welcome back to the big picture i'm seven sacks in for tom hartman coming up in this half hour is raising taxes for a group of americans struggling to survive really the best idea they were anything so is letting the rich get richer a winning strategy for winning the white house mitt romney thinks so in just a moment in just a moment why what mitt romney thinks is bad for all of us and with the role that wall street plays in politics today it's hard to believe that at one point bank stirrers weren't allowed to run roughshod over the country how do we bring this america back to those days and reclaim our democracy from predatory banks stars.

so when you hear republicans yell about how president obama is expanding the size of government they're either lying or they're uninformed and you should tell them as much chording to new numbers released by the labor department government employment is now at its lowest level since nineteen sixty eight in other words government is smaller than it's ever been in nearly a half century has a lot to do with republicans pushing austerity up at the state and federal level laying off hundreds of thousands of public workers since president obama took office in two thousand and nine just last month nine thousand government workers lost their job in addition to the six hundred eighty thousand government workers who've been laid off over the last three years the worst three years for government employment in history and this destruction of public workers is hurting teachers the most corner research done by the hamilton project our nation has lost more than

two hundred thousand teaching jobs and perhaps as many as three hundred thousand since two thousand and nine these layoffs are occurring at the state level where cash strapped states don't have enough money to fund education budgets and republican governors are pushing for tax cuts for the rich rather than investments in the future. no nation has ever achieve prosperity by investing more in billionaires than in teachers which brings us to mitt romney's tax plan a new study out last week by the nonpartisan tax policy center reveals two important flaws with romney's plan one the math doesn't make sense romney's argue that his plan which centers on a massive tax cut for the rich is revenue neutral meaning and won't add to budget deficits but according to the tax policy center the plan will suck three hundred sixty billion dollars out of revenue out of the government and romney's been mom about where he'll work coop that three hundred sixty billion dollars that he's giving away to the super wealthy second romney's tax cut for the rich will be

partly offset by raising taxes on the middle class as this chart from the tax policy center shows all americans making more than two hundred thousand dollars a year will see anywhere between eight point eight percent and a four percent increase in their after tax in their after taxes income rez those americans making less than two hundred thousand dollars a year will see a decrease of one point two percent in their after taxes income in other words romney is making the middle class pay higher taxes to give the super rich yet another tax breaks tax break and he thinks this is what will win him the white house if so then he'll need every bit of those couple billion dollars that all the guards like the koch brothers sheldon adelson and karl rove plan to throw at him in november. join me now for more on this is richard fowler progressive strategist and host of the richard vella radio show and michael warren reporter with the weekly standard richard welcome michael welcome to the show so this start with you michael

sharon is to explain it's not serious is it well look first we have to take this this study with a grain of salt i mean two of the researchers on this study have connections to the obama administration or the obama administration's policies on taxes one loony was actually a member of the administration's economic council and the second william gale has advocated for raising taxes he's got he's got a policy in this poker in the fire and so we have to take that with a grain of salt that being said the same policy center the same group of people did look at the two thousand and thirteen budget proposed by president obama found that his plan raises taxes on those making under two hundred thousand dollars as well so i don't think that this is something where we can say obama is going to raise is not going to raise taxes on the middle class and romney is but also there's a there's a missing piece to this romney tax plan which is about revenue growth from actual

economic growth something we haven't seen under president obama ok so that's the missing piece is just assuming that under his plan economy is going to boom and he won't have to yes talk about all this stuff yes ok so will question the numbers but how is it that another massive tax cut for wealthy people which is that you can disagree with the numbers that's the centerpiece of romney's tax reform plan. wants to think that that's going to have any different effect than the massive tax cut for rich people that bush gave us in two thousand and one in two thousand and three that is the missing piece the missing piece is that we're not really sure what this tax plan is going to do we've see we've had eight more than eight we would have had twelve years of the bush tax cuts policies and that's a lot of into this recession republicans like to make the argument that oh it was in the bush tax that led us here but under the bush tax cut structure is where we got into the deepest recession in america and the great depression and on top of. that mitt romney has not articulated a clear plan on what he plans how we plan to cut the taxes that we're going to cut taxes are going to open up the economy that's all he said no clear plan and then when you ask him for a clear plan romney says give you

a clear plan the military acme is this a case of the free market fair. i don't think there's been any evidence that the bush tax cuts are what got us in the recession we want to talk about what actually got us in a recession we can talk about the housing bubble and some of the financial markets are helping out what happened in two thousand and eight but didn't connect it with marginal tax rates which were lower i mean i think that is i don't think they are the exact cause they are going we can get causality there's a precedent here i mean in one nine hundred twenty one harding came into power and he cut the tax top tax rate from up in the seventy percent down to twenty percent area which is you know create a lot of money because of the decade of boom again it was a decade of good for you could say a boom or a giant bubble that eventually burst in one nine hundred twenty nine which is arguably the same thing that reagan did which led to the savings and loan crisis and then clinton kept it up which led to the dot com bubble and then bush kept it up which led eventually to the to the housing crisis in two thousand and eight sam i think this is basic economics and i think republicans you know in fact they claim

