welcome back to the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour a college tuition in america is out of control our mounting student loan debts affecting our nation it is the government ever going to help out our next generation of scientists doctors and engineers the way they did previous generations also the radical right is on a mission they really try to use the public schools to train your children in the religious wars and it's nice dealy take why do republicans need to be copying ronald reagan of all people to save the american economy.

in our narrative fared i had to walk two miles to school until three years now and and when i was a kid anyone could afford to go to college actually both those things are true unfortunately the same thing can't be said today as young people who want a college education today are screwed you got to have a pile of this stuff in order to go to college college tuition prices are skyrocketing making it very hard to go to college and leaving those who don't have stacks of hundreds lying around to graduate from college and thousands of dollars in debt in fact out students outstanding student loan debt it eight trillion dollars last year and now exceeds credit card debt and auto loan debt in america for the first time in world history and to make matters worse congress is about to increase student loan interest rates just so they can pay for wars in the middle east and avoid making millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share of taxes

in response to this college students delivered more than one hundred thirty thousand petitions to congress today asking our elected officials to stop the proposed rate increase. but is that enough out of mountains of debt affect you graduates and is the government investing nearly enough in our intellectual infrastructure joining me now is dan so for vice president like seems an institute and molly catchpole recent college graduates stuck with a six figure student loan debt welcome to both of you thanks for joining us molly first of all tell us what happened in capitol hill today and what you what you students and former students are asking lawmakers to do well i work for a nonprofit organization that lobbies on behalf of working americans and middle class americans and we partnered with a u.s. park campus progress and the u.s. students association to deliver all these petitions rebuild the dream took care of most of the online petitions and the other groups caribbean on the ground work at college campuses and we were basically telling congress that they that we can't

afford for that that rate it can't be just flat out cannot. run the g.i. bill was largely responsible for our most tripling the number of college graduates as a percentage of our population in the united states this was a massive government support program. and from that point until ronald reagan became president college tuition california was free in many states it was really really cheap. you look at this number a trillion dollars in student loan debt more than credit card debt if you consider that a crime the cost of higher education has skyrocketed to the point that it's long since out of control and we from a public policy point of view need to make sure that we're not doing anything that puts any upward pressure on the present college doing everything we can do from a policy point of view to bring down the car you suggesting that if we were to drop g.i. bill again because people would have money to spend on college that the price of college was it would go up is that the little verbal jujutsu that's gone well if

the only thing that you're doing is throwing more tax dollars into the system and nothing else to put transparency on for instance higher it is to to sions to jack up the tuition then you could argue in economic terms that we're going to just say that you know we're not going to give any more federal aid for profit colleges. well for for profit profit colleges have been singled out sure. they have the highest and most but more recently though the greater increases in tuition or happening at four year public institutions the problems all over and there's no one solution that's going to fix it we need to look at the situ situation overall we used to subsidize colleges massively i mean molly has student loan debt affecting you i mean i'm paying about six hundred fifty dollars a month and mine is i'm one of the first people in my family to go to college and is this really important for my family that i want and i can barely i can barely afford that i mean i'm on a ten year plan and i'm just i'm trying to pay more to get my principal down but it's really really difficult i'm lucky i have a top i didn't graduate from college but when i did go to college i was able to do

that i was able to put myself through school to the extent that i did by picking apples in the summer by being a d.j. part time for three dollars and twenty five cents an hour working in a gas station my wife worked as a waitress in a howard johnsons and put herself through school i mean you could do that back in the sixty's in the early seventy's and then reagan came along and all this stuff blew up i mean you had bill bennett secretary of education who wanted to end the department of education this was. i'm assuming that you know people from the next generation up who went through that i mean and and what's happening to kids your young people your age i mean so just you know just the people still think that you can put yourself and carly through college by working the whole time is just like it's crazy and it just shows how out of touch people are i think if there is i know very very few people who can do that and it's just i mean it's also just crazy to me that we have to do that to begin with you know that that's the belief that you should just marketing yourself. of the thirty four o.e.c.d.

