i'm sam sacks in for tom hartman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. texas may soon be sending one of the most radical tea partiers in america to washington d.c. a guy named ted cruz but besides crazy conspiracy theories about big government what are the real consequences of another wacky tea partier in washington the answer in just a moment. also when the clock strikes midnight tonight the united states post office will default on billions of dollars it goes to the treasury department by republicans to thank for this is stuart default are we witnessing the death of this

is stuart institution and later first he took on big sugar now he's taking on big baby formula should new york city mayor michael bloomberg and the rest of the government be trying to regulate the breast feeding habits of women i think so a debate coming up later in the show. and we begin tonight with the state of texas which is poised to send one of the most radical tea party politicians in america to the united states senate on tuesday the guy on the left here ted cruz the former solicitor general of texas defeated the guy on the right stablish republican candidate lieutenant governor david do hearst for the republican party's nominee nomination for the u.s. senate and given how red of a state texas is cruz is virtually guaranteed to go on and win the general election in no. bever cruz was once

a long shot in the race but the his victory was eased carried to victory by the astroturf in tea party despite his opponent outspending him and picking up an endorsement from texas governor rick perry so if there was ever a race there was ever a single race in which voters had to choose between the lesser of two evils a tea party candidate on one side and a rick perry endorsed tenet on the other side and this is that and unfortunately the lesser of two evils lost this proves that the tea party isn't going anywhere at least as long as there billionaire overlords are hanging around so who is ted cruz well as the center for american progress details cruz has gone on record to warn us all that george soros is leading the united nations conspiracy to outlaw golf courses around the world i'm not joking go to his website ted cruz dot org where he writes quote agenda twenty one which is what the nefarious plot is officially called attempts to abolish unsustainable environments including golf courses as

a six handicap or i know golf was in danger trust me it's not ok i'm a fourteen handicapper but cruz still thinks george soros is trying to outlaw golf cruz also believes just like rick perry that social security is a ponzi scheme he believes that states should be able to overturn federal law and idea that pretty much ignited the civil war whose is also a ranting islamophobia one of those guys who's running around yelling about the dangers of sharia law and he'll soon be the lone star state's next united states senator congratulations texas but really there's a bigger picture here to cruz's electoral victory last night. with the election of yet another extremists anti-government politician the push to radically remake america continues as a new report by people for the american way exposes says the tea party swept into power in two thousand and ten a radical privatization agenda has been carried out ripping what used to be part of

the commons things like schools prisons public utilities and even parking meters out of the hands of we the people and sell them off to private for profit corporations as the report warns quote the combination of state and local budget crises in the two thousand and ten election of anti-government ideologues in many states has left taxpayers and communities increasingly vulnerable to predatory privatization of government services and public infrastructure privatization can bring disastrous long term const consequences for american families and taxpayers as well as you know bad stuff for the democratic process. and with more electoral victories for the tea party like what happened last night and what happened in indiana a few months ago when this privatization train pushes forward full steam ahead much to the detriment of us all for more on this peter mcgovern joins me now he's the senior fellow at people for the american way peter welcome but welcome to you. so

let's define some terms here ok what is privatization and you know one of the commons generally the privatization is. an effort to sell off public assets or to turn private to turn government services over to the private sector it takes the form of selling things like parks and bridges and leasing highways to private industry to things like school privatization and privatization of prisons so i mentioned a few examples were some the most egregious examples of the sort of privatization agenda well one of the biggest ones is the privatization of prisons there's a tremendous push by a number of republican governors too and legislators to privatized more and more state prisons but the claim is always that the private industry can magically do things better and cheaper all the time and it's just not true that the argument here is this will save taxpayers money if we just get it out of the hands of government do it over the free market or corporations does not hold any water you

know and the data is very clear arizona is one of the worst states on this they've been pushing more and more privatization of prisons but in two thousand and nine and two thousand and ten the privatized presence in the state cost millions dollars more than the ones that were run by the state department of corrections and they didn't even take the sickest and most tyrus prisoners so how did the legislature respond they put forward a bill to make it to stop collecting data so you could evaluate the private prisons i mean it's a shame less yes but i didn't let on that example of private prisons not only is it a scam to say that it's going to save us money because it's not going to save us money it's also extremely dangerous to our society here we are injecting the profit . of walking people up and i think. in florida the deal that was trying to be worked out was we'll sell you the state will sell the c.c.a. or whichever who is running it or prisons and we'll make a deal with you we'll make sure that ninety percent of its spilled ninety percent of the time which means that we have to throw more people in prison just to abide

