and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. santorum wins big last night but romney still has the money so is the race any different today or will the best story should say the wealthiest candidate still be the nominee in the end all the reaction to these stories and more with tonight's panel also we've learned time after time that government by gang never works and yet that's exactly what lawmakers are resorting to to extend the payroll tax cut so why do these guys keep beating a dead horse and so secret that nixon's war on drugs was and continues to be an utter failure so can the united states ever come to its senses and legalize marijuana. you need to know this there are bad nights and there are really bad nights and then there are nights like the one mitt romney had last night three states held caucuses

and primaries tuesday night to pick a republican nominee for president clued in colorado missouri and minnesota and guess how many mitt romney won zero in fact it was a clean sweep for this guy rick santorum in missouri where oddly no delegates were at stake santorum got fifty five percent of the vote with romney coming in second at twenty five percent and then in minnesota santorum cleaned up with forty five percent vote while romney came in third behind ron paul with seventeen percent there was santorum relishing in his victory last night. and i was not just a victory for us but tonight was a victory for the voices of our party conservatives and tea party people who are out there every single day in the vineyards building the conservative movement in this country building the base of the republican party and building a voice for freedom in this land thank you apparently the conservative movement is being built in been years i did not know that speaking of billiards notice the guys

standing behind santorum to his right yeah that's foster friess a mutual fund executive and leading contributors to santorum is red white and blue find corporate super pac and he is like the other millionaires and billionaires who are now spending fortunes giving to romney's and gingrich's super pacs was the real winner last night called a collection on investments. meanwhile here's what front runner turned loser mitt romney said in colorado where he was expecting to give a victory speech it's great to be in denver tonight a lot of stuff on the ground pretty cold but so warm to be in this room and with so many friends here and i want to say thank you to you that the race is too close to call in colorado at this point but i'm pretty confident we'll come in number one and number two and number two it was santorum came out on top in colorado to be the romney forty to thirty five percent that's

a state that romney won back in two thousand and eight so what does all this mean well it means conservatives can still play around with the idea of nominating someone who isn't a name to mitt romney for at least a few more weeks you know since this whole thing started last year it seems like everyone not named mitt romney has had their chance to be a front runner for michele bachmann to rick perry herman cain to newt gingrich to rick santorum and now the cycle is coming around for a second time with newt gingrich again after he won south carolina and now rick santorum again after his three wins last night so where in the heck do things go from here we'll get to that in just a moment but in other news coming out of capitol hill it looks like negotiations to extend the payroll tax cut for one hundred sixty million americans have stalled with republicans refusing to raise taxes once again on millionaires and billionaires and in the house republicans yesterday

a privilege that legislation to resurrect the keystone x.l. pipeline will discuss where they plan to stick that pipeline in just a moment for a rundown on last night's elections plus the latest on capitol hill i want to turn it over to my panel laughlin mark a is an investigative reporter at the heritage foundation center for media and public policy and richard fowler is a democratic star strategist welcome to you both guys thanks for having me so let's get started so it's santorum won big as we just showed his big thunder foster friess was there behind him we've seen a lot of these type guys really have they been at the victory speeches behind the candidates. but santorum is red white and blue fun pales in comparison to romney's i restore a future pac i think it's the red white and blue fund has spent two million dollars so far whereas restore a future romney spend nine times that over eighteen million dollars so here's what

i said the millionaires and billionaires on the republican side they've chosen their person and that's mitt romney and i would be shocked if somehow they lose this race so i mean should i be shocked if romney is not the nominee at the end because about well i think that there's a bit of a declining marginal utility for these super pacs or for any any campaign spending period the underdogs i think tend to gain more from one more political ad or one more political dollar than the front runners because name recognition is such a huge such a huge acrobat for a candidate but i wanted to to note something that it's a big misconception these days after the citizens united supreme court decision that millionaires and billionaires have a larger influence now than they did before the supreme court decision and that's not just not true because he didn't actually apply to contributions to these third parties and groups from millionaires and billionaires it applied to contributions from corporations unions and nonprofit groups so millionaires and billionaires are free to give now just as they were free to give then their influence over the

