coming up too big to fail but not too big to take billions of dollars of your money now a u.s. senator wants answers as to why taxpayers are bailing out bailing paying out eighty three billion dollars a year in subsidies to the big banks are too looks into the issue ahead. and as the forty fourth president of the us broke obama has claimed to be the most transparent president ever but is that really the case are two questions more on obama's dealings with the media. and on nine eleven volunteers rush to ground zero to help search for victims in the rubble now some of those volunteers are facing serious health problems and they're running into roadblocks when it comes to getting government help will shine the spotlight on their story coming up. it's wednesday february twenty seventh four pm here in washington d.c.

i'm liz wall and you're watching our t.v. well begin today taking a look at the big banks and whether or not they are still too big to fail massachusetts senator elizabeth warren yesterday grilled federal reserve chairman ben bernanke. if you speak to mr chairman you did not wipe out the shareholders of the largest financial institutions to the big bank because we didn't have the tools now we could well now have the tools eighty three billion dollars. whatever you're saying mr chairman eighty three billion dollars says there really will be a bailout for the largest financial institutions if they fail that's that's the expectation of markets but that doesn't mean this we have to do it. well warren also asked if the banks are going to pay taxpayers back the big chunk of money it gets every year she's citing a study a bloomberg study that says a handful of the nation's biggest banks get eighty three billion dollars in subsidies annually so why are the banks getting a break to discuss anthony ran down as a director of economic research at the reason foundation joins me from new york

welcome anthony so when are we going to get rid of too big to fail that's the question she's asking why is it so hard to answer. well the dodd frank act explicitly. tells a regulatory body called the federal. it's called f. sock but it's a federal stability oversight committee to identify banks that are too big to fail and so this agency soch has named several companies that are large financial institutions effectively saying if these companies go under we have to do something about them now ben bernanke says well the markets expect that will bail these companies out but just like with fannie mae and freddie mac. before and during the lead up to the financial crisis everybody is expecting the government to bail out banks if they don't trouble because of the belief in washington is that we have to maintain stability ben bernanke is explicit mandate

at the fed is to maintain price stability washington is all about trying to create stability in financial markets there's no way that of goldman sachs or j.p. morgan chase were to go insolvent that they wouldn't be bailed out so there is this this expectation exists and it was explicitly put in place by the dodd frank act warren there she cited this figure of eighty three billion dollars that a few banks get in subsidy isn't this is taxpayer money where the banks be able to survive without being propped up by taxpayers. well let's let's parse out this eighty three billion number because it might sound as if taxpayers are actually giving that in cash to the banks that's not exactly what's going on it's in the form of that is right yes so it's an implicit it's an implied subsidies so what that means is it's related to the way that banks borrow money so if any one of your viewers or yourself were to go get a loan you're going to pay an interest rate depending on how good your credit score is now large banks because the market thinks that they're too big to fail that they'll be bailed out are effectively looked at as like very good credit risks if

you loan money to them you're probably going to get it back because that bank is going to be bailed out if they get into trouble so you can lend money to large institutions at a lower rate than smaller institutions so these large institutions get some kind of benefit we don't know exactly what that is and there's all sorts of estimates in the bloomberg study cites an academic paper that suggests that they can borrow at point eight percent better rates than small banks and if that number is correct then that means that in effect taxpayers are offering an insurance program to banks every year that they should be getting eighty three billion dollars in premiums on that they're not getting so that that's where that number is coming from if the if the subsidy is something different than that number could be lower or higher but the other way to think about it is of the tax payers are offering this too big to fail insurance program like life insurance if that exists the banks should be paying for that insurance and they're not burning dead argue that he he what he

argued against that eighty three billion dollars he he questioned how accurate that figure was but either way you look at it it's the big banks that are getting some kind of a kickback they are getting. a b. in relation to the small banks they are getting rewarded they are getting a kickbacks i want to ask you the argument you hear time and time again is that shutting down these banks would be disastrous for the economy and of course we saw this situation back in two thousand and eight and the taxpayers foot the bill they bailed out these banks is has anything changed it has had any policies been implemented to make sure that we don't have to do that as taxpayers ever again. the unfortunate thing is that since the financial crisis the large banks have only gotten bigger the fact that we did bail them out enabled the top ten banks to essentially leverage that cash to position themselves and take even greater market share so now the large banks are even bigger so if in two thousand and eight the banks were too big to fail and washington was afraid well then certainly if

