well i'm john hartman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. united states spends more on defense than the next fifteen closest countries combined should we be cutting military funding instead of the social security benefits that many millions of americans rely on and restoring the minimum wage to its historical level would help create more than sixty billion dollars in new consumer spending and raising the minimum wage is one of the easiest ways to spur economic growth why are so many people opposed to it.

you need to know. the white house says they want to cut social security insurance payments over time using a tricky little technique called the chained c.p.i. instead of actually measuring real inflation this particular consumer price index c.p.i. is chained to consumers' behavior they call it had donek in quality adjustments to make it sound scientific but here's how it works if the price of beef goes up so people start eating cheaper chicken instead and instead of measuring the actual inflation as reflected by the rising cost of meats the chain c.p.i. measures the behavior of people moving from beef to cheaper chicken and lowers the cost of living adjustment. if more and more seniors can't afford chicken to move to even cheaper cat food then the chained c.p.i.

adjusts social security and insurance payments and millions of disabled vets payments that are tied to social security so that they can now afford cheaper brands of cat food republicans love this idea as i've pointed out here over and over and over again on this program back in the mid one nine hundred seventy s. republican strategists june when a ski ju-ju in a ski in an article titled taxes and a two santa claus theory correctly pointed out that the american people love social security brought to america by democrats and continually defended by democrats and republicans that always play the role of scrooge saying things like social security are not legitimate functions or government old age poverty should be fixed by churches and retirement income should be handled by wall street well the democrats wouldn't ski pointed out where essentially the social security santa clause giving americans what they wanted even though americans were also themselves gladly paid for that same social security so the job for republicans was to feel first how to

become santa claus themselves because being the social security santa was already taken they should wouldn't it be proposed become the tax cut santa clause tax cuts for everybody especially rich people and the second really big job was to get democrats to shoot their own santa clause as special a social security problem for republicans was the social security was so popular it literally saves lives every day and has since one hundred thirty six so popular that even republicans wanted some of the glow and even more problematic for republicans social security has nothing whatsoever to do with the budget deficit and as it's now set it's totally solvent for the next twenty years and it will remain solvent forever with a very small tweak of just lifting the payroll cap so millionaires pay the same percentage into it as people walk working at wal-mart. even ronald reagan in a rare moment of candor pointed this out. social security let's lay it to rest

once and for all i told you never would i do such a thing but i tell you no social security has nothing to do with the deficit social security is totally funded by the payroll tax levied on employer and employee if you reduce the outgroup social security that money would not go into the general from to reduce the deficit it would go into the social security trust fund so social security has nothing to do with balancing a budget or. the deficit that bears repeating you could cut social security all you want you could even end social security altogether and it wouldn't reduce the budget deficit by a single penny social security is completely self funded it's a self-contained program and that sitting on a surplus over two point six trillion dollars last year showed a surplus of over fifty billion dollars and it's the signature program that makes

american people think of the democrats a santa clause so the number one priority the republican strategists is to get a democratic president to take a shot at santa claus since f.d.r. brought a social security not one single democratic president has ever in the history of our republic suggested shooting or even nicking the social security santa clause until obama if obama goes along with the chain c.p.i. he will be the first democratic president in the history of the party to actually cut social security even though it won't do a thing nothing to reduce the budget deficit. and as we saw with bill clinton reforming welfare once the republicans can corner a democratic president into shooting a democratic santa clause the republicans can then finish the job through the death of a thousand paper cuts over the next decade and in the states and everybody just remembers that it was a democratic president who started it if president obama is still pushing a chain c.p.i.

on december twenty first and maybe the mayans were right it is the end of the world as we know it or at least the end of the democratic party as we knew it. meanwhile while seniors are being thrown out of the bus by democrats republicans are doing all they can to protect war profiteers as part of speaker of the house john boehner as plan b. the pentagon's budget will be shielded from any cuts the automatic seaquest ration they kicks in at the end of the year so with just over a week to go until we hit the so-called fiscal cliff the defense budget is safe yet social security benefits for seniors are in danger is there something wrong with this picture joining me now to offer his take on this is neil mccabe senior writer of human events online and editor of the guns and patriots column neil welcome back good to be with some and thank you for the cup conservative clout to say human events yeah so you brought a white cloth that i can shoot at with the tear off as that official cloud from marion webster very strong yeah. i know you didn't bring a white cloth so let's get to surrender either first of all. scott walker scott

walker really riveted of the year for human events that was announced this afternoon so it's a lot about human events thank you. because it is on the right is their right to screw millions of americans with regard to social security not even touched of defense funding and for that matter i mean why are we even talking about so scary let's get up and do we're going to ask me how long i've been beating my wife i mean this is like one of these crazy questions the the you were talking about oh well it's like how long you've you know it's like when did you stop beating your wife is all about republicans want to cut social security and they want to increase defense spending and you know our defense budget is so bloated that last week the pentagon ordered new uniforms for the military chauffeur. well i think we should have a strong defense and i think that i don't agree with that but i think that a little most of your over fifty percent of the cost of the pentagon is personnel and that right now we're actually cutting military personnel in the navy the army the air force. and so what we need to do and instead of that is we should be