by the deal that we made with the that was this proposal actually they came from that person corporation they said to forty eight states we'll take more of your presence off your hands if you will guarantee us that you'll keep them ninety percent full so you have this private profit making incentive that is dictating to the government arrest more people put them in jail longer and we'll provide them less services because our bottom line is our bottom line it's not taking care of prisoners it's maximizing our profit which is probably why there isn't any movement on drug reform any movement on immigration reform or anything like that because we've turned a service that used to be part of the commons into a for profit service there is this sort of death spiral of legal corruption that happens in prison privatization and education which is that you get come very profitable companies spend lots of money to elect legislators those legislators write laws that make those companies even more profitable and they have more money to feed back into the election well these legislators were talking mostly extremist tea party anti-government legislators but who where are they getting their workers

from who's kind of behind that effort i mean i think there's a couple things there is there's an ideological agenda at the center of government ideologues that come from right wing foundations you know that ideological campaign of privatized education has been going on for decades but that's now got the real real force of corporate america behind it not only with companies directly but companies working through groups like the american legislative exchange council which is sort of a matchmaker between closer and amount of ideas are already willing to do their bidding yeah i mean people are actually finally talking about the american legislative exchange council which is a pretty good deal. milton friedman often talked about. and you know he was he's big on about privatization and he often talked about how to get this agenda cross to really get into privatization you need a crisis i mean he openly talked about this. he found a crisis in chile when pinochet was took over and put in this radical privatization

down their agenda down there then we climbed writes about the stuff in her book the shock and that's what she calls it the shock doctrine so here we have a crisis that was created you know by wall street by a number of issues in two thousand it just thirty seconds left are we seeing the shock doctrine being played out right now in america through this province and i think you're going to see in the shock doctrine not only are we seeing public assets and public services turned over to the private sector sometimes in seventy five year contracts so the current tea party folks who are others are binding their print you know successors for decades to come we're also seeing the effort to destroy middle class jobs in the public sector and the story public sector unions have all part of the package scary times to recovery thanks a lot for coming on to the goodwill of the people for the american way thanks to the things. devouring of our commons by for profit corporations has often been a topic on the show here's tom's take on the issue. there's a story about all of this the boston common is probably the most famous sixteen thirty four fifty acres were set aside in downtown boston for grazing within ten

years what happened was they stopped using it for grazing and it became basically a public park because it was overgrazed because you know the local people who had had cattle and sheep would just bring as many as they could because hey it was free and it eventually got wiped out this this or this situation whatever you want to call this this has been described by most recently by garrett harding nine hundred sixty three in his book the tragedy of the commons or as an article for science magazine back in eighteen thirty three william forrester lloyd talked about this and in cities we look at the. greek author of the the history of the papilloma and war if i'm pronouncing that right i'm sure i'm not in any case he he described his error as i and rand dave ots which is basically with these people are and this isn't for ten b c twenty five twenty twenty four hundred years

ago they devote a very small fraction of time to the consideration of any public option object but most of it to the prosecution of their own objects meanwhile each fancies that no harm will come to his neglect. that it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that and so the common cause imperceptibly this decays that this is if this is over two thousand years ago we have it this is and keep in mind it was the you know democracy comes from day most which is greek i mean the greeks invented the concept of democracy of the commons and we're seeing this now being systematically demit dismantled and you look at the commons that can be converted into profit for example roads forests parking meters subways water sewage fire and police of all of these by the way have been subject to proposals by conservatives or objectivists or libertarians that they be privatized schools the government itself like the state of michigan as i was just talking was about where

the governor comes in and says a you know we're going to just throw out the city council and take over the city about an hour and a guy working for me is going to do medicare they want to privatized medicare hey there's a lot of money to be made there social security two point six trillion dollars trust fund let's stand that off to our to the banks on wall street's two and a half trillion dollars our military we've you know we have as many private soldiers now in iraq and afghanistan as we have public and they cost us a whole lot more but somebody is making some money our parks are museums are zoos our libraries are playgrounds are sidewalks our courts our postal service our beaches even our like sions have been privatized with these electronic voting machines that are owned by private corporations and now our vote is being honored in private it's in the sane and it's time for us to take our nation and our commons back. after the break the united states post office is two hundred thirty seven years old older than the united states itself but thanks to republicans the storied

institution could be coming to an end what happens at midnight tonight will the post office fall victim to the right's war on labor. download the official ati application to cell phone choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorites from alzheimer's now t.v. is not required to watch on t.v. all you need is your mobile device to watch on t.v. any time any. wealthy british style. that's not on the right.

