back of the loan show up at the real headlines with none of the mercy and i live in washington d.c. now tonight we're going to have our monday hangover panel i am going to talk taxes last buyer tax system is so complicated how software companies are lobbying to keep it difficult for you to pay up and the buffett rule then one cold joins us to discuss sanctions against iran are we forgetting history underestimating the possible global economic effects and it is stopping cyber spying weeks we're going to talk about the new effort to mobilize against cispa i'll ask what it really

takes to make an internet protest a success i'll have all that more for tonight including a dose of happy hour but first take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. right so president obama arrived in colombia this weekend for the summit of the americas to meet with more than thirty other heads of state and thanks to an embarrassing episode of a secret service before the president got there when it's free media is going crazy . not so secret service if you pay for those and presidential the shakedown the white house just wants to go away new fallout this morning on the prostitution scandal rocking the u.s. secret service president obama has made it clear there will be a thorough and rigorous investigation into an alleged sex scandal involving the secret service and the u.s. military secret service sex scandal the levin secret service agents and officers and five u.s. troops working with them they supposedly brought the prostitutes to this hotel in

the lead up to lovett agents now placed on administrative leave following bombshell accusations they solicited prostitutes at this time tell in part saying you colombia shocking new questions about the president's inner circle and the secret service agents entrusted with protecting his life this could have severely compromised the president's security around the room fighting with an agent for the field just pay for the worst scandal in secret service history. i know let's get a few things clear here is this episode and embarrassing one for the secret service obviously can we really be shocked a good mainstream media is going absolutely nuts over a story that involves the secret service and prostitutes in a foreign country well absolutely not right has all of the elements that a scandal of says press desires but the thing is i mean three medias going so incredibly overboard on this that they completely left out the reason the president is even there to begin with the summit of the americas and this year there's

a lot of talk about see if you think that back in two thousand and nine obama at that point was greeted as a rock stars the newly sworn in president that so many around the world had hoped it was the man who promised so much change but this here was a whole lot different for starters we saw the governments of mexico and colombia for the first time joining with the rest of the corps put pressure on obama criticize him for america's completely out of date policies on cuba and this is one of the other you could say broken promises of the obama administration we heard a lot of talk of resenting our policies that leave flipping the travel ban and now some lose of the meat on the right restrictions on academic religious or cultural groups traveling to cuba were lifted but still a long way to another topic that was big i perceive it was the drug war and its incredible failure some countries what is ours to call for all out legalization of all narcotics others just wanted to put the pressure on to point out yet again the drug war is not working as it is and needs to be reevaluated but perhaps the

biggest takeaway from the summit was that it seems like maybe we're seeing shift the maybe latin america central american countries want to be clear that if they have a concern with u.s. policies they're not going to be afraid to say it do you think you think that waning geopolitical influence a critique of our outdated faily policies would register even for a second of the mainstream media's radar when they cover the president's trip to colombia but of course not there's the secret service scandal so the news that actually bears any significance. they chose to miss. all right so it's only monday but there's a lot to talk about because the news doesn't stop over the weekend even though technically you might not have been here in the office and this weekend i was feeling that a lot of americans out there are busy doing their taxes and since taxes are due tomorrow on take the opportunity to discuss how miserable the entire process is and

some of the biggest debates over our tax code now into it has been lobbying to make sure that you can do your taxes in five minutes and for those of us using tax preparing software like ferber tax instead of an accountant should we be free from iras penalties and the buffett rule for a vote in the senate today but is the idea of taxing the rich going to go away if it fails to get ready for your monday hangover. particularly. all right here to discuss with me is matt welch editor in chief of reason magazine and eric thompson senior editor at the atlantic. hello gentlemen thank you for joining me. this is so much fun everybody let's talk about taxes right you actually posted some stats today decided to read for the audience there. the tax code and just about how miserable and complicated this is the tax code is now three point eight million words long for everybody you know over the last ten years they have

