well it's the middle of april and you know what that means tax day is almost here in the u.s. so pull out your tank books because uncle sam wants his share of your money we want to know what americans think about income tax. we are seeing a regime that is insurgency and if you thought the stand your ground law was a bit much there ready for that how about armed civilian militias patrolling the us mexico border with the blessing of lawmakers is this the best way to keep the border secure for four. and move over terminator there's a new robot in town and this one can run climb carry heavy loads and even stand attempts to knock it off balance it's a humanoid robot so would this be the warriors of the future.

it's monday april sixteenth five pm in washington d.c. i'm christine for are watching r.t. and as many of you are watching this there's a chance you're also working on your taxes tax day is tomorrow and especially for those of you who over the government money so they might not be a happy day still this year's tax day comes at a time when taxes and the tax system in general is expected to be front and center in the public debate especially as we near the twenty top election of two candidates for president who have a very different idea about what the tax code should look like and then there are those of you who have some ideas yourselves so we'll start there are you correspondent and i thought the church going to gives us a firsthand look at just what americans are thinking during this tax week. rejoined

america taxi is just around the corner every year americans of all walks of life spend an estimated five billion hours to make sure the meal in the gruesome people work on time today we want to find out if people are loving or hating the tax system in a country with a tax code that's over seventy thousand pages long what do you think about tax. you look nice and relaxed handing out here have you paid your taxes you know i believe my kind of get it for me to ask a tax the tax day what about it i mean are you paying your taxes surely always are you excited about tax. why would i be excited about you know some people are there. oh yeah i mean i pay it but you know i get a little money back but it's not the celebrate about you know it's just part of being in america i get in trouble. for not paying your taxes that you didn't know it's taxes. to me when i'm out i will of course we pay taxes that is if you could

you know not pay taxes and not get in trouble to be happy but. sure it's not a fair tax. loopholes i don't think you understand it's x. code i don't understand tax code i don't understand it's x. coding anybody gets it. look i want this job but i'm not going to tax. my not because. you think you're being too much. yes we are paying too much compared to those that have money are you celebrating tax day not celebrating tax day or year because we all have to pay taxes snow fun it's tax state are you excited i'm oblivious. man here i don't know if text is that what you're lying here to celebrate yet. people. change everybody knows it's going on with all three obviously there's like things going around it. like the rich people having to pay less and then they're taking

like more from the middle class that's not. they should cut the carrots rates for the more wealthy. they should be taxed more that would actually help the rest of us despite an ongoing recession those americans who do well paying jobs do seem to mind the system but the majority do want smaller taxes a simpler way of augusta it's a good government and for the rich to be more involved that if they're part of the draw of those in power will start to. see new york you know what i think i think it's always fun this time of year to hear some of the arguments against paying any taxes at the reform of slavery and paying taxes should be voluntary no matter what nearly everyone thinks changes to the system are needed here's a pure research survey taken at the end of two thousand and eleven about how people feel about the tax system fifty nine percent say so much is wrong with it congress should completely change it and thirty four percent say it works pretty well and

that congress should make minor changes so it's a good day to talk taxes and to help me do that i've got wayne allen root a two thousand and eight libertarian vice presidential nominee also author of the book the conscious of a libertarian empowering the citizen revolution with god guns gold and tax cuts he joins me now for more pay their way and let me get your take on the tax increase what do you think. well i'm a big fan of moving towards a model a lot more like the state where i live nevada in the state of california our neighboring state that has zero state of jack zero business tax zero. capital gains tax and zero inheritance tax and the sixty close properly tax is an american the result is for the last six decades we did number one in america for population growth so people are moving with their feet christin they will move to wherever the taxes are lowest and the vatican is the crawl over america with the lowest taxes and we've done well because it will break it down for me then i mean