process hasn't increased in terms of their donations to these groups if they're only didn't specifically say we're here to help millionaires and billionaires but what it did was there was a limit of twenty five hundred dollars on what an individual can contribute to a campaign that has made this still exists exactly but now people can give way more than twenty five hundred dollars they can give a million dollars if they want through this third party super bowl action was created through citizens united people could still give that same amount to choose third party political groups before citizens united big didn't lift any restrictions on it like another good market right third party said these third party followed a five to seven group could not endorse a candidate or they couldn't be supporting one candidate the super pac allows you to give to max out to a k. . like you know say willard mitt romney after you max out to him that you can go give another million dollars of the super pac that supports him and run attack ads against all of his competitors and. attack ads against president states and i think

it's pretty clear that they've had a pretty large effect compared to two thousand and eight you know mitt romney ran something like thirteen thousand ads in florida mostly negative ads and they were most mostly funded by super pacs and already we've seen i think fifty percent of all the campaign spending this this primary season done by these super pacs so you can say that they haven't had. before at forty six million i believe is how much all the third party groups in total have spent so far but look at the obama campaign so far has already raised one hundred twenty five million dollars you're right we have to look at the obama campaign has raised one hundred twenty five million dollars with forty seven percent of those who would have given that money have given under two hundred dollars are every day americans middle class americans working class americans have given to this campaign they get twenty five dollars they've given ten dollars they're not millionaires and billionaires and all of them also abide by the limits so nobody's giving over twenty five hundred dollars to the pact to the to the mother and i'm citing those numbers was not to say that that he's benefited more more than other people or that his contributions were the same

as anyone else's it was just me it was just to put into perspective the effect that these third party groups are having on the race and when you look at the dollar amounts it's far less than half of obama's campaign chest and we're just talking about his campaign not even the third party groups that are going to support him and as we found out today with a lot of the general election work that we're in or not in the general election yet once we have a republican candidate out there and everybody you know is going to stop hedging their bets on newt gingrich or rick santorum if mitt romney is the guy and i mean that was my original question i mean do you think that mitt romney is going to be the guy because he has this money or because you know he's eventually just the best candidate well i think certainly any questions of inevitability or were dashed on the rocks after the most most. primaries and caucuses so i don't think anyone at this point is is saying that money is the only factor because if it were mitt romney would have come out on top in colorado well i want to i want to move on to these super pacs and i want to ask you a question here in a second richard but first i want to play this i want to play this here this was

from harry truman in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight at the democratic national convention so you can play that the reason is that i'm a credit card is that people's party and they're going to party is the party has ended and then. right before you respond to the. republican party is the party of special interest now the reason why the special interests are special is because they have a lot of money and i would argue that citizens united has allowed these special interests to spend a lot of that money now president obama just came out and he said that he's going to adopt this super pac plan he's going to he's going to tell his supporters to not just donate to his campaign but to donate to priorities usa super pac is that the right decision or is he going to be playing a game with special interest alternately democrats are going to lose in the end they don't have the money that that you know the big donors are willing to spend but you know i think that there's a very interesting question i think is

a lot of democrats pondering this question with the truth of the matter is is that what we've seen from mitt romney ron paul that santorum and i think that's awful that's all that's all i'm i think that's all i can confuse sometimes it's always changing but the truth of the most of them is they've raised tons and tons and tons of money with these super pacs and the president has just raised money the traditional way through twenty five twenty five one dollar contributions that is all but the simple fact is going into the general election going into november here he would be going to be showing up to a gunfight with a knife if he is not using the citizens united a lot to his benefit we don't necessarily agree with us it is the citizens united law but we know that in order for us to beat the republicans and possibly change the law or change a majorities in the house in the senate we have to use this law to our benefit. for their truth we can change how the supreme court first we can guarantee with the next term president obama will see another supreme court justice retirement and on top of that i think you know congress can pass laws a lot sort of change how this record interprets citizens united which is of the matter is though is it the president can show up to