something happens again it's definitely the it's actually the case that the government will bail out wall street ben bernanke he was trying to argue well we don't really know that's going to happen we're definitely going to be the case but even he emitted that the big banks have an advantage you can't deny if you just look at the rates that the banks borrow at the interest rates that they pay to borrow money they're lower than smaller institutions that implies a subsidy where is that subsidy coming from it's coming from the market expecting that they will be bailed out nothing has changed they've only gotten bigger so it's a fair assumption by the market that if that's going to be the case if we are going to explicitly have a too big to fail system then the banks should pay for that insurance so it looks like too big to fail is still a phrase that's going to be sticking around appreciate you coming on the show anthony and i was anthony ran down zero director of economic research at the reason foundation so this is a president obama has vowed to his administration would be a transparent one but is that really the case something he said at the national

governors association suggests otherwise he was overheard saying quote what i want to do is clear out the press so we can take some questions so the press can be there the discuss the important questions and this is coming from the same president that not too long ago said this. well you make government accountable is make it transparent so the american people can know exactly what decisions are being made made how they're being made and whether their interests are being well served president obama has also been criticized for holding fewer press conferences than any other president since ronald reagan but there are press conferences that do happen and when they do are they really just staged events are to producer rachel carson yes trying to set it discuss hi rachel nice to see you. those few words at the governors association that the president do they say a lot about the state of transparency i would say they're pretty revealing i mean if anything it sounds kind of like it's a big kids' table in a little kids' table right it's the policy makers are allowed to talk but in order

for them to be really candid with one another they kind of need the press to go away which makes you wonder what is it that they're saying that they're so afraid if we hear it there might be issues so i would say it's quite revealing yeah and of course will we i mean we just played that that clip from the president earlier on in his presidency you heard him say it himself he said that he vowed to be to have a trance transparent administration but is that the way that it's played out will the obama administration the white house really like to point to a couple of things that they say make them transparent in particular those we the people petitions that have come out they say essentially you can say whatever you want to us and we have to respond not counting the fact that they actually upped the number of signatures needed for a response but if you look at things that i think go a little bit further beneath the surface for instance freedom of information act requests to essentially those things called foyers as well are ways that the journalists can keep the government accountable by requesting information and that

information or a time need to be needs to be provided within twenty days or there needs to be a timeline of when that information was provided and why it's not within the time and bloomberg news found that over the twenty cabinet level positions nineteen of them did. respond within the twenty day period and fourteen of them never responded to these foyer requests one of the main ways that we're able to keep government accountable isn't happening i'd also like to take a listen to something that president obama said at a press conference to a journalist who spoke out of turn but wasn't asking a trolling question he was asking a pretty legitimate question regarding policy if we could take a listen thank you very much. that was a great question but it would be a horrible precedent for me to answer your question just because you yelled it out

so thank you very much guys. all right so he was kind of trying to put that reporter in his place what do you think i mean it seems to me like if people have these sort of legitimate questions in the president is there to answer those questions. it's specially if he says you know this is a great question it's something that i'd be interested in answering the president there should be one especially if you're promising of a transparent administration would be leaning towards the truth. i also want to get to because yesterday you went to a press conference and that is the secretary of homeland security janet napolitano she held a press conference kind of the state of homeland security was the president asked questions fairly there yes so this was a brookings which is a think tank among kind of establishment thinkers and and the way that it was presented it was the press was definitely there but there were a lot of other policy researchers people like that there and i was really looking forward to asking

a question i found out that you had to write the moment note card so i dutifully wrote it on a note card and i need this handwriting waiting to be called on and and i never was all of it was prescreened so there were about six or seven questions asked and most of them were very softball questions and you know you figure would be tough to get in a politician to come in and just face a barrage of negativity but i want you to listen to what she actually said instead of kind of answering these tough questions we have a student in the audience who wants to know. this question exactly what i'm sorry. as a student what advice do you have for those who are interested in public service do it. so as you said the questions were screened and my guess that's one of the questions that made the cut. interesting standard i would say you know i mean. it's just like how can i grow up to be just like you is essentially

what that question says you know i guess this gets back to the question i posed earlier are press conferences these days more looking like staged events so as you mentioned the obama administration promised to be transparent as we've seen there are clearly a lot of shortcomings here and i think that often the bombing ministration gets compared to the george w. bush presidency which was seen as incredibly opaque not transparent at all this was due to dick cheney in large effect you know he essentially made up new definitions of classification he also said he was neither part of the executive branch nor the legislative branch just to not deal with oversight but in some ways the bush presidency was actually more transparent what you said before he had ten more press conferences during his first term than obama did also during that first year of the obama administration the cabinet agencies employed nearly five hundred thousand exemptions to those foil requests. that was fifty percent more than bush during his final year of presidency so by some objective measures it has gotten worse but i

think that that unfortunately for bush there's one memorable moment that we really think of when we think about a bush press conference. i guess certainly wasn't a highlight of his administration we're going to have to leave it off there appreciate you weighing in rachel that was our t. producer rachel carson yes. well a decade over a decade since nine eleven the data forever changed the united states volunteers struggle to recover and many of the volunteers that helped pick up the pieces say getting health care has been a major hurdle argy correspondent on a saucy a churkin to has their stories. twelve years ago without being asked they rushed to this horrific site. to do anything they could to help.