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so here's some trivia does anyone know what happened in america on july twenty sixth seven hundred seventy five here's a hint it was a windows day and it was a year before the declaration of independence was signed and he won on that day the united states post office was great was created thanks to benjamin franklin who would go on to serve as the nation's very first postmaster general the post office is an institution that predates the united states of america itself more than two hundred thirty seven years old but if republicans succeed in finishing off what they've started and the post office may not live to see its two hundred thirty eighth birthday that's because of midnight tonight the post office is it is expected to default for the first time in its history will be unable to pay five point five billion dollars it owes to the treasury this default the fault will not

have any immediate effects on day to day operations of the postal service but it highlights the financial troubles that the institution is in and those problems are almost entirely thanks to republicans rewind back to two thousand and six that year republicans in congress passed a poison pill piece of legislation known as the postal accountability and hansen act president george w. bush enthusiastically signed it into law so what did the postal accountability and enhancement act do well it basically forced the post office to prefund retiree health benefits seventy five years out in the future basically funding benefits for future employees who aren't even born yet. the postal service has to do this by giving the treasury five point five billion dollars every single year if that sounds and reasonable and crazy it's because it is unreasonable and crazy it's a requirement that no business or any government agency has ever had to comply with

ever and it's sucking five point five billion dollars worth of revenue out of the post office every single year made worse by the recession and declining paper mail and it's the reason why the post office is going bankrupt today and looking into closing down post offices laying off workers and cutting down delivery service so why the hell would anyone think this law was a good idea well maybe does something do with the back of the post office employees hundreds of thousands of unionized workers and republicans aren't the biggest fans of unions so if you kill the post office you also kill major unions like the american postal workers union the national association of letter carriers the national postal mail handlers union which might explain why republican congressman darrell issa who supported the postal accountability to have spent back in two thousand and six is today arguing that the post office is in crisis and introducing legislation to force the post office to layoff hundreds of thousands of unionized

workers during a recession. so is that what's really going on here is the post office just the latest casualty in the right's war on labor joining me now in the studio is clipped guppy president the american postal workers union and from new york josh eidelson journalist contributor to the law and in these times and a former labor organization organizer sees me josh cliff welcome the show thank you thanks for coming on thank you so cliff i want to start with you you know i suggest in the set up in my right is that's what's is that what's going on here is this part of the war on labor it's vastly the war on labor and war on government you know you have individuals in congress who want to destroy government smaller and smaller government now if you understand fully what happened in two thousand and six not only did they put this honoris bill to the postal service basically to help fund their bridges to nowhere basically that's what happens with the cash when it gets turned over to congress they also put in that same law that you could not pass the cost of this on to the right makers in other words for seven since one thousand

nine hundred seventy the postal service will make a penalty yes it's the if you can't pass the rates on the postal service to the customers you're going to lose five point five billion dollars a year because the post office is nonprofit organization since one nine hundred seventy. the postal service rates rates have gone up far less than an inflation if you look back when post newspapers were nickel post it was a nickel when newspapers were twenty five cents the postage was twenty five cents today postage is forty five cents were newspapers a dollar to have a zero to read and so so we've stayed well below inflation and in the employees wages and benefits have stayed right with inflation that's almost ideal in any situation but somehow they said this is not working you guys are have eighty five percent public approval we have twelve percent so we're going to destroy you and yeah and josh only bring you in here to me the congressman there lies that when he

introduces legislation that basically hinges on when the but if the post office defaults on its pavement to the treasury then we can move and break union contracts and lay off hundreds of thousands of workers doesn't that tip the hand of what what they're actually doing. absolutely this is the same thing we see in michigan with the emergency manager law it's the same thing we see with these right wing parent trigger laws and schools it's this right wing fad where you say if there's a crisis whether it was created by republicans or by someone else if there's a crisis the solution is concentrate power in the hands of one person get unions out of the way get all their forces and politics out of the way and then make someone feigns style come in and decide what to do and they'll somehow fix it and absolutely this is darryl eissa who supported postal accountability and handsome in act saying now that anything to release this extreme free funding mandate would be a bail out and saying that if we keep saturday service it's the equivalent of

bringing back the pony express and that the only solution is to allow him to pass this law which is then creates this extra political force that can override union contracts can override the postal management decisions and downsize the postal service it's as though they passed this law in two thousand and six waited for their opportunity to pounce and now they're pouncing so the post office is clearly in a crisis but where would it be if this law was never passed this law had passed and it stayed in the same routine if they'd been in before for this post office raised rates based on future costs and it stayed below inflation but they'd raise it one year they'd be in the black one year to be back black or basically even the second year the third year they'd be in the red and they'd have to raise rates that's where we would be in if there was cost the rates would be in there you know europe you know with the. everyone says so efficient everything germany a much smaller country postage rates are seventy eight cents which are seventy

