job creation and wealth inequality and corporate personhood so has the american has as america you know finally kicked the tea party habit is the only ws you know kick in the ass of the time i don't even know why this is a problem in cleveland as i had no idea they were still corporations left in cleveland there's a few i mean i would take your clothes you can i thought of their homes and i think that's the least of their problems they should want corporations to feel welcome in cleveland because that's the only way they're going to get any jobs well it would be nice if they had some consumers yeah they had people with money in their pockets and it's not a matter of having corporations necessarily that's a matter of having you know people who have a job or people who and you know having a trade policy maybe the brains are going to be a private yacht. it can't be we borrow money from the chinese launder it through

a government agency and then give it to somebody well that's a let's not forget either that the tea party has issues with it with corporations as well you know corporate greed it's also a tea party montor absolutely but here's the but it's so you're saying that a government job is not a real job no so john boehner doesn't have a real job well i mean let's say john boehner he obviously intrusion august's sophos our money and in ohio it doesn't it's no good what i'm saying is that if you create if you create these sort of fake make work pretend jobs with government agencies you're not you're not moving the ball forward because the money to pay for a government job has to come from the problem of your own as a fake make your job know what i said about police officers that's a fake make work for departments fake no no what i'm saying is the money for these government jobs enough to come from the private sector people who run our national parks. well let's talk about i mean let's talk about and i don't mean a lot of ploys you know you i'm talking about that have to ramrod of these fake jobs and it's you know it's like and there are cuts to be made obviously somewhere

i'd. look at the consumer financial speaking of what you probably consider a fake job the consumer financial protection bureau this is created by by the. very much and a nearly unanimous filibuster by the republicans is preventing richard cordray from being. the robert cordray religious order area from being appointed as the head and the law the way that this is really kind of weird the way the law was written this agency can't function until it has a head and so the republicans are saying we're not going to get ahead because we don't want anybody protecting consumers how can the republicans possibly want this i don't think it would send them into that but they said they don't want there to be a consumer protection want there they don't really consider feeling very good care oh i disagree with the with the way how much power it has a right it has to the rear of the consumer got a good the bureau is a highly undemocratic and today. it is an honor in favor of democracy i've always

been in favor of small data roxy as we say and how it is under democratic well the gov the the director of the bureau has a five year term which deliberately overlaps the president's right so directly to a lot of sized that to put politics is democracy tom and so the director does not serve at the pleasure of the president so not only does it overlap the president can't fire him we do the same thing with the chairman of the fed there's a there's there's a reason why it's white why you want those things to overlap so you don't end up with politicized positions will just same thing we do as if you see it so you know i mean there's a bunch of agencies that you don't politicize that to n.p.r. it's on you're not rhotic it's undemocratic. you want the people to vote if you want to be democratic government rescue respond to political pressures can you make some sense of this i think dodd frank though i think the problem i mean there are a multitude of problems that dodd frank and this is just one of them and it's unfortunate that it passed and i think that now they're saying wow we made

a mistake passing this and i do you know humans are saying that democrats are all in favor of you know what i expect the consumers and i'm focused on israel i was protecting badgers i think even democrats i see problems with thought frankly i mean why can't can you point to why me i don't really have a major actually on the major actor in dodd frank is this crazy consumerism or fun to work i can grow this bureau protect consumers which is going to as soon as the first director is confirmed it spins out of its incubator state at treasury and then is then moved to the fed which you were citing before when it's at the fed it's virtually immune from crew aggression all unpresidential oversight is not true to see if he is is a creature of congress it's a product we just of household it walk on but even without this. congress but even without this bureau established i'm sad frank place a lot of a lot of heavy relate regulations on the banking industry which i realize democrats are only good i'm obligated to do not think you know they work for fifty years we

didn't have a bank crash for fifty years we and then you and then you guys phil gramm and all that i have played a role in the granite state or any of that under federal government was out of that the federal government's already involved with that what you want is affordable housing you know sort of days don so you have sort of you have and i'm already in the training subprime market was one point seven trillion dollars that was not a crash this is no i'm saying you know what i'm saying it all are the ball rolling you can't have federal government was not and you know it's done six hundred trillion dollars where the more the phony baloney bets is the but now we're we're getting into the weeds let's go back to this issue continue on the issue of regulatory must be day after day you're on the record one day one day after executives the upper big branch mine were slapped with a. two hundred million dollars fine for murdering twenty nine people democrats and it took the house and senate introduce critical legislation that would make mining safer it's very simple this bill says that it increases penalties for safety hazards of broadens protections for whistleblowers and it gives the federal government the right to close unsafe mines the bill is being filibustered by