nations the organization you know the thirty four richest nations in the world we are the only one that does this to our students in fact most of those most of those nations give students free college in denmark they pay two hundred dollars a month stipend to go to college where. ph d. same and i believe it's the same in finland norway sweden in germany you can get free college after you do a year of public service i mean what's wrong with america what you know it and why do conservatives like you want to hang on to this broken dysfunctional system that . dumps people like molly basically out on the street with a hundred thousand dollars in debt when she should be walking out with it with a degree in her hand looking for a job hired system that's almost four percent of g.d.p. is a drain on the rest of the economy one of the major problems how is that possible well i think there's a lot of your percentage u.d.p. it's a business but if it's if it's you know. my head is exploding i mean every other country in the world every other developed country in the world says we're going to

invest in our intellectual infrastructure what's wrong with doing that well i think one problem is that when you have high school graduates who lack the basic skills to succeed in college or business has been talking about a mandate to us that we're talking about that's the result of thirty years of attacking our public school system our i'm talking about is the attack on our college system i mean let's why don't want to go back to university california where it was before reagan took a meat axe to it but we're going to college for free where is the transparency and accountability barrier for origin for the state of california you know the whole silicon valley thing happened because caught california free college it drew the best in the brightest don't we want to be a nation of the best the brightest we're is the accountability for the officials who jacked up the price of tuition as their first record is rather than have some transparency on where that money is going that's molly do you think that this bubble is about to burst the student bubble you seem people are just about to walk away from or freak out or are great yeah i mean you know the last couple of months of school i started freaking out about it and if i had to find a job at

a big paint job and you know you can't we can't put them off any further you have to care for a parent you know i mean like it's just crazy. and you know we cal students starting at age ten that they have to go to college you know and then we stop i mean then we stop public education or saving. well we thank you very much for being an for sure thing. in other screw news so much for the separation of church and state all across america the radical right is on a mission to destroy our nation's public schools and turn our children to religious warriors so exactly how are they doing this and what are the consequences of this religious takeover and perhaps more importantly is there anything we can do about it joining me now is catherine stewart journalist and author of the book the good news club and stealth assault on america's children i thought it was a nice to be here thanks for joining us one of the c.e.o. for the good news quadrant one of their overall missions. child abandonment

fellowship which is a c.e.f. is the aim to. convert young children to a fundamentalist form of christianity and to equip them to witness to their peers and to recruit their peers to the club and they aim to do this in public schools and they're succeeding and the past ten years their presence in public schools has grown seven hundred twenty percent and there are currently over thirty four hundred good news plus clubs established in public elementary schools around the country they really aim to convert very young children it's remarkable how have recent supreme court decisions aided the radical right in in their mission. well the situation is due to the two thousand and one supreme court decision good news club versus milford central school in which the courts pushed free speech so far that the establishment clause of the constitution which has been eviscerated it

basically says that all religious religion is a form of free speech and therefore to exclude clubs. is to violate their free speech of. the problem i'm sorry the problem with this is that we know we all know that religion is not just speech there are two distinct clauses of the constitution the establishment clause and the free exercise clause that deal with religion and something other than speech yeah i was going to say we're talking lots of stablish what you say i wish i was is that you can you can reform. sure this talisman clause prohibits congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion and this is widely interpreted to mean government shall not endorse a form of religion for fun we have to remember we're talking it or find it we're talking about very young kids here we're talking about kids in the first years of their schooling five and six year old kids for them they can't make a distinction between something that happens in the school and is not endorsed by

the school and something that's been torched by the school for them if it happens in school it must be true so if an after school club comes into the school telling children that if they don't believe in a certain type of christianity they're going to go to hell children are going to think think that that's what the school wants them to believe they just have no way of making the distinction otherwise and that's how they do it some of these after school clubs that's right they do it through these after school clubs they start they make an attempt to start right after they do they start right after the bell rings they come in very balloons and trays of cupcakes and things like that big club look really sort of exciting and attractive and they see you know a set up as in classrooms if they can so at two o'clock you know the kids are being taught you know five plus five equals ten to twenty the kids are being taught if you don't believe in jesus you know you're going to go to hell and i heard one thing that concerns me about the good news club is that i heard so many stories

about it from parents whose children attend schools where good news clubs have recently been established or are established and i find that the children who attend the clubs because they start targeting their non-christian peers with what i can only describe as faith based bullying i also heard stories from parents who signed their kids up for the club and thought they were just going to go get a little you know nice religious education and it turned out the kids came home and said mom dad we don't go to the right kind of church so we can't get to heaven see the child. evangelism fellowship which is the group sponsoring the good news clubs they represent. they're in the fundamental strand of christianity and many activists who work for the good news clubs are quite confident that most people who call themselves christians including united now it is the wrong kind of a place good feelings roman catholics the list goes on are not really believe that they're not truly christian at all and there and i went to

a. i'm sorry we're we're out of time but so are you absolutely got the point and you've done some really reporting on this thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing it with us thank you so much for having me when thomas jefferson founded the university of virginia in vision free public education for all americans unfortunately with the recent attacks on education for both profiteers and evangelists jefferson must be rolling in his grave. growing up in science daily take why republicans need to start acting like reagan i'm going to save our economy . just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old she told the truth. i think i am going to get a sense that i was. pretty. yesterday