how how do you how does your state about us support things like you know maintaining the roads and the school system and things like that yeah well you can't survive as a country without any taxes but income is not taxed business or personal and about it we have sales tax we so when you buy something you're paying a tax we've got to property tax when you own a property you're paying a tax and of course we've got gaming taxes we've even got legal medical marijuana legal prostitution the only state out of fifty states so we tax sin and people like that great then the rest of us pay lower taxes as a result i think that's the bottom for all of america and it is interesting when you look at it by state and also from the federal level for some reason way and it seems to me not quite a third rail politically speaking but to murky or complex to deal with i mean because the tax system is complicated and it's still not all balanced. and yet you know i put up the numbers that showed so many americans think that this needs to

change and yet it doesn't it just keeps sort of as it is what have you seen i mean you think that the whole country should just adopt the nevada plan and what do you think you've seen out there and you think is feasible to change well for me it's very simple first of all you're russia today and guess what russia and all the xover republics all have lower taxes in america they all of aflac low tax rate i believe on their quote. the number hopefully you'll know if i'm right but i've seen that russia has a twelve percent flat tax here in america we have a thirty five percent tax and obama claims that's low well i'm pretty good at math thirty five percent seems really high compared to twelve percent flat tax a matter of fact it's just about triple so if you look at all the xover republics you're talking about ex-communist countries all have which we can't percent at a twenty percent flat tax and america we've got thirty five percent plus fica taxes plus state taxes plus local local taxes plus property plus sales when he added up

we are actually overtaxed dramatically compared to russia and many of the xover republics why would we give that thirty five percent number even that thirty percent number on individuals on businesses it's very rare that people actually pay that much especially some of the higher income earners in this country there are loopholes there are so many things to be written off and you have a situation often when some of the largest growth in companies in this country actually get money back from the government don't even pay five per cent so that thirty percent mathematically yet it is greater than twelve percent but that's not really what's going on here well i'll tell you what i think that the hong kong model is perfect for america that's the perfect bottle's far as i'm concerned is hong kong is a fifteen percent flat tax if you're allowed to deductions and that's it and that is mortgage deduction up to a million dollars and your whole and charitable deductions the capital gains tax is zero the result is hong kong is the most prosperous and booming economy in the

entire world at only a three point five percent unemployment rate while here in america christine the actual unemployment rate they're quoting eight point three percent the reality is if you use the same stats we used for the last century like we did say the great depression one hundred twenty nine our unemployment is really about eighteen percent in the united states right now so to me hard call is perfect if you keep it simple it's flat everyone pays the same amount. you're allowed to simple basic the duchesse that's the way i would like to go all right so you know n found ways lot of people definitely agree with you we hear president obama especially recently going around talking about finding a tax rate and keeping it making it so for example warren buffett pays the same tax rate as his secretary or people who make a lot less and then let's hear a small portion of his speech and then we'll talk about his ideas a good. many millionaires do pay their fair share some think advantage of loopholes

shelters that let them get away with paying no income taxes whatsoever so it's all perfectly legal under the system that we currently have. you for that my friend warren buffett pays a lower tax rate than a secretary. because he's the one who's been pointing out and saying we should fix all right so we've heard this before and certainly we've been following the u.s. senate today they're sort of they've put forth a vote on this you know as it's come to be named or probably won't pass in front of it but this is going to be a topic from now until november what about this argument. kind of along the lines of a flat tax that somebody that makes a million dollars pays the same somebody makes forty thousand dollars well listen the buffett tax a horrible argument it's a jobs killer will never pass the senate even though democrats control the senate the same reason that obama's budget last recently i'm sure you know that one hundred forty four to nothing in the united states congress and the reason it lost