made about four thousand four hundred twenty eight changes to the tax code which equals out to about more than one a day and the results are some seven point six four billion hours of paperwork for americans so. why is there a tax code in our tax system so complicated our tax code is so complicated because we want to be complicated we're basically running a buffet and saying rather than have one person created a favor going to ask everybody what do you want and everybody has that thing if they want one person says ok the thing i want to tax code is protection if i buy a home what i want is some money if i have a kid or what i want is just some money in exchange for working because i'm low income on the basis on the merits of each of these individual things they might be good to have a tax good but what do you end up happening is you have a tax to the bloated because every single group once something in there that is there is and it's a very difficult to take it out because it's more important to that group to keep it in than it is for the broader country to take it out so you remember

a pay do you think if you think a birthday is a good way to. address this year he said we need to simplify the tax system which he said all the time in two thousand and eight on the campaign trail will you support a tax code is too complicated for everybody we also need targeted tax breaks for companies that are exporting the manufacturing jobs of the future with green technologies i mean for single working mothers he listed about six huge changes to the you know tinkerings with a tax or this happens every day it's the easiest thing easiest way to rework constituencies and it's the hardest thing to do right and so i don't know exactly it's the same as saying the buffet is too big here are two more entries and you know that's the way you know how do you really simplify the tax code. and keep everybody happy they still feel like they might at least maybe they don't want options and maybe they at least feel like the system is fair i mean people got spoiled because there are so many tax breaks and some loopholes they can take advantage of and we are spoiled i mean i guess and i don't know if that agrees my my guess is that it's the same with a production you basically have to say look

a lot of people are going to lose something if we simplify the tax code tax is going to go up for some people that are really privileged right now taxes are going to go down for some groups that may make us feel uncomfortable but if we're all in it together then we can sort of take on the heat is one but it's going to have to be bipartisan it's going to be long and messy and it's going to look a lot like deficit reduction and we saw what happened there the first thing you have to do is take care of the mortgage interest deduction which is the single largest adoption of the code and it affects most people who are rich enough to hold a house it's an upper middle class and title meant if you go after that which is something that a lot of people squawk about and if you get republicans and democrats which wouldn't you know it would increase the overall tax if you got rid of it you could say this is a demonstration project this is distorting the market it actually led to the housing bubble to some degree we're subsidizing mortgages in this country so let's go up to that as a demonstration project and then go after all the rest of them afterwards but of course there's not a lot of political courage in washington or anywhere else to say about it under things that we hear you know the most about see who is obviously the focus on the

income tax and so one of the things that you hear is that there are sixty percent of americans out there that don't even pay any income tax and it makes it seem like it's such an unfair system and so many people are really cheating it but then at the same time when you start factoring in state taxes local taxes that's where you see where lower income americans really do actually pay more taxes you know payroll taxes are kept for people who make more than one hundred thousand dollars they stop paying into that and also they are automatically called warren buffett is automatically qualify for medicare so as you turn sixty five regardless of his ability to pay for his own private health care so there's a lot of that half of the country doesn't pay and. federal income taxes and overall taxes because payroll tax is the same share of government revenue as income tax but that fifty percent eighty percent of the group makes less than thirty thousand dollars a year it's by far the vast majority of them are poor people who are getting what they call refundable tax breaks like earned income tax credit child care tax credit

is simply getting money from laws that were passed in one nine hundred seventy s. one nine hundred eighty s. one nine hundred ninety s. that we thought were good for low income working families and this is why we're forming the tax code is going to be very difficult because who wants to be that person who stands up and says low income families don't deserve this tax break well it's a lot i guess you could say easier and probably a lot more politically popular at the moment to say that the rich should pay more taxes right so let's talk about the buffett rule first i don't know if the boat has actually happened right before the show started but basically the senate is supposed to vote in the buffett rule today out of it was expected to die this slow quiet death there but the buffett rule seems simple it had a catchy name a catchy idea behind it that he should be paying more than a secretary does but if the buffett rule technically dies the senate does the is the idea that when there are two americans they still like this. my old colleague at the atlantic who is now a business josh green said to be one can only rule applied the buffett rule which