. i'm very proud of the world with its place. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for like sleep you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm trying hard welcome to the big picture.

the big. your take my take is your chance to send in your questions comments rants and observations about anything we talk about here on the big picture or during my radio show or first comment that i comes from an anonymous caller on our viewer rant why we have this is say about the corporate influence the media has our

society what i want to say was. i think that ever since the corporate billionaire takeover of our airwaves. for the last thirty years you know such as far m.p.c. a.b.c. c.n.n. and you name it ever since americans now have the best opinions money can buy which is why you know all these mindless people worship and they worship billionaires they worship donald trump and people like their you know anyway ok thanks i agree with you and it's a real problem and it's this is the this whole and it's not just the media by the way but but it really contract this back to nine hundred eighty two when ronald reagan decided to stop enforcing the sherman antitrust act and suddenly all these mediums that we had a nation full of medium sized companies and smaller companies including media

companies and then they started a glamour rating and now you've virtually all over ninety percent of all the media that people read newspapers magazines television radio owned by a handful of companies fewer than a dozen companies the next comment of the night comes from mary lou our tom hartman facebook page she asked why hasn't been ashen of media told us that the oil that would flow through the x.l. pipeline would be destined for foreign ports and not on land use listen i'm a cuban well here's the here's the truth here's what's really going on is that oil actually is destined for foreign ports that's why they want it there is right now in exile keystone pipeline he goes to missouri and indiana they refine it the midwest provides he has them for the united states they're trying to get it down to the gulf coast so that they can ship it to england mexico brazil and china harry reid had something to say about this. this is something that the republicans have raised as an issue to lower the price of oil. for the price of oil but because

of the contractual played for a long long time and under the way it's constructed now all the oil would be sold or will that we can't have that let me ask nicely elsewhere i need some other country. yeah there's the head of the senate saying the keystone x.l. pipeline is entirely for export and our final comment of the night comes from our facebook page as well wade had this reaction to my rant on rand on ron paul last night unless i show he said your skull i feel sorry for anyone who takes you seriously yours seriously well and paul has ruled through your motives please read a real book you buy is communist out it's own light ok well a get a dictionary learn how to spell and be. i just you know name calling and obscenities are like the last refuge of people who have no argument and i'm really sorry that you have no argument because as you know i enjoy debating people and having genuine arguments i've been debating conservatives for

years i've debated ron paul several times he's been on my radio show a number of times over the years and you know i totally disagree with his suggestion that we should do away with social security we should end our public education only people who can afford it should be able to put their kids through school that we should end medicare that that you know they're the hospital shouldn't have any obligation to take people in if they're if they're injured that all of those things are wrong so is wrong i disagree i think that we are our brother's keeper but that's ok i see many i remember we want to hear from you and from our viewers all over the world so if you'd like your comments and questions heard on this segment of big picture listen up. we want to know your to send us your comments by visiting the thom hartmann facebook page by a twitter at underscore her or in the chat room on the message boards or through the blog at heart and you can also leave a message on our ramp line at two two five three six fifty three zero six agree disagree sound off it's all welcome but remember that your comments may be used on

the near. east. is the good the bad in the very very cac is stodginess les ugly the good the american public even though congressional republicans are attacking president obama over high gas prices it appears the american public can see right through his lies the new national journal poll shows sixty six percent of americans believe rising gas prices are due to either manipulation of prices by large energy companies or tensions in the middle east the same survey shows more americans trust the president to make the right decisions to bring down gas prices than congress while misinformation often has far too much influence in our democracy and society it's nice to see that this time the american public has got it right the bad republican representative cliff stearns in a meeting with constituents in florida last month stearns told the audience that

america needs to sell off a statue of national parks despite stearns's call for a fire sale of national parks fact is that national parks generate a significant amount of wealth for both the federal treasury and from local businesses at the mention they also generate a large number of jobs america's national parks represent our nation's history stern's wants to help improve our economy maybe should stop things instead like maybe oil subsidies and the very very ugly multimillionaire k. street lobbyists grover norquist in an interview with daily show last night jon stewart as the multimillionaire lobbyist grover norquist of president reagan should be scorned for raising taxes during his presidency with no. records that. reagan raised taxes one of them seven times eight times and george russian and lost the battle of new york that was not on purpose i mean the reagan didn't want to raise taxes he kept raising that eighty two eighty three eighty five on the list you think i mean so would you have run somebody against him you know did the good news