to be these you know these you know these philosophical economists they missed the fact that everything contributes to the overarching health of the market and one president george w. bush cut taxes he really he freed up money that when afraid of that money that was more loose spending or you call it loose capital that caused people to run more money so what the feds did they had to cool down the spending they rose interest rates in those sub prime mortgages their insertion up that'll lead to the housing bubble pop it's when you loosen up the money in the economy that leads to and now we're in a situation where we have to find a way to grow ourselves out of this economy and we know for a fact one of the best ways to grow ourself out of this economy is through keynesian economics that f.d.r. used in the one nine hundred to get out of the great depression and that's going to get us out this time on fortunately republicans in congress believe austerity is the only way to grow the economy but housing let's see how that fits for size when they've been in power we've seen the we've seen the economy grow. last that when democrats are in power for the first two years of the bomb instructions i just don't think that's i don't that is completely totally that's connected to reality and that's why i said i would not use republicans why are republicans supporting

the same stuff they supported when reagan was in the white house when bush was in the white house and that was increasing government spending increasing the size of government and as in hiring more government workers to get out of this because the republican party has got much more conservative than it was in those years there's been a much dumber when it comes to you cannot know that only you could say that there's a you know a different philosophy when it comes to taxes and how we grow the economy now your philosophy ever worked yes i believe it has worked in play places like let's say you go away what is it worth to him as a relation to him place with pinochet when you had a sick day or murdering people well you had to entirely so you don't have that you're connecting the economy with going to get more of it was it we know what kind of republicans give us example with their tax policies that work to create long state long sustainable economic growth in the united states of america yes but let's look at the one nine hundred sixty one tax cuts offered by john f. kennedy who had a democrat yes i'm a proud absolutely in fact he was the last democrat to advocate this sort of tax but intended to kennedy lower taxes but he also closed

a bunch of those look which hasn't been a proposal. that's absolutely been a riposte if you look at the paul ryan barry broadly yes if you larry paul ryan budget and if you ask any republican who's serious about tax cuts. tax reform they talk about reforming taxes and giving if you look at the paul ryan's plan. brings it down to two brackets and says flatten the tax flat flat the tax code and make it so that so that more people are paying at a lower rate and we get it we're in for a big windfall tax to the big banks and wall street they also give a windfall tax to big corporations and oil companies and they do all of it on the backs of the middle class and working class americans so that's not the way down the road the economy see this is the interesting thing liberals always say that it's a zero sum game and that. if you cut taxes for the wealthy then the now saluting the no then you only have now you're jump to conclusions what i'm saying i'm not saying the zero sum game at all i'm telling you what's in the paul ryan budget the

paul ryan budget we're going to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires and they were going to whip programs pell grants stafford loans do you want me to continue the f.b.i. we're going to continue we're going to cut and welfare programs that's what they've argued that well there's there's an argument there is a philosophy and this is what i'm saying here that that that republicans republicans conservatives have taken have gone more to the right on they say they want to get over it because they want to destroy the middle working class in this country why why would the republicans want i mean that's that's just the same as they want to do you want to destroy them i mean that i mean the proof is in the voting now is it that these are fellow americans they would like to do they would like to pose as he said it's a let's take a step back here and just think about the debate we're having we're debating whether or not we're going to raise taxes from thirty five percent to probably about thirty eight percent on the top income tax rate whereas the most prosperous era of american history occurred when tat the top tax rate was above seventy percent even at times above ninety percent how silly is it that republicans aren't going to even budge on taking it to where it was under bill clinton well here's the question why haven't democrats i mean democrats had two years where they had both branches of two branches of the government the white house and congress they didn't

they they knew that these tax cuts were being were going to expire eventually they did nothing about it why because they actually know that raising taxes as barack obama said in a recession is bad for creating business for the rating and not exactly true for maybe a span of a few months they had sixty in the senate but that included people like joe lieberman what you can get people like ben nelson you can see from the public and have committed themselves to filibustering every single thing requiring a supermajority for every bill that's ever passed the senate which has never happened to this degree that's why the devil they don't like they move but they got health care through did they they got the reconciliation why can't you do that with taxes so as i said it works and i don't have to vote you cannot you cannot get taxes through reconciliation you can't cut taxes and i don't believe you can fact check me on this but i don't i will make sure that you can make the. overarching tax policy reconciliation as you do with budget stuff you can if you want to do the budget give it to you can do it could add tax policy to a budget absolutely that there will be no there is a big total reform of the tax system and total reform at the club with making those

