blog jargon in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. welcome to the age of austerity in america the devastating sequester budget cuts officially kick in tonight thanks to the republicans refusal to make the wealthiest americans pay their fair share so when will the next partisan showdown on capitol hill happen that and more into night's big picture rumble also apparently every single republican on capitol hill failed economics one hundred one is the reason refusing to follow one of his nation's simplest economic principles it's been around since the birth of the republic so what that principle is and why it's so important in tonight's take and how have the giant telecom companies brought on a new gilded age in america last susan crawford in tonight's conversations with

great line so. it's friday are you ready to rumble join me for a nice big picture on will our francesca chambers editor and publisher of red alert politics sam bennett president and c.e.o. of the women's campaign fund and the should she run foundation and horace cooper conservative commentator and senior fellow in the national research for public policy national center for public policy research and thank you all for joining me tonight for us is there there we go now all you feel hello again is all here all right let's throw the sequester the age of austerity the sequester kicks in the c.e.o.'s says this is going to cut g.d.p. growth and we had a really healthy g.d.p. growth this is the gold standard was the one nine hundred fifty s. sixty's seventy's those three decades were the three decades that all saw over three. average g.d.p.

growth every every year of every decade. had been estimating two percent for this year now the same with the sequester will be one point four percent that's losing a million jobs how is that a good thing you're nodding your head saying well i think it's a great example of why i'm a broken record here you know this tom why we need more women in office because you know guys run for office because they see it as a pathway for power and so what we're seeing is a bunch of partisan chest thumping about who's going to flinch first it's ridiculous if we had more women in congress right now tom we would not be seeing this kind of ridiculous counterproductive stuff that impacts women and children disproportionately to men and as you pointed out is very very very damaging to the economic growth we've managed to gain so far it's the testosterone horace but for a man let me just say this the fifty's and sixty's were quite great opportunities for the individual for families and the like but by the time the seventies rolled around the growth in government started to create a situation where inflation took the growth that would have normally we're down

into those families away from that respect and that elation was caused by the arab oil boy no that's not true at all that this was what it was commodity and that was not true that's not true at all it was that a president he started in the late sixty's and it took most of the one nine hundred seventy s. for us to strangle that this one of the reasons why mistress' more than one thing in his reelection campaign his key theme was whipping inflation right and he didn't become president ill after nixon resigned in seventy two or seventy three or whatever is number three seventy three but my point is that with the latest problem with inflation problem started in the beginning of the nixon administration started to really grow ministration we had the arab oil and far as a result of the growth in government. did you get yours always it was like you can ask economists and they will tell you that it was on the program. so i'm curious exactly so the cuts really aren't that big we're talking about two percent cuts here and it's not even affecting some of the biggest. parts of government not

entitle mintz humanitarian aid. exactly so really these cuts aren't as big and bad i think it's other people are talking about and they could've been avoided that's the other thing you know how long did we know that the sequester was coming this isn't something that we just woke up about yesterday and figured out oh march first thing we should be worried about this right now ok so so you're suggesting that they're not as bad as a large percentage so you're acknowledging that cutting government spending is a bad thing for the economy no i didn't say that i'm so what i'm saying is that the cuts are as big as they think the obama administration is amping them up to be and they're not going to be as bad as they are going to you know flights are going to start with the middle of the runway to stop we have six hundred thousand women and children who will not be getting there with checks because of these cuts now the problem with them is because we allowed ourselves to your point to get to this position the truth of the matter is the cuts aren't logical the cuts aren't cutting way and we. sent the house of representatives has passed three bills giving the

president the ability to make the right choices on how these cuts are going to take place the only way that you have to live on the well known reductions let's have a tax increase on the wealthy since clinton was going to happen it would solve everything but i think they're actually going to solve everything they actually agree with you that yeah the cuts are arbitrary they don't make sense where they are and it would it would have actually made more sense to cut in other places which to your point is basically what work some republicans wanted to do is give the president more authority than anybody else to tell us and it remains yours i designed to give that discretion to the president like if you want wic cuts it's because he's refusing to tell a lot of georgia republicans what is it want to say the president is ok you can choose whether you're going to cut the funding to the poor children or to the single mothers your choice pick one you know we essentially were and then take a bloody let me do you think this is my that makes a lot of sense a progressive myth but we don't have a spending problem because we do if you don't have a spending problem if you are so you know he was an out of. as

a percentage of g.d.p. it's a half the most of it and they say that we need to raise taxes that's why we have the i have a sweet is from women and children six i heard other places i don't know there are simply this is that we can cry not the minus of meth that is a piece of vera verifiable empirical evidence we could just go to every single government agency and then we could just go to every single government agency and say to them three percent across the board you know where the fat is you take the three percent off they won't do that because they want to show that all you need is more and more and more government it's not true let me just just a quick punctuation point question on this we've got another month another possibility for the republicans to shut down the government and then in october another debt ceiling disaster i mean is there we're going to see this game repeated over and over and over again you know hopefully not hopefully not no i don't think so it sounds to me like both republicans and democrats don't want to go through the fiscal cliff showdown again because other things that they want to move on going to . there are your eyes rolling too i know as