is your route one he hadn't signed the pledge so while norquist wants to impeach president obama for raising taxes and he had some kludgy there president reagan gets a free pass just because he didn't sign norquist ridiculous pledge forcing lawmakers to respect the pledge before the constitution that's piri piri. so aside from a pet chimpanzee that starred with him in the film bedtime for bonzo that ronald reagan have the president obama doesn't have a track congress that cares about fixing the economy instead of one of cessed with making him a one term president. this week the united states senate will begin debate on

a highway transportation funding bill that will invest over one hundred billion dollars in rebuilding transferred across america and create two point eight million new jobs course like every single attempt in the past by president obama democrats to spend government money to spend stimulate the economy and put americans more americans back to work this transportation bill will have to get passed a republican filibuster in the senate we also have to get past a republican controlled house of representatives that's hell bent on pushing austerity on cutting government spending and has already helped lay off over six hundred thousand government workers since obama came into office and is far more interested in figuring out ways to move oil around the country quickly than to move actual people so the chances of the transportation bill passing through congress this year are slim and even if they do they'll be stripped down to bare minimum we have two trillion dollars in work that needs to be done to fix our roads bridges water systems sewage systems and power grid so the hundred billion that obama is

asking for is just a drop in the bucket and we have over twelve million americans unemployed so two point eight million new jobs is again just a drop in the bucket we need a lot more spending to really get our economy back on track we need enormous new government investments and here's the kicker republicans know that government spending is the best way to improve the economy why because they rubber stamp the massive increases in government spending for their icon ronald reagan to give the nation out of a terrible recession in the early one nine hundred eighty s. . during president reagan's first term in office he radically cut taxes on the rich and surprise the economy tanked this is unemployment is the unemployment rate during the reagan and first term of the reagan administration it was the worst recession since the great depression two years into his first term unemployment spiked above ten percent hitting almost eleven percent similarly following george w. bush's tax cuts for the rich president obama's first term was crippled by high unemployment

and tanking economy even worse than reagan's in terms of timing although unemployment under obama never hit as high a point as reagan's it lasted longer see it out here during the end of reagan's first four years in office the unemployment rate had dropped much quicker than it has under president obama's so why did reagan's economy improve so much faster than obama's the emperor answer is simple and predictable it was massive government spending with borrowed money with the help of a mixed congress democrats controlling the house republicans controlling the senate just like today only reversed reagan quickly expanded the size of government during his first term we've been new investments mostly in the military he increased federal spending by twelve percent this is the percentage of increase in federal spending. recession when businesses are hiring people and people aren't spending money and the government has to step up to be the employers and spenders of last resort to keep an economy from tanking reagan's economic advisers knew this

republicans in the senate knew this and democrats in the house knew this so they all work together to increase government spending and improve the economy and all that spending got the economy back on track which put people to work which increased tax collections which recovered much of the cost of the spending now fast forward to today despite we hear from the right wing echo chamber the size of government and federal spending under president obama has actually gone down. that's because unlike president reagan who had a close working relationship with democratic speaker of the house tip o'neill during the early eighty's and the two men were able to put the country ahead of politics president obama is forced to deal with a republican senate minority leader mitch mcconnell who famously said this. our top political priority over the next two years should be needed in a. second term so mcconnell put politics first and set out to crash the economy or at least keep it from improving in order to make obama a one term president aside from getting the stimulus passed every single effort to

pass more stimulus to increase government spending it's been either filibustered by republicans and senate or in the last year and a half outright ignored by republicans in control of the house of representatives the number of filibusters by republicans during president obama's first term broke records going all the way back to the george washington administration reagan did not have to deal with crazies like this at all and because of that since the government isn't properly playing its role as the employer and spender of last resort the economy isn't improving at the pace that it needs to the point here is this our economy desperately needs republicans to put politics aside and work with president obama and democrats to pass a common sense economic stimulus will put millions of americans back to work that doesn't mean republicans have to act like a socialist or even spend money like drunken sailors all that means is the republicans have to act like reagan and show the same respect to the office of the presidency the democrats gave reagan thirty years ago now there was

a should start acting like the party of reagan that they claim to be instead of acting like the party of crashing the economy to make obama a one term president that's it for the big picture tonight see tomorrow. for. the few minutes. past. the.

hour.