increasing the number of personnel that we have in order to lengthen deployments so that in deployment cycles well well if you have an aircraft carrier you know if you have nine aircraft carriers or twelve aircraft carriers you know there's a certain deployment schedule you can you know because they go out for eight months and then they come back if you have more aircraft carriers you can stretch out those deposits are going to draft. a draft no let's get let's what is all you are so you're only our hero richard nixon started the all volunteer army and its military and it's worked out very well i think it's worked out very badly i don't think most americans i don't i think that if we if we had a draft we would not have had the worst direction afghanistan well that certainly would have been a problem for the people of afghanistan and iraq for humane over a million people who are dead now who would be dead i'm not sure if the numbers are correct well the hundreds of thousands who are dead now who wouldn't be dead the road to half a million iraqis who were displaced two and a half million internally and two million extremely outside the country i think

that the iraq war was a good thing and i thought. and i think that there are many iraqis who have told me personally that they appreciate what we did for them and the ones who got the the contracts that were the ones the six billion dollars about ash we're talking about they just vanish are you about the kids who are greet me on the streets of basra the day of their national election and their parents who would wave to me. yet in fact i introduce i just interviewed somebody who just came back from iraq and said it's been testing for going well i think it's wonderful that we are going to be helping iraq why don't we help americans well it's always a good thing we should we should allow american say it's not a good thing you don't want to let's take the claims off let's stop taxing these people let's start stop overregulating once people people who work at wal-mart they're updating them taxes their company their taxes being paid on arts. essentially buckets for taxes they're running they're running tax shelters in the caymans there's a corporate taxes thirty five percent have

a nobody they already pays it right we are if you want to run might we see the countries we are the second lowest in the world in the in actually developed countries in at in actual know it's collections per corporate and you're talking like a republican because what we want twenty five percent of the let's lower to a real rate i don't know fifteen percent that and then basically and get rid of all these deductions and loopholes corporations they are in the eisenhower administration we're paying a little over thirty percent. the total cost of government now they're paying about seven and a half percent the toss government that's nuts we should we should be and our country is working really really well during the eisenhower administration i think we should go back to old fashioned republican values eisenhower supported the right to unionize card check in fact he supported a top tax rate of ninety one percent aggressively supported it. ramping down our military he paid off a national debt that was one hundred twenty seven percent of g.d.p. and how do you do that by building roads hospitals and schools all across this country none of these things are things that you guys will even consider any more what happened i did then and then kennedy ran against him as

a tired old man. in effect i know he ran he ran as a next i know he ran against nixon but his campaign message was in essence he was running against the eisenhower years as a young man who was going to rebuild our defenses i mean with about the bomber gap where he was. your hero clearly talked about the family we could we can debate kennedy if you want but you completely change the subject what will happen to our republicans what happened the value was a very popular liberal republican and. dealer who is a popular liberal republican i don't romney was fairly popular he almost won the presidency she's ok our pentagon budget we're spending more money in the next fifteen countries combined arguably we're spending more money on our military in the entire rest of the world sure depends on how you calculate it is that crazy. well first of all we don't want to feed our military on cat food we want them to have good now we want our seniors to have cancer that's another segment that's on my segment. most of that cost fifty over fifty percent the cost of pentagon is

personnel you so we're in full and i'm not i but the point i want to get a number to the point i want to make is that we're not paying our sergeants what the chinese are paying their sergeant all the rights over to me and halliburton one hundred fifty thousand dollars per person for their people that we hire are paying a quarter million dollars a person for some of the other defense contractor however it has been but is a defense bill just business for about five years so we want to go through what its legacy company should be a little short neal neal we're it's always a pleasure guys forgot to be mine day if i don't say oh interview you want me to play the world and gently but. after the break millions of americans in various states will see an increase in minimum wage come two thousand and twelve mean they'll have more money to spend to help support the economy if an increase in the minimum wage could help rebuild this nation's struggling economy why hasn't washington done it yet.

if. you give you. a gift few pieces. to meet. folks.