is if i die i will come back and only be stronger and the idea is that the buffett rule as a rule doesn't really matter that much what matters is that obama is running to raise taxes and i don't remember the last time a president ran on a campaign to raise taxes so we do something he has to beat the republicans at a political game so what he's doing is he's daring them to vote against a very small tax increase on a part of the country that americans don't have a lot of pity for so that when republicans do vote against the buffett rule he can run against that vote no that i think is with the buffett rule is about and not about any sort of particular important policy right now it's about also the cowardice to really run for raising taxes and defending the size. the cost of government which no one really still feels comfortable in doing for a full throated way because most americans don't really necessarily believe that we should pay twenty five percent of g.d.p. for ever if not more on government right so you say we can tax these millionaires in a way that is politically popular perhaps but think about it if they did spend this

much energy on making sure the cuts expired we wouldn't be having this conversation with a cave like this because americans perceived rightly or wrongly that the bush tax cut was not just for the rich it was for the broader middle class and they didn't want their taxes raised and democrats were too afraid and the president was too afraid to say you know sorry you need to have your taxes raised well the point is that nobody ever wants to have their taxes raised if aside from a few patriotic millionaires out there that are part of this movement but in general nobody really wants to pay more i want to move on to some other little technical stories that just kind of i think show a sign of the times for example so that stroller wrote this piece talking about into it there are a software developer they create all these you know tax repairing software is that you use on turbo tax and all these other websites so turns out that they spent nine million dollars lobbying since two thousand and eight against programs that could simplify your taxes because that's also one of the things that the president promised when he was still campaigning is that i'm going to make if the you can do your taxes in five minutes i think california tried

a program even federally they want to try a program where you just receive this return it's already a calculated for you and you basically sign it and send it away but into it is working against that they're lobbying against it here's an internal investor report that says our consumer tax business faces significant competition from the public sector where we face the risk of federal and state tax now authorities developing software or other systems to facilitate tax return preparation and electronic electronic filing at no charge to taxpayers i mean can you imagine the horror i mean would you say crazy like a story to me i think is you know i mean that's the editor of a libertarian magazine and this is truly one of those rare moments when the government might be able to do something more efficient. and in the private sector if we did simplify the tax system so that there was simply one page that you could just review and sign check off if you itemize deductions deductions then you were done five minutes that could be done but first to simplify the tax code then you could create one of these one page one hundred one page tax filers but it's an

issue to have the private sector is essentially acknowledge that given a few changes government could do something more efficient one of them but it's not profitable for them to make it easier and i mean corporatism is not a one party versus the other type of concept it works everywhere i'm more worried i mean i think that's bad if it's true i wasn't totally convinced by the story but i mean i assume the worst on everybody comes to taxes but i'm more concerned with the federal government now have incredible licensing requirements for people who file your taxes it's basically the h. and r block you know christmas tree bill so you have all these people small or people who have to file a lot of paperwork and and the barriers to entry for them becomes much more difficult and so they're doing a lot of taxes off the books so that they can remain competitive out there it's just crazy the whole thing is complicated right here because we didn't even get to this last little tidbit i want to bring out but also if you have somebody who's been counting file your taxes for you and there is some kind of a mistake on there the i.r.s. can waive some of those penalties for you if you use turbo tax or one of these other softwares there is no such thing it works and that you are in the past but

the rest of us don't get so you enjoy that kind of immunity and so i mean here we go if the time to head out with a little bit thanks for the great conversation. are we taking a quick break but coming up next he said i read it and then juan cole is going to be on the program right or wrong on the story behind sanctions and what we just cannot. get some closure see a story at the scene so. you understand it and the. other part of it and realize that everything is. local is a big. mystery

. you know there's a real headline. the problem with the mainstream media today is that they're completely disconnected from their viewers and from what actually matters to us and so that's why young people just don't watch t.v. if they want news they go online and read it and we're trying to take those stories that people actually care about and transfer them back in t.v. .