a gun fight with cancer the guy with the knife and if he does not endorse their design embrace super pacs that's he's going to put them so the situation to himself and to you know bracing super pacs though is the just the latest example in a long line of the president on his promises so whether it was a promise to accept public financing in the two thousand and eight campaign which he then went back on when he realized he could raise so much more money without it and ended up raising nearly ten times as much as he would have been able to with public financing or whether it's saying i don't have lobbyists donating to my campaign well in fact we found out today that ron klein former congressman now a lobbyist for spirit airlines that it has given bottled at least two hundred thousand dollars there as it has made a ton of money back but just came out the other day for that not all those you know they're giving tons of money back but on top of that i think what we've seen from the president is he's realized that he has to beat back the entire republican establishment to beat back the all these big oil of the big oil's of this world over the course of the month i mean or for him to do that he has to find more and

more middle class americans to get it and that's why he did not take public he did not say publicly because he realized that raise more of that that's not the real issue here is that he feels that it is now in his strategic interests to go back on that promise that he made and it's just the latest in a long line of examples of a new and maybe i think he's got some options with some executive orders that issue to get some disclosure and maybe get around that but we'll talk about it a bit after the break why republicans resurrecting the keystone x.l. pipeline it looks like another hostage scenario is in the works on capitol hill. from us and you. lish to chicago to birmingham twenty trauma centers have closed since two thousand severe problem is not enough inpatient beds not enough urgency department beds and not enough nurses to man those that is to take care of all the people who are the only real health care system that we have in the city of los

angeles is the los angeles fire department in fact when i started my venture is a firefighter i didn't want to turn it around so i started out i want to just do firefighting it's about eighty two percent of what we do the florida problem is medical i've got a rescue couple weeks ago waited four hours for i've waited sometimes three hours but i wouldn't say it's a francis in lynnwood for four hours and fifty minutes standing against a wall with patients and we have a federal law that mandates that you can't turn no one away who seeks care in an emergency room. we have the most expensive health care system in the world and it's probably valued the least.

welcome back joining me on the panel laughlin marquet investigative reporter at the heritage foundation center for media and public policy and richard fowler democratic strategist all right let's get back to it so at the end of the month the payroll tax cut expires meaning one hundred sixty million working americans could be hit with a tax increase and so far we've got the negotiations have stalled out for the same

reasons that they stalled out in december democrats want to pay for it by proposing a tiny let you know tiny surtax on people who make over a million bucks you know republicans most of whom have signed grover norquist pledge to not raise taxes on anybody or saying no absolutely not chief economist at moody's mark zandi said quote not extending these programs will deliver a significant blow to the still tentative economy so when it comes to either helping the when it comes to helping the economy one hundred sixty million americans or protecting millionaires and billionaires from a tiny tax increase why are the republicans choosing the millionaires and billionaires in this in this issue well i think the fact that this tax cut you know went down to two percent in december of two thousand and ten and we saw no no market improvement in the economy whatsoever we did we will soon no improvement on the balance of consecutive job growth in the private sector is improvement i'm just saying that maybe it didn't keep up with and with new entrants into that was what i

mean a lot of planning while we see meanwhile we see a declining labor force people leaving the job market because they're so discouraged by the weak economy so it is not by any means ban the real the real question that we have to ask ourselves here is that when the republicans passed the bush tax cuts in the early two. thousands they don't and they don't look for a pay for they don't care about finding a paper but now all of a sudden when we want to tax cuts for the middle class and working class americans they are scurrying washington to pay the deficit back then was it seven eight point zero not just about oh you're right you're right we had a surplus before we had george w. bush and then we had a recession oh no no no we haven't been going towards ever on paper and i actually ended during the recession and i know that isn't what i do not that isn't for not only was an op ed for it had to be passed through reconciliation and it had a ten year expiration date because of how much it would add to the deficit that year in terms of bills passed at the reconciliation adding to the deficit i'd say both parties are guilty of that there are no more of these but how can you argue