today they're left to fight deadly illnesses by themselves. when i got out of hospital. this while stuck in a spider web of bureaucracy it's been nine eleven volunteers are struggling to find proof that they had actually been at the world trade center. but you know like zombies down there. before. as officials continue empty rhetoric. while they may technically be entitled to some of the two point eight billion dollars compensation fund and the one point five billion dollar treatment fund created by congress and twenty ten reality is different there were republican senators and congressmen at the time that said we don't believe. well i didn't think they're fighting a war on terror as

a perk you know we went down there to help our country demands for proof are volunteering at ground zero in the days surrounding nine eleven are very strict. susan lester went down there to help as a crisis counselor for three weeks and is now seventy five percent disabled they were saying the air was say. my stomach or my diet. pushed up at a press is on my heart feels like i'm having a heart attack but i'm not having a heart attack but it's scary chronic bronchitis sinusitis asthma p.t.s.d. chronic fatigue and hepatitis are among the many illnesses the sixty year old has been fighting spending tens of thousands of dollars just to stay alive. susan has suitcases of documents they're not considered sufficient proof. guy sanders who left his job to volunteer on nine eleven had to have surgery last year to replace

two of his heart valves destroyed by cancer this never happened due to lack of money and i wasn't going to get help and now there are looking for help it seems that it's difficult to come by. it can be disheartening the man can't work and lives on disability because of his illness without pension or benefits because i have cancer and it's not respiratory related. i wasn't part of that first settlement now that i have to apply and i make about difficult because they're saying you have to prove you were down there guy has this picture of himself as proof but the people trail stops there the other man in the photo could have served as a witness in the guy's case but he died two years ago there's a new tower the whole place has been rebuilt but. the question about whether or not the thousands of volunteers that dissented upon ground zero on nine eleven that's all i ever really see any kind of monetary compensation one of many common symptoms for volunteers we spoke with is the guilt they see at least we're still alive when

so many others as a result of nine eleven are not and while the clock for them is taking it's clear that they're not getting help nearly as promptly as they rushed to help their country asking for nothing in return and. new york. from our to correspondent honest enough from our new york studio and joins us now. so why hasn't somebody is volunteerism been able to get the medical care that they need while is out that's the question that we're trying to right a raise in this report and that all of these volunteers hundreds of people really are asking themselves every single day and the reason for that is because u.s. officials are demanding an extreme amount of very strict rules to being applied when it comes to what kind of proof exactly what kind of the common documentation these volunteers need to be able to provide and what officials are. asking for in many cases are papers for example signed by their colleagues or signed by their

bosses and for many of these people because they volunteered they weren't there is part of the brotherhood of firefighters or police officers who were there doing their job these are people just that just took off and went to ground zero to do what they can to to to help the situation on the ground they don't have this people work and some of them are being asked if they don't have the paperwork to provide two witnesses who will say that they were there and outlined exactly what these people were doing but the problem there is of course when people were down there in the sixteenth stressful situation extremely stressful situation shock working around the clock the last thing they were thinking about is you know making friends on the ground and trying to make sure they're remembered for to make sure they have witnesses over a decade after september eleventh and i guess the problem here is that. how to figure out how to prove that their health problems were a result of their volunteer volunteer work because unfortunately there are bogus claims. in to curation like this in the problem is to figure out who really

needs the help and who should not unfortunately and those that really do need help are aren't getting it right that's a major concern that that's the main argument that officials are providing in terms of why it's taking so long for people who need the compensation who need the money to treat their illnesses are not getting it for this long this fraud is a major concern because of course there are cases when people try to get some of this cash for for never having been down there but some of the volunteers that we spoke to they themselves say look we understand that fraud is a major concern but you also have to take into consideration then that hundreds of cases are not fraudulent and people are left by themselves to fight their illnesses to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to be able to stay alive and that's certainly not fair to them either and this is a question that you know needs to be addressed by the officials in terms of what can they do. to to make sure that the paperwork that people are asked for also call in sides with you know the realities of their illnesses and this is something

that's a major problem that's why this is been taking for so much time in so many of these cases i appreciate you bringing us that report on a saucy that was our to correspondent on a saucy churkin to thank you all now for the controversial issue of brutality on the border members of the latino community have journeyed to washington d.c. to speak out to their house representatives and white house staffers about the brutality latinos have faced along the southern border among them the father of this woman thirty two year old valarie out of touch again who was a mother of five and she was fatally shot by u.s. border patrol in september of last year while her father valentino toci can joins us now to tell us his family's story also joining us is christian ramirez director of the southern border communities coalition which helped organize this trip to the capital appreciate both of you making it in here today valentino i know that this is something that is very hard for you to talk about so we appreciate you coming on

on the show it to tell us your story i want to start off by asking you how and why your daughter was killed will to this point we haven't received any real information as far as why. brutally killed my daughter he shuddered nine times in this you mentioned she's of a mother of five she was a mother of five the daughter a great. person and we haven't received any answers from the border patrol agents or the police to patrol. in that city bit to set up nine times that's a lot of shots that were fired you have you have any indication why the border patrol agent fired that many times war according to the information is. imation did he somehow my daughter hit his officer in he ended up in the hood of the car.