who pay more those who make more pay more they should pay the same amount that i think it's very pay already do pay more well than when mitt romney pays forty percent of his taxes and his secretary pays that up some of hers how can you pay more for that so you're so you're paying different marginal rates but you're also paying all sorts of extra taxes through the way that the dead president i was trying to make for a different third yesterday paid more in money a monetary because they make more but proportionally they pay a lot less than this i tell you and that's part of the problem there's no equity in this country are the one or fifteen seconds yes or no are we going off the fiscal cliff at the end of the year no no people i merican are not going to tolerate that richard fowler michael warren thank you both i don't think sam. coming up despite how it looks today there was once a time in this country when wall street executives were held in check and not allowed to run amok at the expense of hardworking americans so how can we reel in these runaway banks hers and stop them from taking over our democracy will tell you

in tonight's daily take. mr. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know. i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

pepper spray that just burns your eyes right right i mean it's like a derivative of actual pepper it's a food product essentially. this is much stronger than anything you buy a lot. thousands of times was stronger than any kind of body you ever put. into it only military mechanisms the doodle would come to bring justice or accountability. i have every right to know what my government's doing you want to know why i pay taxes. i would characterize obama as a charismatic version of american exceptionalism. now

it's time for tonight's the good the bad and the very very. good. as we mentioned briefly at the top of the show seven minutes of terror turned into seven minutes of accomplishment last night as the mars curiosity rover touched down on the red planet to begin two years of experimentation into whether or not the planet once held life the mars science laboratory as it's officially called lifted off from earth last november and ended its several hundred million mile journey at roughly one thirty am eastern time this morning touching down fall asleep on the martian surface in an area known as gale crater. this historic achievement in space exploration us or ushers in

a new era for nasa and for the united states unfortunately with for profit corporations taking over the role of nasa in the near future in space may soon only be reserved for billionaires who want to get into orbit and not scientific discoveries that benefit us all let's hope not the bad rupert murdoch over the weekend rupert murdoch the media mogul founder of fox news tonight about a new conspiracy theory that he's getting ready to spoon feed to his audience of scared white americans in his tweet murdoch plug former journalist at klein's new book which alleges that former president clinton that the former president bill clinton called president obama an amateur and told his wife secretary clinton that she should run for president against obama this year a claim both clintons adamantly deny a murdoch went on to say that the conspiracy laden book was one quote every voter should read and klein has a history of playing fast and loose with the facts in his books politico said his

two thousand and five book about hillary clinton was quote full of serious factual errors so it sounds like you'll fit right in with the fox news audience which is more uninformed than americans who watch no news at all. and the very very ugly dr murray isha agana a gun is running against incumbent congressman tim ryan in ohio's thirteenth district yesterday she took to twitter to express her feeling for president obama and his policies are going to tweeted quote history has a way of repeating itself stalin hitler dung and now obama now we know this isn't the first time we've heard a comparison between obama and hitler and unfortunately it likely won't be the last time but on the bright side at least congressman steve king kept his mouth shut over the weekend that is very very ugly. i.

for president obama was sworn in back in january of two thousand and nine the stock market was below eight thousand points and banks around the nation were teetering on collapse today three and a half years since his first term started the stock market has responded very well to president obama's policies it's now over thirteen thousand points more than sixty percent increase from before president obama took office executives on wall street are now making more money than they've ever made before and president obama has not raised their taxes by one penny in fact signed into law an extension of the bush tax cuts for these guys at the end of two thousand and ten there's good reasons why many progressives including myself are disappointed by the president's first term the term in which wall street is profited immensely while working class americans have seen their homes foreclosed on their jobs lost and their benefits

and pensions cut so there's absolutely no reason none whatsoever why single banker on wall street should be upset with the last three and a half years they've gotten everything they've wanted including a sufficiently watered down wall street reform bill that is yet to be and likely will never be enacted if republicans in congress get their way but despite knowing how rich they've gotten under president obama wall street wants nothing to do with him this election. as political recently reported romney is now touting an eight to one wall street fund raising advantage over the president that's eight to one banks telling president obama thanks for the good times but we're going to go with the other guy and don't think for a second that wall street and their billions in new profits thanks to president obama can't put this election because they can't and they're hell bent on doing it now because they're mad about all the money obama's made them they're actually

perfectly happy about that but because mitt romney is just like them he's not a maker he's a taker just like them there was a time when takers like mitt romney and wall street couldn't hijack our elections and that time is the subject of tonight's daily to wall street makes a lot of money for merck more correctly they take a lot of money as the leeches and banks years on wall street are very much takers rather than makers they don't make anything they just move money around and skim take their vigor off the top but in the process they end up with hundreds of billions of dollars in cash truly big books about a dozen wall street banks toure's made over two billion dollars last year each and the banks themselves have had one of the most profitable years ever borrowing billions from the fed at zero percent interest rate loaning that money to the us treasury at two percent or so spinning off trillions into riveted us and stuffing