by that by that score is democrats voted against it those who were willing to vote so at the end result is christine that the buffett tax would kill jobs because capital gains a whole separate category of your earned income capital gains is the money you have left after you've already paid taxes on your earned income and all you'd be doing is hurting people who invest in businesses stocks bonds municipal bonds all the things that help america grow real estate commercial real estate you want people risking their money investing in those things and the payoff should be the lowest tax rate possible so i'm on the polar opposite side of barack obama like i said uncle flat rate are earned income but zero income tax on capital gains and that's why did country so prosperous we're going in the wrong direction i'm not as rich as any of these big shots i'm not warren buffett i'm not and i'm not mitt romney god bless him here's my theory christine yours i write some it up if they make an extra

two hundred million and someone else makes an extra twenty million that someone else with lower taxes makes two hundred thousand likely two thousand i'm happy all i care about is my extra two thousand i'm not worried about whether they make twenty million god bless. that's what makes america great and just last question wayne i mean you're kind of breaking it down pretty simply but this again is a problem that has not been dealt with it's a system that has not been changed what do you think is the reason that this is sort of an untouchable issue the reason is pretty simple it was a political party about two years ago and i was standing in front of me was one of the most powerful tax attorneys in the united states of america and i told him i wanted a simple flat tax. i looked at me and said you do realise that will never happen you could never win it's really why he said because i've got the most powerful clients in the united states who will never allow it they love it the way it is look at for two reasons number one the clients love it because they get carve outs

based on the contributions they made and so their rates are lower than yours wait and second of all congress loves it as long as rates are high and you can do special for eight years for special interest they'll keep getting gigantic checks that maybe make it fair and simple and flat for everyone no one's going to write a check to their congressman to try get exemption or exception for themselves and that was probably the best answer i've ever gotten why this battle i'll keep on doing the day i die probably will never win i think i think those are some really interesting points there i think you're right that a lot of people do use some of those loopholes to do favors certainly here in washington we know about that revolving door that exists when alan root two thousand and libertarian vice presidential nominee and the author of the conscious of a libertarian and powering the citizen revolution with god guns and tax cuts thanks so much thank you christine oh forget the website it's root for america dot com that's what i do every day root for america all right and still ahead here on r.t.

taking the law into their own hands arizona lawmakers believe funding arms the billion less along the us mexico border could stop illegal immigration so is this a smart way to secure the borders or a free pass for vigilante justice some answers in a minute. just put a picture of me when i was like no years old i didn't tell the truth. it says and i meant to get a sense that i was driving here and her. letters coming yesterday. i'm very proud of the role that she was fully.

loaded to the counseling i'm lauren was for. the. love of the aloneness so there is a real headline with none of them are the problem with the mainstream media today is that they're completely disconnected from the viewers and what actually matters to those viewers and so that's like young people just don't watch t.v. anymore if they want news they go online and read it but we're trying to take those stories that people actually care about and transfer them back in t.v.

. well the supreme court this month will hear arguments for and against arizona's so-called show me your papers law also known as ten seventy and in the meantime the state has been putting together. more tough anti illegal immigration laws the state senate has passed a bill there which funds and sanctions an armed civilian militia with a distinct duty of patrolling the border for immigrants and smugglers as some living near the us mexico border say because women is simply not addressing their security concerns so it's their duty to take action into their own hands the critics still fear that the senate bill and eighty three could give vigilantes a free pass to take the law into their own hands argues ramona lindo has the story . the line dividing arizona new mexico is closely watched by the u.s. border patrol armed with military equipment federal agents attend to keep the peace

but for some living in the scenic desert region there is no peace here what we are seeing on the arizona border is an insurgency. the first threat of cartel violence spilling over from mexico has led to a proposal for a new border militia here along the us mexico border it's one of the most heavily fortified anywhere in the world haven't so that the obama administration has plenty of federal dollars in order to help secure the border but to some people in arizona that still isn't enough the proposed special missions unit would allow foreign volunteers to pursue and arrest people they suspect to be smugglers or undocumented immigrants very soon as the state has taken control of its own destiny whether or not the federal government recently has the right but many others in arizona question the purpose of the special missions unit and how it will be held