is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us. all right it's time for you said if i read it right take time to respond to my brilliance and engaging they were comments from facebook twitter and you do because you've got some to say i listen now first don't respond with your that watched our interview on big banks only working their way back into the shady lead shady lending practices which almost brought down the world economy jeff baldwin comments

on facebook the face ever learn or is that they just don't care or you know i think that it's probably a combination of both i don't i don't think of the things learned anything because nobody on wall street was ever actually held accountable for their practices no real trials no arrests just a little public shaving if you can even call it that and the regular regulations are put in place via doc frank well those have been weak to say the least and the american people on the other hand they've suffered plenty for the actions of the banks millions still looking for jobs and millions underwater on their mortgages and whether or not the banks actually care obviously i can't speak for all of wall street but i think that we've seen one report and interview and statement after another that highlights how far removed wall street bankers are from the rest of the country and the issues that most americans face next i want to share some of the feedback that we received from last friday's happy hour certainly a fun one commander sloan said are you finally they take a sip of that alleged martini the canadian dude commented on you tube now my big

question is that real booze that they have in those martini glasses and john lee dora tweeted out below to show love the show tonight finally got to see someone drink the martini andrew blake was great so more controversy around the martinis on happy hour with the plot thinking thinking as you guess last week appeared to be enjoying entering well we still can't tell you what's actually inside the houses but that would ruin all the for anyway. also want to respond finally to a viewer who wants to know where to send story ideas pavan who are not asked this question suppose i know of a possible story you guys might want to cover who can i get in touch with and we would love any stories or tips so if you guys do have something that you want to share with us feel free to email t. a producer at g. mail dot com that's it my rant this week but i'll be back with more later and week . after a meeting between iran and five un security council members in turkey over the

weekend iranian foreign minister said today that iran is ready to solve all nuclear disputes quote quickly and easily and yet another round of talks baghdad next month i once again the possibility of an external supply of enrich uranium is being discussed but the iranian foreign minister also urged for sanctions that have been put in place by the u.s. and other western countries to be lifted so we have to take a serious look at the economic policies or you could even call the economic warfare that's being waged against iran washington seems to think that sanctions are the key to holding off israel and getting iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions but if you look back at history sanctions really just lead to the opposite joining me to discuss is juan cole teacher and writer of history at the university of michigan and author of the blog informed comment very nice to have you on the show tonight now you just wrote a piece about this last week called by washington's iran policy could lead to global disaster and so i'm excited to hear your take because one of the things that

we hear often especially from republicans is that president obama has this policy of appeasement when it comes to iran and that's so dangerous for the world but when you look at this saying that it placed upon iran would you call that a policy of appeasement. oh no these are the most crippling sanctions that have been placed on any country since the case of iraq in the nineteen nineties it's no longer a matter of just sanctions i think the the the us is now engaged in a blockade of iranian petroleum it's trying to prevent iran from selling its major export what do you think that you know the chances are that iran my in this case basically start to agree to some of these other deals for example getting an external source of petroleum because i one hand you could say that maybe the sanctions will backfire iran won't listen but then if we look at the results from this last round of talks we're now they're saying maybe we could resolve this

quickly and easily according to the foreign minister you know what does that say there. if the iranians initially were enriching uranium to three point five percent that's to make fuel for nuclear reactors to make electricity they also have a small medical reactor that the u.s. actually gave them decades ago which however needs your rainy i'm enriched to almost twenty percent to produce the medical ice isotopes and when they started enriching to nearly twenty percent that set off alarm bells because people figure well it's not so far from twenty percent to ninety five percent and ninety five percent you can make one so but the iranians weren't making medical isotopes from that level of enrichment before recently and they had to do it because they they lost their external sources for those for that reactor so yes if

if the world would provide them with uranium suitable to make medical isotopes i'm sure that they would take that deal and if the if this is the big sticking point then that's fine with them but remember that the sanctions initially were put on to stop them from enriching together and that they wanted if you think that any sense that a sign of perhaps the sanctions are working in terms of trying to put pressure on iran. well the sanctions are putting enormous pressure on iran the iranian middle class is nearly disappearing people can't afford to travel anymore that the iranian currency is losing its value against the dollar it's bad times in iran because of u.s. sanctions and now they even want to try to start of the government of the funds coming in from the oil sales so there isn't any doubt that enormous pressure is