i. in screwed news as ideas are tossed around in the heated fiscal cliff debate

there's one thing that's not being talked about at all on either side of the aisle raising the nation's minimum wage and no matter what happens with the fiscal cliff come january first more than a million working people around the nation are going to see a much needed pay raise workers in several states including florida ohio and colorado will see anywhere between a ten cent and thirty five cent an hour pay raise next year it may sound modest but it translates to as much as five hundred bucks extra in their pockets at the end of the year more money in their pockets working people will spend more and those stimulate the economy this is what needs to happen on the federal level where the current seven twenty five minimum wage is lower than it was in the one nine hundred sixty s. when you in just adjust for inflation for working americans have the same purchasing power they had the one nine hundred sixty s. the federal minimum wage today would have to be at least ten dollars an hour should we stop allowing corporate executives to pay their way workers' poverty wages and realize once and for all that the real job creators aren't sitting in the boardrooms but working on the factory floor joining me now for more on this is marc

harrold libertarian commentator and author of the book observations of white noise an acid test for the first man mark welcome back thank you so after nine eleven the economy went in the crapper you're right what did george w. bush say to the american people well one of the things that was said early on is that you have to give up this was said later but i think again it was he had to give up market principle or i'm going with this he says go shopping at what he did to go shopping of course he said go shopping because that's what stimulates the economy by shaab creators of the people spending money there would stimulate the economy george bush knew that he asked people to go shopping so when we look at the math on this every time there's a one dollar wage increase and i used to live in oregon where the minimum wage is and about two bucks higher than the federal minimum wage as it is many states and there was a big debate when i was there about apply. and this to restaurant workers the waiters they did it everybody said the sky was going to fall now the economy was actually stimulated for every dollar and wage increase you see thirty five hundred dollars in additional spending from their family what's wrong with it well first of

all the mayans might be right i think you just said george bush was right about something so we're off to a good set are even though i'm not a big george bush fan here's the problem with it and i understand i have a lot of family in west virginia and pennsylvania if i they hear and they watch this and i say i'm against the minimum wage they just they want understand what i'm saying the problem with the minimum wage is it disproportionately affects people who are the lowest wage earners because what happens is they start to price themselves out you get to a point where you're trying to protect the lowest income lowest skilled workers but what happens is they price themselves out you have that argument has been made since the one nine hundred twenty sure the minimum wage was first proposed it was made in one thousand nine hundred five when the minimum wage was passed and the supreme court knocked it down it was made nine hundred thirty eight when the minimum wage was brought back in the supreme court supported it supported and over and over and over again and i have yet to see one example of one state or one industry where it was proven true would you give me one it's hard one example not a state or is it because it's hard to prove a negative we don't know how many more jobs that would be we don't know how many poor people no way the roads work and their workers fewer hours they're not hiring

as many people so you might this is the old thing i see it all the time you got to keep the minimum wage so you make more than welfare and that's a great idea the problem is the minimum wage will be higher but they'll be more people on welfare it's a zero sum game i mean the us tomorrow is the market it really don't want to tells me the marketplace that is there is no yeah there is no years so here's the problem most people don't work at minimum wage so there's other factors in the market that must artificially raise it because every company out there for every job only has to pay minimum wage why don't they do it because in other things in the market drive the car you're desired you're telling me that you can point to one single example of one industry one company one state one nation where raising the minimum wage price people and what i would say to you is and challenge you to take a look at this the numbers are there you can you can look brighter. but go look from one hundred thirty five or one hundred thirty seven or eight or whatever the year was until today every year that the minimum wage was increased and compare that to g.d.p. in the next column and what you will see is that every single time the minimum wage

in this nation has been raised g.d.p. over the next three years continuously went up to g.d.p. but that's not taking care of the absolute is total economic activity and i think there is the unemployment problem again you have what you might have your low skilled workers as the minimum wage goes up and there of correlation between minimum wage and unemployment there is a correlation because there is you know some people are not writing themselves out and oh in your theory but not in actual practice no because you're using numbers that basically go back to the fact that you have something to hand over here so we don't know what would happen if they didn't have the minimum wage because you're only using your post adult we don't have as you have more people in poverty who could spend less money and therefore the economy will necessarily have zero in poverty you would have steri but you're defining poverty by the minimum wage you're coming up with an arbitrary number let me ask you this let's turn it on its head let me ask you this if we want everybody to be middle class we want everybody to be upper middle class it's an artificial number in sort of the market let's just make minimum wage that everybody has to make one hundred thousand dollars a year would that do the same thing i mean if it can work at seventy can work at ten dollars if we all the sudden there's a why is it is there just an artificial number is

a part of rationality you know there is diminishing returns and that's where you're so i mean it is it is the point at which we say as a society this is the minimum that we're going to allow in our society if you want to do business in this country find good on you we're going to give you all kind of privileges you can deduct your three martini launch you can deduct your first class haircare travel you can do you can all kinds of cool stuff you can do in exchange for that pay people decently if you can't do that you have no right to do business in this country so then we have to decide what is paid people decent right and that's the problem you've got this arbitrary number that you're putting in there i mean in other words where do you go i mean what we know is that one hundred dollars or twenty five cents an hour is not enough ok so we don't have a minimum wage so what you're saying no i'm saying that aren't always right now sucks that when the minimum wage was ten dollars an hour as it was in the one nine hundred sixty s. what inflation adjusted that the economy was doing better unemployment was lower. people at the bottom of the pay scale were making more people at the very top of the pay scale were making slightly last. then the minimum wage has not increased since since two thousand and nine and that was a fairly modest increase we've got on the screen here to go to seven yeah so you