accountable not only will volunteers be allowed to pursue suspected criminals they would also be afforded the same community as law enforcement and how can we interpret that anyway other than that they are deputizing vigilante some people living near the international crossing including reporter pendergraph see the proposal as political pandering to conservative crowds this looks to be like the station sanctioning the minuteman project from arkansas five to double six and to me that the cap a scary prospect the minutemen citizens patrol at it's high consisted of thousands who vowed to shut down the border you've had a couple of ranchers and several law enforcement officers murdered by illegal aliens minimum founder jim gilchrist spearheaded the movement many accuse the vigilante is. he admits that his call to guard the border attracted extremist elements but still hopes other states follow arizona's militia proposal it tracks community involvement and lets citizens who really don't want to be police officers

or official badge carrying gun toting members of law enforcement to participate in that process i would love to do something like that the bill's author state senator sylvia allen also claims that all eastern terrorists are teaming up with drug smugglers the u.s. government says not a single person who had some unlawfully crossed the southwest border has been charged with terrorism i don't think that we should take these people that are very angry over this big nebulous threat of illegal immigration cartels and give them weapons advocates for the special missions unit believe they will attract former service members who already have weapons and surveillance experience we are proceeding from a premise it's confidence that we know what we're doing and we know how to secure our borders arizona has been a testing ground for talks and see immigrant legislation later adopted elsewhere with this bill just steps away from becoming law arm volunteer militia may soon be

a regular feature along the entire southern border of the us oh in the gallows there is own a ramon delenda party so there are many layers to the story many arguments given on all sides of the question how to better patrol the border i want to bring in our to correspond are among the never put that report together for us ramon talk to me a little bit more about this proposed bill nearly two million dollars from arizona general fund a lot of money that could be used that will be used to pay volunteers a stipend is that what's going on. that's right christine said bill ten eighty three guarantees more than a million and a half dollars from state funds to be used for training of these volunteers now each bunch here would receive one hundred dollars for every day that they go to training now many people including the sheriff's throughout the state of arizona and many of the ranchers who have called out to the federal government for help

along the border to help secure the border have spoken out against this bill which is surprising to many because they've been so outspoken as far as wanting more security at the border they say that these funds could be better used in other forms no they definitely want more. along the border but they are still questioning as to whether this border militias the true answer as for securing the border can certainly and one of the main reasons given especially when as the ten seventy was in the works was you know crime a lot of people in favor of tougher immigration laws they point to cases of people being killed along the border american citizens i know there's one case in particular that's never been solved but it seems to be the general consensus that that person was probably killed by an illegal immigrant even though there's no evidence but then you know there's the other side of this from now on there is the case of the arizona minute now

a woman shawna forde who was convicted of killing two people one of them a nine year old girl who pleaded with her not to shoot before she did i guess for thought she was going to find drugs in this home and instead shot the little girl and her father who are u.s. citizens so you have this on both sides that talk a little bit about the arguments going into these new bodies that are kind of formulating here. oh that's right i mean there's a definite political angle to this now politicians have instilled this sense of fear amongst their voters especially their conservative voters there in arizona this fear that there will be spillover violence from cartels that smugglers will be tearing through their lands now arizona is definitely a very common place for smugglers to be coming into the country but in many cases politicians and others people who have an interest in this issue do overplayed the problems of crime along the border federal statistics have time and time again

shown that the border region is very safe and then you bring up the issue of minute men who in the past have taken the law into their own hands and you know in the case of missing out florida's have actually killed a little girl now this is one of those cases that really brings up a strong concerns as far as you know the accountability of a civilian patrol which according to this law the way that is written right now and these people the civilians who are not law enforcement would have the same immunity that a police officer or a sheriff's deputy would have. the timing of this is really interesting because this is a problem that in many people's eyes is the nature problem is one of the most major problems but when you look at the numbers you know president obama has actually been responsible for deporting more illegal immigrants than any president in recent history and we're also seeing people voluntarily leave the united states by some