that someone who would say that raising taxes during a recession is a bad idea how can you argue that letting this tax cut expire is fine for the economy i don't think i i am all for lower taxes in every way shape or i want to make millionaires pay their fair share to pay because that would be raising taxes and i'm for lower taxes my point is if if you want to lower the payroll tax i think that's a good idea granted you run into all sorts of issues with paying for social security which is you know already in the red well that it's not it's why raising the cap at the point is that this needs to be paid for one way or another democrats want to raise taxes to pay for it republicans want to cut other programs to pay the usual republicans how republicans want to pay for it they want to freeze pay on federal employees those aren't exactly wealthy people federal employees they make more than private sector workers with equal educations above their middle class what their middle class individuals are but the point is that they they want to they want to roll back subsidies for the affordable care act that's not going to help wealthy

people that are wealthy people and they also want to reduce medicare subsidies for wealthy seniors which is in disguise you know we're going to take what all that does for medicare is it turns it into a welfare program that will later down the road they can say this is a welcome fair program let's cut it so where it is not earlier later down the road for medicare anyway we're here where have the republicans asked. extremely wealthy people in this country to make sacrifices to get the economy back working giving up medicare benefits for one but that's not a sacrifice i mean how many how many seniors who are multimillionaires are going to miss their medicare well that's the point that's why cutting it would be a good idea and a good way to you know means testing medicare is a good way to save money to pay for it what if you're just like this is it becomes a welfare program or not insurance program right well it's a welfare program already going to church program we all pay into it right it's a social net for senior citizens to get health care. yes ok he provides seniors one of the this is a program that's going to be going bankrupt within ten or getting there shouldn't

get health care. of course if you're implying that it's medicare or another thing that i know that's i mean i did an absolute i don't know what the question of the question that i think we the broader question have to ask ourselves here is is that the republicans always want to steal from peter to give to paul where they never ever ever want to mess with their millionaire and billionaire raising taxes on one person and the lower taxes on the not just going to give it to ball on a second not only that that's not the only thing they want to do they're also proposing a measure that would stop immigrant families from getting the child tax credit even though the children are so because they're not because there are so security numbers they can't qualify for the tax credit you know they pay taxes like that so they want to do so they want to stop those people that are trying to pursue the american dream even though the republicans are the party of the american dream they want to stop those folks to print from pursuing the american dream kid whose children are american citizens in order to pay for a tax cut for the middle and working class look i'm not i'm almost as bad i'm not here is a representative of the republican party i'm not going to support everything the republican party wants to support my point is that if you want to look if you want

to keep something that is going to raise the deficit you need to offset that in some manner you can either do that by raising taxes on other people which even the president acknowledges is the last thing you want to do during a recession he said it in virtually those words or you can look for offsets elsewhere in the budget i would favor the latter. a federal worker though. you know i'm in the middle class i don't get paid a whole bunch of money and they're saying ok we'll give you your tax cut but we're also going to freeze your pay how does that help me at all well i mean private sector workers have had their pay for those and for the past three years we're in the middle of an economic downturn the notion that they should be getting step increases right now which is essentially a raise. so i've heard so corporate the c.e.o.'s and executives of corporations write the big banks they get big bonuses but the little guy who's working so you know make sure that we have clean air and clean water the little guy that's helping fund little johnny's education they don't deserve to get raises but corporate america and the big bosses of this world get to get these huge bonuses

paid for by the american people like we got thirty seconds because in the last word what i'm saying is that you can you know you talk about federal workers here if you're going to say we're talking about that we can tell we're talking about the private sector right we're talking about the private sector who you're right the people who the they've taken taken cuts right the people who work at the desk jobs who are going to joyce automatic raises just as a result because i didn't do any good they were going to the weeds here but no thanks like i was for coming on luxembourg day richard thaler have a great job thanks a lot. screwed news as we talked about already one hundred sixty million americans are in danger of seeing their taxes go up when the payroll tax cut extension expires at the end of the month and so far congress hasn't made any headway in finding

a way to extend it one reason why is congress has once again adopted government by game again of twenty members from both sides of the aisle and both chambers are working on a compromise and it's not going so well talks have stalled and someone say super committee part deux as we've learned whether it. the gang of six the gang of seven the gang of twelve the gang of twenty or call in the gang gang government just doesn't work and this is headed for failure to member of the gang republican senator jon kyl said quote the reality is that as of today we haven't made much progress in time's a wastin and quote and another member of the game democratic senator dick durbin said quote where are we today literally days away from the expiration where nowhere . here's what tom had to say recently on the failure of so-called government. no one is likely to be happy with what comes out of the gang of twelve