a way i don't think i'd say you know the american people have sent divided government here and that creates a problem a natural conflict and until they decide they want a unified government of one way the left or the right you're going to continue to see these problems i don't disagree actually the voting rights act was at the supreme court this week. school i think it is attributable very likely attributable to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement whenever a society adopts racial entitlement it is very difficult to get them through the normal political process what he was talking about is why the senate voted ninety eight to nothing to reauthorize the voting rights act in two thousand and six during the bush administration and here's the facts the voter suppression idea was for example the brennan center for justice found that twenty five percent of african-americans ninety percent of latinos only eight percent of whites have lack rather the i.d.'s a serious survey are to do to be to vote a survey done election day by the a.f.l.-cio found that it was after americans and

hispanics who waited in long lines not whites is this not voter suppression on its face what's the deal here the voting rights act has absolutely nothing to do with voter id laws i don't even know why you bring in the i think it should be generalized to all the states i think the voter id laws are a form of voter suppression and they should come out and well let's talk about the voter id laws south carolina and georgia both currently have voter id laws they've had them for some years they are also covered by section five of the voter rights act which says that you cannot pass laws that affect voting without getting them cleared through g.o.g. or whatever or they're not enforceable those laws he cleared by d.o.j. they were enforceable he can argue at that point i can decide a case in the senate of section five would stop voter id laws from happening because guess what they still happened in georgia in south carolina but well but let's not argue the fact that the voter suppression laws quote unquote right which in my state pennsylvania were masqueraded as voter id laws to prevent fraud which was never confirmed by anyone. we're definitely efforts to make sure that certain

people had a harder time voting and if we look at the people to your point tom that were disproportionately affected right blacks latinos those are the very people that vote overwhelmingly swore democratic and. you know i mean this is. it was about what helps the democratic party and not what helps the american voter and that's the reason why you know and that's the reason why my organization filed an amicus brief asking the supreme court not only to take this case but to set aside section five for a justice department should never be trying to prefer one political party over another chorus in eight hundred seventy five civil rights it eight hundred seventy five civil rights laws were passed to enforce following is the second sons or the fifteenth amendment congress shall have the right to you know. those those civil rights laws were struck down in one thousand nine hundred three and the rationale of justice bradley was he wrote the majority opinion was that basically hey you

know we're a generation out from the end of the civil war enough already and in fact what he said was when a man has emerged from slavery and by the aid of benefits legislation he's referring to the civil rights act as shaken off the inseparable concomitants of that state that state of slavery there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws and when his rights as a citizen or a man are to be protected by the ordinary modes by which other men's rights are protected that is the essence of what scalia says is it not. i will tell you to agree with it i will tell you this the justices that got appointed after the civil war were increasingly hostile to blacks and they were done so by these democrats who now want to claim that they represent freedom and opportunity for black americans and the reason that you got those series of cases and the reason that you got the separate but equal ruling was because of the dominance of the democrats who

appointed those those radical races onto the court now the point here is the voting rights act one hundred years later comes along to fix that that's to stop lynching best to stop voter intimidation at the polls that stops destruction of the polls and fees and the like not. to require racial outcomes so that the measure is how many blacks are elected to the state senate or how many blacks are mayors that is what the justice department is doing now in there and that what they're doing yes they are not absolutely there is no right there's no there's absolutely no connection to absolutely not i was just in a debate with them with one of the justice department officials and they had made it baiting measure of the test of discrimination is how many minorities can elect members of the same who have themselves are not majority minority and yes but how else are you going to deter voter rights law that we're talking about and the voter suppression laws bear no connection to what you've just said they bear no connection to how many blacks and latinos are elected however if it is an

inadvertent effect that if voter rights are upheld that those voters support one party or have a way that is absolutely do you mean as in r.c.m. i mean thing you just said was totally inaccurate what happens is no it's a. state applies for permission and the justice department negotiated so essentially what you're saying before is place to say you have to have settled what you're what you're saying this is essentially the same thing that justice bradley said which is no i'm not saying i got this problem i know i am absolutely not so as a lawyer but obviously opposite why is it that in the state of the state of alabama which was being sued shelby county alabama there's not one single african-american state being go like to see there you go that whatever to the test you have to be expanded to certainly have to be and be an advocate of this as it has been suppressing the african-american you know that as we see office of presidency doesn't mean it the united states senate doesn't mean it and the governors make mistakes don't mean it but it is antithetical to our constitutional system and

that's what it's going to leave you with the last with more on tonight's big picture room right after the break. let me let me i was going to let me ask you a question. here on this board is where we're having the debate we have our knives out. to the. this time it was so bad staying there again hearing this story we're being i don't want to talk about the surveillance me . you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture .

here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that americans call i don't know. i'm sorry i'm just a guy who cares an awful lot of money you sir are a fool you know what kind of other terrorist cells you know want to keep us safe the future is in the olympics and the christian. secure the borders. you know the book we're going to distract us from what you and i should care about because they're a profit driven industry that sells a sensationalistic garbage he calls it breaking news i'm happy martin and we're going to break that. looking for every dollar up in the field that we won't find it here if you're looking for relevant stories unique perspective from tom my skin's in antarctica.