numbers more people leaving them coming in illegally so. what the case that some of these people are making in terms of the urgency of these new mines. well that's right there is still a very strong sentiment among certain groups in the southwest not just in arizona but also in texas and here in california that the federal government is not doing enough to crack down or seal the border as as they would like to see now the evidence so far suggests quite the opposite as you said president obama has deported more people than anybody else you know the department of homeland security has sent army troops down to the border there in arizona and sent national guard troops but in many ways politicians make a career out of saying that the border is just not safe enough i mean we heard john mccain you know go from an immigration reform are to saying that he wanted more than six thousand national guard troops along the arizona border so it seems like the federal government is temporarily spending quite

a bit of money down there along the border but bringing up the issue is is a very wins it's a win win situation for politicians who are trying to get a game favor with their conservative voter base and certainly you know you and i remind both worked in san diego there's a lot of similar issues a lot of similar discussions being out there and certainly it's hard to argue with the fact that arizona certainly ground zero for all of these are stringent laws are to court on among going to thank so much. also villian militias arm themselves to defend the u.s. borders there's another mildly intimidating menace currently under development by the u.s. department of defense of advanced research projects agency all right so do something for me think back way back about twenty years to the days when robocop and the terminator two came out and the human cyborg version of arnold schwarzenegger filled the movie screens a future with robots that seemed so realistic and human like but also was

a little bit too fantastic to imagine well that distant future might be closer than you would guess. this is cut minute to leg of a humanoid robot that can do it all he can walk up stairs and run on a treadmill found a human can and has all the physical dexterity of its organic creators yet expresses none of the fat fatigue a normal human work while running and that's not all this bad boy can do it can climb carry heavy loads do push ups crawl and even dollars itself to withstand heavy kicks and attempts to knock it over and well it can do all of this during exposure to chemical warfare agents of all this isn't creepy enough for humanoid robot can actually and imitates wedding using temperature and humidity controls our houses are those super robot won't be hitting the battlefields in the near future however it does add a very complex layer to the direction war has taken in recent decades this is part

of the central discussion as we know war has transformed throughout the years gone are the days of soldiers fighting in the trenches for the last decade there's been a public debate over the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to kill enemy combatant and now possibly sooner than any of us imagined we could be sending humanoids out there to do our dirty work taking lives but risking none of our own and while i can i guarantee how soon or whether this will happen i can promise you this when and if it does there will be a lot of debate. this course and even criticism over whether this type of warfare is necessary. well the wait is nearly over wiki leaks was lower julian assad is coming to archie tomorrow his new talk show will feature interviews with powerful people from around the globe argue correspondent laura smith talk for the fans about the new show. his suicide and enemy combatant a traitor getting into bed with the kremlin and so on and interviewing.

terrible radicals. but i think that this is it's a pretty trivial kind of attack on character when you were choosing the guests what were your criteria so that is the single biggest criterion suppose we come up short so those are. people you normally don't give orders could any of the guests that you have got do you think the pair were in a mainstream t.v. network some good some couldn't because some have. quite a few haven't. what do you say to say is that the majority of what they had said to me they could not say or the mainstream to network that is not just because it's the censorship of the networks it's because my style of interaction as someone who has been interviewed by the media million times so i

understand the science side of it and so i wanted something to look at the purpose of the dips in the situations that they had so a way of. pulling out their scoring about this situation from their own spirit and something that would. you know make them cross and in dealing with me. they understand that they're not to see you with a hose at the ceiling of the un with someone who's been very trying dangerous and difficult for those situations so they can speak to what degree i think ones. that aren't this should be interesting i know a lot of people have been curious and waiting for the show so we'll be keeping our eyes open for that tomorrow that was our correspondent laura smith reporting and for us here at the news this hour that's going to do it but be sure to stick around the alona show is coming up at the top of the hour on tonight's version of the monday hangover.