eight cents for everybody these big companies don't get discounts on everything up else like that and you know if we had seventy eight cents stamps here in america you would have a crisis you know you wouldn't have a crisis if everyone paid forty five cent. the postal service to be rolling in money and that's the issue because the people like darryl i so want to break up the postal service and let the profitable parts be done by somebody who could make lots of money privatized the post office and then leave the parts that is not profitable to the government most people don't even understand that we deliver as the postal service twenty percent of fed ex and u.p.s. mail and we do that because we it's not profitable for them to take the mail in this of these areas so they get the money saturday delivery you guys pick up the slack there because i would not know that but just in the rule areas are the only ones who take trucks out there so they go they get take the money in the mail over the counter look at it say fine we take this amount of money and they get to the expensive part delivering it here it is postal service you do it and that's what

would happen in the in the ice a world of give you know the postal service would be left with doing the costly things that no one else wants to do yet and it makes no sense just like josh isn't insane to even be talking about laying off hundreds of thousands of workers and in a recession that we're in. absolutely i mean if a martian arrived and looked at this they might say you have this public good where you serve one hundred fifty one million addresses you bind the country together you go places that are inefficient you create hundreds of thousands of jobs maybe they'll be a political debate about how much public subsidy there should be to support the postal service instead there is no subsidy the postal service even the socialist senator isn't proposing a public subsidy the postal service the entire debate is about what we should let the postal service do to get out of the red in the debate is taking place between conservatives who want a mix of relief and cuts and the far right that wants to bring in emergency

managers and set the stage to gently privatizing cliff thirty seconds is there something our viewers is there a piece of legislation or something they can do at home to to do i think we just need to encourage. the congress to do what they need to be doing and do their job that's what the congress is not doing that's the whole problem we have in america today that's what the post office problem is just make the whole the congress accountable and do their jobs all right good good point. josh eidelson thank you both for coming on thank you are pretty it's pretty obvious the post-office problems are thanks to this poison pill legislation we just talked about but this isn't the only poison pill republicans have shoved down the throat of an american institution here's tom explaining more. really it's not just about the complete privatization of mail delivery of america but also an extension of the war on unions when when for right wingers but that's not the only poison pill passed by bush and the republican congress is taking effect today so too was the medicare

prescription drug improvement modernization act of two thousand and three which created medicare part d. we should a is wreaking havoc on the medicare program as a whole that poison pill was jammed through congress by republican congressman billy tauzin who right after the passage took a two million dollars a year job with big pharma is main lobbying group. why did bill that big pharma like tauzin and his poison pills so much because the pill prevents the federal government from negotiating for lower prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry have means drug drug companies can jack up the price of their medication for medicare recipients and the government can't do a damn thing about it except foot the bill for the overpriced medication it was essentially a massive giveaway to drug companies for which talent was well overworked and a poison pill for the long term fiscal stability of the medicare program the bill came with a price tag of nearly four hundred billion dollars and now one republican demanded

that it be paid for it would just go right on to medicare's balance sheet the medicare chief actuary at the time a guy named richard foster knew that the poison pill law was far more expensive than four hundred billion dollars he knew it was more than five hundred billion dollars even but he was told by medicare boss tom scully to keep the real price of it under wraps if he wanted to keep his job in the bush administration after the bill passed tom scully also went on to be a big time lobbyist with big pharma was one of the most corrupt deals to come out of congress since warren harding was president but the media completely ignored it and now almost a decade later with medicare having to pay more far more for britain for prescription drugs than the pentagon or kaiser permanente for example republicans are yelling and screaming the program is going bankrupt and needs to be privatized it was the crown jewel in paul ryan's budget plan this year replace medicare with a voucher program. so the point so the point is don't believe the hype don't believe the pond and sue say government programs can't work in the proof is that

the post office is going bankrupt and medicare is drowning in red ink the truth is they're both examples of government programs that work brillo brilliantly for over two hundred thirty years and fifty years respectively for sabotaged by republican poison pills in the last decade luckily there are two and it is for the post post office and the ridiculous obligation to prefund health benefits to the tune of five and a half billion bucks a year and for medicare. medicare part d. and replace it with medicare part d. medicare for everyone democrats have introduced proposals to do both of both the house and senate but without political pressure from us they'll go nowhere so call congress and tell them to get to work healing the vital services of our government rather than poison them. coming up those that don't like big government now have a major bone to pick with new york city mayor michael bloomberg we all know bloomberg has taken on big sugar what's the new target that he's got his sights on

now. if they shoot something inappropriate for public they can easily be shown to accept casualties of war ok. i wish he would have never happened but it has happened. in a war a t.v. camera becomes an unnecessary what destroys their own safety all foreign nationals including journalists and inspectors should leave around. and it's clear what happens with such witnesses i got it on my site. many checks. nurses shooting on are.

more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china operation to rule the day.