know i'm not arguing that it's kept up with inflation i'm not has a vision. dispersed of how you're going to have more consumers you can have more people with money in their pocket lawyers mark employers only hire people because they need work to be done that's exactly right and if they and they only need work to be done because there's demand in the economy if people are lined things because they're bacon so little there's no demand in the economy so there's no employers saying gee people want more money where able to expand their business and we're together did

it one of the most expensive cities in the world there are people in this city a lot of people in the city working for seven dollars within let me say this that what we definitely need a federal minimum wage i mean it's against the contract clause the federal constitution my opinion the state minimum wage i'm against as well but it's a much stronger hold on and states right to do that within their state but the fact that it's not uniform across the country a federal minimum wage makes no sense and yet we look at individual states that have raised their minimum wage in some cases as much as two dollars two dollars and a half higher than the federal minimum wage in those states or the higher minimum wage are doing better than the states that just have the federal minimum wage. i've lived i've never lived in oregon i've lived in mississippi for almost ten years but that's apples and oranges to this you have totally different kinds of economies that you have slowly have different kind of economies and that really is apples and

oranges we're going to are going to which is right next door right so the economy's better to oregon than it is in idaho out of oregon has a higher minimum wage than i do but that's not the reason the time or they can afford the higher minimum wage because the state takes in so i want to bathe in causation here when i get in the way because of that but remember too i've been a theological difference with this i mean it's not just a pragmatic practical concern right you think it's a violation of the right to contract with the right parts argument ok and most of what the supreme court did in one hundred thirty and i know you agree with i disagree with much of what they did because the new deal to stay in place they had to lay off the commerce clause and they had to lay off the contract because they had to you know and this was roosevelt was going to go and going back to george exactly go back to george bush i mean he said something in two thousand that where i thought you were going to first which is sometimes you have to abandon free market principles for the free market to work i think that's counterintuitive i don't think this is such thing as free market principles like you know markets are created by well there were when they were further apart than we were when i got here i have a great holiday absolutely. it's

thursday let's get geeky i'm getting sustainable imagine walking into your local burger joint a decade or two from now you're in the mood for a nice juicy burger you look at the menu to see what you want and there's only one choice there i've got all my or murder way. as disgusting as it sounds it might become the wave of the future researchers in the netherlands say that meal worms may one day dominate grocery store shelves and restaurant fridges as a more sustainable alternative to traditional proteins like pork chicken and beef right now livestock takes up about seventy percent of farmland globally and the demand for animal proteins like chicken and beef is continuing to rise globally and may grow by up. eighty percent over the next forty years increased demand for animal protein means that more land needs to be cleared to make way for livestock which is

a process that damages the environment that human beings and other forms of life depend on it also contributes drastically to increases in global warming the researchers in the netherlands suggest that insects like milk worms may provide just as much protein as chicken and beef but in a far more environmentally friendly way to see of insects might be a little more a little more sustainable food source than traditional livestock the researchers at that in the. university in the netherlands analyze what types of global warming gases insects might generate as a result of respiration the production of their feed their distribution of various stores that would sell them and the emissions from the heating of climate controlled facilities the researchers found that growing meal worms released far fewer greenhouse gases that producing chicken pork beef or even cows milk they found the growing mill worms takes up only ten percent of the land needed for production of equal amounts of beef thirty percent of the land in a production of equal amounts of pork and forty percent of. the land needed for the

production of equal amounts of chicken. it's also possible that the production of other insects as protein sources could be just as sustainable if not more so in the production of the meal worms so we know that meal worms may be an equally healthy and more sustainable protein option than beef chicken and pork but how do you convince people to overcome their initial squeamishness and eat bugs bryan fischer and entomologist at the california academy of sciences says that we need to promote a campaign along the lines of if it's ok to eat sushi it's ok to eat insects if you eat lobster eating insects is pretty much the same thing but you're also notes that people wouldn't necessarily have to eat the meal worms or other insects directly they could easily be ground up into powders and used as protein rich supplements for food for his diet worms are already produced in the netherlands and bugs have been a part of many diets all around the world for thousands of years so if you want to do your part to help save and protect our environment back away from the beef push

away the poultry and try some nice juicy nutty flavored meal worms. that really tasty to. coming out in the wake of the connecticut school shooting tragedy debates over gun control and access to mental health services are heating up in washington and while those are important issues to address what's the one major characteristic of mass murders in this country that lawmakers should be really paying attention to.

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