republicans i don't get it again the republicans are on the side of big oil big coal big money and to hell with the people of course the republicans are the heroes of mine safety because when this mine act was passed in one nine hundred seventy was a carter bill carter never passed any of the regulations or set any of the standards the first president actually said about enforcing this mine act was president h.w. bush in one thousand nine hundred publicans that a blocking it. well you already have them you already have a mine act you already have a rogue agency full of hack you have a mind act that obviously isn't working you've got twenty nine dead miners but the agency has a culture that has to be changed and it's a it's a fool's game so to have these regulators rule does it's says you know these are that you guys have been doing your job you have to the rules are already there there's nothing in this new rule that doesn't exist already. broadening whistleblower protections that's not there increasing penalties for safety hazards out there giving the federal government the power to close unsafe mines they don't

have that they already have the power to close mines for thirty two years this mine agency has existed and they've never set about regulations to properly go after people who have a pattern of violations and you can also argue that it was and this is kind of a knee jerk reaction to i know that one of the major republicans i forget his name but he has asked for a basically a panel to look at this just to see what is actually going on i mean like procrastination democrats do it too i mean having to know there is actually doing something that we end up saying that's not enough or we went too far like what dodd frank let's let's take our time thank you so he is speaking to flammable stuff when you call him to see this woman dial nine one one and said my house is on fire my home is on fire the fire department showed up they said you didn't pay your seventy five bucks we're going to stand here and watch your house burn down there was a credit card machine by the way you know money right there. i say you know it

worked i mean i'd have it you know the guy who invented municipal fire departments was ben franklin philadelphia you know seventeen what it was before the u.s. was the u.s. for the resolution yeah seven hundred seventy one or something short and you know this is always been by and large a part of our commons you know part you know we something that we pay for with our taxes it just makes sense you know there are some things that you just say you know yeah you know some people are dumb enough that they may figure. but what's the deal here what how could you know how can you talk to you very cheap argument was that you know this is outside city limits we asked them to pay seventy five dollars a year in order to ensure that our fire department you know want to come out and stop the liar. i guess because they're outside the city limits i don't know but i mean i guess this is indefensible i am not defending ok at all but you know this is not our public and democrats think this is a crazy sane thing so i don't like the sanity but i'm i'm i'm with bell are you going to certainly talk that there's not already that is you know itself dissolved

i think we all can agree that it would have been a better i say years later somebody doesn't if we made a taxes if somebody doesn't pay their taxes there i should burn though i'm not saying her house you're burned down ok but i'm saying right like i said we see you in an emergency room don't seem to have a chill when you're going she said pay the bill care quick fire question last question for g.o.p. t.v. turned their guns on the muppets this week for brainwashing children and spreading their anti-capitalist most insurers the quote. is liberal hollywood using class warfare two to kind of break brainwash our kids. yeah absolutely and they've been doing it for decades but teaching our kids class warfare where are we common is china the second and for the record i was dan gainor a friend of mine who was on last night so what harmless cartoon character or muppet will g.o.p. t.v. target next a dora the explorer and or support for illegal immigration be captain planet and his radical environmental agenda or see scooby doo and his secret agenda to loot

legalize pot. let me just say that the cookie monster was under fire by the liberals because he was eating too many cookies so let me say that liberals beat up on muppets and puppets too ok so you go oh i always thought that obama was the puppet of big wall street and so i finally get a chance to say it on r t ok can i would you know i think it's our we already know it's going to be smokey the bear because eric cantor's actually already put him on the list on his you cut website. and other neal thank you both three times that you go to have a. crazy alert battle grow new hampshire while most of the focus in the upcoming primaries on newt gingrich and mitt romney and who will walk away is the winner voters actually have a lot of other choices more than forty other choices in fact that's because in new

hampshire it only costs a thousand bucks to get your name on the ballot she assured them that so this year the ballot is jam packed with thirty republicans and fourteen democrats so far one of the potential dark horses that could give romney and gingrich a run for his money their money is vermin supreme a man draped in american flag themed clothes among other unique costumes with a rubber boot on his head is running on the platform of zombie preparedness vermine also believes all americans should be forced to brush their teeth and own a pony not so crazy compared to gingrich's platform. forcing poor children to clean school bathrooms among others any candidates in the new hampshire ballot a former pizza shop owner who thinks beki beki beki beki stan is a country oh wait that's former front runner. up next a tale of vultures petroleum pigs powered by roads and high finance carnivores investigative reporter greg palast runs.

drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through get through to be unmade who can you trust no one who is in view with a global missionary see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.