but what else should be expected from a government by again so i mean gang government doesn't work gang government does has never worked the founders in the framers didn't have gang government in mind it's not in the constitution and it's frankly unconstitutional as roger just pointed out it's really just a way to pass the buck for example the the base closure commission congress knew this was this is back you know what almost a decade ago it seems that congress knew that there were all these military bases around the country and because there were so many of them and so many congressional districts they couldn't get enough congress members to say ok let's close even the totally useless ones the ones that are just a total waste of time so they outsourced it to again the reason they had to do this was because defense contractors got really really slick they put a small facility in every congressional district in the country and by the way it's still that way so if anybody talks about cutting any of their budgets they can

threaten any member of congress with ads saying hey happened member of congress he was to lay people off in his own district now they're trying to do the same thing with the budget they're saying oh oh we've got to cut the budget well we can't cut the budget we'll outsource it to this gang right not real bright. here's the problem. if we simply and this is really a simple solution you know before reagan all the way from george washington to ronald reagan if you add up all the debt that was that was accumulated by all those presidents from george washington to jimmy carter ronald reagan ran up more debt than all of them combined by by his massive tax cuts we took the top rate on millionaires and billionaires and dropped from seventy four percent down to twenty eight percent if we simply roll back the reagan tax cut it would solve everything but even the gangs don't have the courage for that as long as the supreme court says money is speech one literally one cranky billionaire just throwing

a few few million bucks out can take down a dozen members of congress i mean you know a couple hundred thousand dollars is big money in a congressional race so what we're seeing with this gang government the reason why congress is having to defer to gangs or there was that old commissioner whether it's the gang of twelve right now is a symptom of a broken system it's a fundamentally broken system and this is why congress is popularity ratings are in the tank americans know it's broken and it's the only way to get out of this thing is to get money out of government we've got to get money out of government and one of the best ways to do that is to amend the constitution to say sorry corporations are people money is not speech for more information go to move to amend dot org. does smell something.

i feel like i'm in middle school again move over donald trump it looks like the rocker may be cooking up plans to be president one day in an interview with moviefone pro wrestler female turned movie star turned scorpion king dwayne the rock johnson discussed some of his future political ambitions johnson said quote one day and that one day will come i can impact the world through politics the great news is that i am american therefore i can become president good luck convincing the birth of that one but there i did it the best way you can impact the world now is through entertainment maybe you are uprising israel is the tooth fairy one day before you write off the rock remember remember the movie predator it produced two governors are no shorts an acre and jesse the body ventura who is also a pro wrestler and no one would have thought that was possible at the time and we did elect george w.

bush to his second term as well so anything is possible including the rock becoming the people's president got a job brownie. coming up after the break the netherlands blazed the trail for marijuana legalization years ago but most people in the u.s. at the very notion of legalizing marijuana so what exactly is it that's holding america back from lighting up. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images. from the streets of canada. giant corporations rule the day.

i'm broadcasting live from our studios in central moscow this is our to be glad to have you with us. russia warns against outside military intervention in syria saying the only way to end the bloodshed is for both government and opposition to enter talks moscow's diplomatic push comes as some western and gulf countries sever ties with damascus and there are unconfirmed reports that say security forces continue to shell the city of homs. we'll. be ok as a notorious terror suspect is to be freed after the european court of human rights walks into extradition abu qatada is wanted in jordan where he has been convicted

in absentia of a plot to kill tourists qatada who has been dubbed his man in europe is said to be released after almost nine years in detention. and egypt remains firm on prosecuting foreign funded non-governmental organizations it accuses of fueling instability in the country this despite threats from washington it could cut more than a billion dollars in military aid to egypt a total of forty three angio employees including nineteen americans face trial for illegally funding interests. my colleague josh will be here in about thirty minutes time with a full and complete look at your news but first let's go back to the u.s. for part two of the big picture with tom hartman that's next right here on our to. cool.