which is contrary to some of the witnesses which are saying that my daughter was shot while this officer was standing in his two feet. yeah she had five children i see that you have a photo of her there that you brought in how is this tragedy affected your family well you know there is a void inside of all of us even now every time i leave and feel you know i got my wallet i got my cell phone i got everything with me but if i'm feeling i'm feeling like something is missing like i'm not complete and i know that my family will never be the same again ever even if i'm doing these streets that. all this information that i'm giving out at the end i know my daughter won't ever come. yeah. i'm very sorry to sorry to hear that this happens here daughter

christian i want to ask you if the valentine story is unique unfortunately it is not brutal killings at the us mexico border are systematic in the last two years twenty unarmed civilians have been shot and killed by border patrol agents several others have been seriously injured this amounts to a killing or a serious beating every single month this is not a case of the bad apple in a corporation this is a case of a culture of violence within it is the largest law enforcement agency in this country that's run out of control and that's why we have come to washington d.c. this week to ensure that members of congress hear the message loud and clear this folks at the us mexico border cannot continue today in such a brutal way as about any of that now i know that you have been meeting with elected officials what have you asked them to do and so far how they responded what we have asked them to do is that as the conversation for comprehensive immigration

reform moves forward that we have balance in terms of however foresman is carried out there we cannot continue to enforce the us mexico border militarize us mexico border with checks and back. we know that there is going to be some enforcement triggers in this pathway to citizenship that we urgently need in this country but we want to make sure that the voices from border communities are heard the story of the in the story of that that you came family is not unique unfortunately and that's how members of congress that's the sort of the members of congress are today so we are leaving washington d.c. with an assurance that members of congress are real lacing that the policies they're drafting we have to keep in mind the story of libya monique that you gain the story of and i started in this process and the twenty other civilians who have been killed on the us mexico border now valentino you traveled all the way to the nation's capitol to make your voice heard are you confident are you hopeful that.

it's going to bring about some kind of change but i just know that today my voice in the voices of all of us who came to the they were heard now we don't want this to choose to be a boy's in the when we meet some type of action taken and we don't have any more time to be wasting time or lives all right gentlemen really appreciate you coming in and telling us your story and i wish you the best of luck that was valentyn touch you can the father of all area and christian ramirez the director of the southern border communities coalition. today the world says goodbye to a musical legend american pain as the van cliburn passed away at the age of seventy eight he got the first place of ward at the one nine hundred fifty eight international competition in moscow and his music won the hearts of the russian people during

a challenging time politically and he spoke fondly of the russian people that flooded him with praise for many he symbolized the power of music to bring people together. according to the new york times his publicist confirmed cliburn died at home the musician had been treated before for a bone cancer. and we are going to switch gears now a little bit between bailing out big banks and the big bonuses for the very banks taxpayers bailed out some people have had enough some of the folks affiliated with occupy wall street have come up with a little idea to get revenge we'll see inside every one of these credit card offers . israelis it's a business replying to. the bank sign contracts with the post office to get these envelopes and they only pay postage on these envelopes again mail back the banks are assuming that we use these envelopes to send in our credit card applications but we don't want we're credit cards do we research we don't want them from the big

banks that caused the financial crisis we can use these envelopes in other ways but the shift in the envelope and suddenly the envelope becomes really short before it becomes why does that matter well the region the whole piece cost more in postage to mail. so even though the envelopes don't contain letters they still send a strong message it's unlikely about the move will cost banks as much as taxpayers have coughed up to bail them out and we are going to leave it off there but for more on the stories we cover you can always had to our you tube channel opposed everything they're on line in full and that address is youtube dot com slash our team america you can also had over to our web site that address is r t v dot com slash usa and of course you can always follow me on twitter at liz wall we'll be right back here and a half hour. well

. sorry it's technology innovations all the least i'm elements from around russia we've got the future covered. hold it hold it. hold it. hold. your mum. goodspeed. i am sure you. heard. her. where's. the. bomb exploded good. luck to her mum

just see. her. come out run to me for a little. sleep . more news today violence is once again fled up the phone these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to pump racial to rule the day please please. potentially deadly blizzard taking aim for the northeast it's expected to hit stunning in a few hours from new york to maine we have team coverage of the storm. but what we're watching is the very heavy snow moving into by.