being put on iran but it can't have a total result you can't have the result of stopping their nuclear enrichment program altogether because that program is a guarantee from their point of view of future energy independence and we hear about energy independence all the time in america well that's what the iranians meant to. so what we what might we see then instead if the sanctions are not actually going to have an effect on iran's program of reaching irradiance if they can move towards energy independence as you said you know what are the adverse effects going to be on just the global economy. well the sanctions are being put on iran in order to get them to stop enriching uranium as i said because israel and the west are convinced that the enrichment program is dual use that at some point you audience will turn around and try to make a nuclear bomb the iranians deny this there is supreme leader has said the atom

bombs are tools of the devil they're not allowed in islam so i think one of the compromises that might come out would be if the iranians would cooperate with the united nations inspectors and they are cooperating to a large extent but the cooperation is not entirely satisfactory from the u.s. point of view if they if the iranians would open up more show the u.s. and its centrifuge design let them have more access to facilities they already have access to the nuclear facilities then i think that some compromise might might be achievable because what the americans really care about is that the iranians are not trying actively to make a nuclear weapon but in the meantime these sanctions are hurting the world economy because they are reducing the amount of petroleum on the market well let's talk about how long something like that can even last friday and you're right there is

this oil blockade first the law doesn't have everybody support or western european nations are on board but china india said no dice you know we need that iranian oil pan and south korea have also asked for a conceptions in that sense and you know do you think that saudi arabia can really make up for that supply. well there are a lot of oil experts who have profound doubt that the saudis can replace iranian petroleum iran is exporting well it had been exporting something on the order of two and a half million barrels a day this not obvious where you would get the supplies to replace that remember it's not just a matter of replacing the iranian petroleum but also world demand is increasing china's demand probably will increase about five percent this year and then older fields are declining so you not only have to replace the army and petroleum but you have to provide for new demand and you have to provide for old filled fields

declining it's it doesn't seem to me plausible to force iran to keep all or even most of its petroleum in the ground but you could keep them from exporting two or three hundred thousand barrels a day maybe more but then that's going to hurt greece it's going to hurt spain is going to hurt italy we've got a major financial and economic crisis in southern europe and there's a point at which you're going to have a choice of having the euro collapse and greece go down or of lightening up on the run now i just want to ask you right paper hats were we have a kind of a bad memory are we aren't so good at learning from our mistakes or learning from history is that what's the civically should we learn from history when it comes to the policy towards iran right now. well the thing to remember is that this is not the first time that the u.s. has been involved in an embargo of iranian petroleum the embargo now is

a financial one rather than a military one but in one nine hundred fifty one juran nationalized its petroleum it kicked out the what is now b.p. the anglo iranian oil company and as a result the british empire point a and embargoed iranian petroleum tried to convince nobody to buy it and then the us joined in under eisenhower and that embargo deeply harmed the iranian economy it caused labor strikes and caused crowd protests and weaken the prime minister and then the cia and the british intelligence on opportunity and they got up a plot to overthrow the elected prime minister of iran in his elected parliament and put the shah on the throne so that when you when you start something like thoroughgoing. embargoes against another nation it can draw you in because you

want the policy to be successful if you're afraid that the environment will slip in you'll lose kristie jew might be tempted into covert action or even a military attack as happened with with iraq so these deep sanctions profound economic sanctions or even embargoes are a slippery slope and they can lead to an involvement in the other country of a massive sort i want to thank you so much for joining us and i and you know it will see if things don't change it looks like there's only going to be more rounds and it's only going to get more difficult and i for have thanks. well just ahead and i really have the latest on the taliban's spring offensive in afghanistan and its anti cyber spying we are going to talk to tiffany chang about cispa and what makes a successful online protest.