all the profits in their pockets meanwhile other divisions of the banks are foreclosing on your homes and actually making a profit and a tax write off. the result is that both the banks toure's and the banks on wall street have billions and billions and billions of dollars that they can buy pretty easily and given that what better place to put that money that in a bind politicians and the laws and regulations that those politicians can write have trial most of the money wall street bankers are making right now is being made in ways that were completely illegal for more than seventy of the last eighty years and they bought some politicians got the laws changed and for most of the twentieth century if they made that kind of money they would have paid upwards of seventy to ninety percent income tax on until they bought some politicians and got those laws changed to in the two thousand and eight election cycle the banks hers were betting the democrats would help them out so they invested over one hundred seventy million dollars in that party a bit more than they gave to republicans and of course those are just the official

donations they may have given a lot more through invisible sources groups like karl roves so-called charity that doesn't reveal its donors but the democrats won big in two thousand and eight and immediately started to pass laws that would rein in the banks toure's and even slightly increase their taxes oh the horrors so in two thousand and ten and so far in two thousand and twelve wall street has been funneling more and more of their money to the republicans because the republicans have promised to make it even easier for banks to rip us off and when they do to keep their taxes low i mean the republican party is even running a bank as their candidate for president and like your good banks to his wife for telling you people that they're not going to let us see their tax returns. we've been here before back in the election in nineteen twenty herbert hoover ran for president on the slogan of less government in business more business in government he promised to deregulate the banks years and he cut their taxes from ninety

percent to twenty five percent the result nine years of a bubble that looked like boom times the ring twenties followed by a horrific crash that produced a decade long republican great depression and when f.d.r. tried to do it obama is trying to do regulate the banks doors they said like they are now saying that the president was an anti-american socialist and he's trying to tear down important american institutions like banks and capitalism roosevelt kick them squarely in the teeth. they this economic royalists complain of that away saying fill it up throw the institutions of america what they really play into. is that we seek to take away. in famous they seek scientists but i find the flag and the cost

then the blindness they books get what the flag on the constitution stands for. but back then the banks are couldn't buy every politician in america made laws against that passed back in the eight hundred the state levels and in one thousand seven at the federal law the tillman act that prevented corporations and even in some cases very rich people from buying politicians or political parties. for example this old wisconsin law was on the books from around the time of the civil war until the one nine hundred fifty s. no corporation doing business in the state shall pay or contribute or offer consent or agreed to pay or contribute directly or indirectly ante money property free service to its officers or employees or thing of value to ante political party organization committee or individual for any political purpose whatsoever or for

the purpose of influencing legislation of any kind or to promote or defeat the candidacy of any person for nomination appointment or election to any political office and the penalty for breaking that law remember last week one of the world's biggest banks just pled guilty to criminal manipulation of live work and not a single banks or from barclays was arrested back in roosevelt's day they were serious about taking on banks toure's the penalty part of that law reads in part any officer employee agent or attorney or other representative of any corporation which will violate this actual be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for a period of not less than one no more than five years and if the corporation is guilty and is a domestic corporation it may be dissolved and if a foreigner nonresident corporation its right to do business in the state may be declared forfeit the reason that law is no longer on the books and the reason why obama can't take on the bank's toure's with quite the vigor that f.d.r.

did is because of five men on the us supreme court they've appointed themselves the kings of america and it clear that money isn't property it's not things in your pocket it's speech and because it's speech billionaires and wall street control all of it they want into political campaigns. and there banks can as well because as banks to mitt romney's so well and so often preparations are people my friend. it's time for us to stop the insanity and it really i mean politically genuinely practical it's insanity of bought and paid for politicians and political parties and is really only one way to do that and that's to overturn these twin crazy supreme court doctrines that corporations are people in that money is speech with an amendment to

the u.s. supreme court or the u.s. constitution excuse me that speaks to the u.s. supreme court that plainly and openly says the corporations are not people and the money is property and not speech. if you all are more information on how to clean up american politics how this can be done and all the groups all over america that are getting together to actually do this you can even start a chapter in your own hometown go to move to him and dot or move to him and dot org check it out and participate it's one of most important causes in the in america right now. and that's the big picture for tonight monday august sixth two thousand and twelve if you missed any of tonight's show you can now watch it in h.d. on hulu at hulu dot com slash the big picture more information on any of the stories we covered visit our website to tom hartman dot com free speech on organ r.t. dot com also check out our two you tube channel is there

a link said tom foreman dot com also at tom foreman dot com check out all the different ways you can send us your feedback and don't forget as tom always says democracy begins with you get out there get active tag your it. wealthy british style it's time to. go.

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