or the back of the big picture rubble joining me tonight francesca chain. sam bennett and horace cooper let's get back to it breaking up the big banks is now bipartisan sherrod brown but as progressive as you can get on the democratic side david vitter about as conservative as you can get on the republican side are teaming up to work on breaking up the big banks the six largest banks the united states have combined assets equal to sixty five percent of the g.d.p. of the united states two tenths of one percent of all the banks in america which is basically five banks control seventy percent of all banking assets is this not you know the essence of the kind of an op of the stuff that you know both republicans and democrats have fought against from teddy roosevelt to the day since the gilded age horace absolutely not i think this is

a terrible idea and i think it's going to have serious consequences for investors as well as people on the bottom end of the table having a good wells fargo bank of america and elderly wise and everybody and you end up with want to take away too big to fail and monopoly that's what's going on here. so how domino effect on them is we're going to tell you that the only way you can have a monopoly is for the government to create barriers to entry if the government stays out of it then you can have opportunities for competition i would strongly recommend you go back and read the history of got the rockefeller out are not exist to intercede when the markets create scenarios up with that are harmful to their citizens now if we look at those payday loans that are going that whole big scandal that's going on where poor single working mothers are paying what they think five hundred percent annual interest rates because of the machine that you connery that's going on right now that's a perfect example of where you need government to enter some very very candid i agree with you i can agree with you on the payday loans that's like literally

bringing your credit card company for making you buy the shoes ok you know you literally have taken out the payday loan at that point you have to be prepared for them to then want to get their money back and you have to be prepared for them not be there you don't know how they are going to sound much interest anybody can charge and what the. banks are doing is they're trying to skirt around that issue by working with these payday loan companies through the internet no the banks are facilitating criminal activity whatsoever where there's so much better they create these lottery schemes but have infinitely impossible odds of winning and they take so much money from the little guy i love how actually government is selling i don't know if it doesn't get their money back and then me the little guy asked and that thing about kind of authority to liberals who are fans of monopolies is a take on the education excuse me of the lotteries as ways to funnel bridge to government you look government limits of government idea i don't know i just i speak for myself i do not love government but i feel government has an appropriate role to play to make sure that ordinary citizens particularly those who might not

have the best education listen if a single mom is trying to make it in such a great job and it doesn't get kicked out of her apartment she needs some sort of protections around her to not be taken advantage of and she is being taken advantage of right now by some of these big banks and they also have put her in the public how i don't think that was substandard they send her kids to substandard schools and now the bank is her problem and the governor said about your family you know i mean i feel like they're saying that these things obviously are between these two wonderful people this is an experience i know that i feel like you're basically saying though that these women are too stupid to be able to understand the terms of them and their lives were no i mean i feel like that's actually you know i'll cop to that i have had banks give me fifteen or twenty pages long documents so you know you want a mortgage here read all this stuff and then you go i want my irish comrade i found i was fighting the world that's what we're going to war i mean that's all you have even going to do you want to borrow money to pay for it are you talking three four pages we're not talking about littering you read it if you ever read your credit card ever if you're going to terms of your credit card agreement i mean you have

with the bank yeah i've only recently you know actually read it when i saw that you got your you agree to give up our constitutional rights under two provisions of the constitutional rights but i got it when i originally got my ticket it's been a while back but that's not the point if you're making my point for the a little bit of a broken record here's another example of why we need more women in. please forgive me because it's women in congress that have been advancing sensible financial reform so that ordinary citizens aren't being fleeced they aren't being taken advantage of and i think the current situation with these big banks i think history would show us right we've had several situations where the government has had to intercede to stabilize our economy when banks have held too much power and too much of the assets of a snake we got it we got to move along to the car last question you had was were the last times were good and we'll catch you next bob woodward got his name in the news this week writing a misleading article blaming the sequester on the president and then claiming he was threatened by the white house because of it yesterday e-mails between woodward in the white house were released showing there was not

a threat at all we were simply told he might regret staking out that claim very friendly e-mails actually veteran white house reporters are calling woodward's claim overblown so here's the question what else does bob woodward consider a threat could it be the sneezing panda. or breathe sleepwalking dog. hora see the dramatic squirrel. of a squirrel or a hamster on. the sleepwalking dog that's a pretty scary if the white house can do that to you i'd be worried if. it was obama's fault i guess. i vote for the squirrel all right. you know it's the whole

thing is a little squirrelly to me. like i guess i vote for this girl but i'm just going to say as a journalist myself you know i got to stand up for the guy a little bit so i sent her a little bit as a fellow journaling is trying to vary a little bit although even erick erickson said it wasn't about making lines definitely it's for as jess goes for us like you all think you guys are. let's talk economics one hundred one capitalism has cycles of bust and boom their normal called the business cycle in the george washington a ministration of the ronald reagan administration when the business cycle is in decline. we increase government spending to fill in the holes created by the loss of private sector revenues a government spending during times of declines in the business cycle is not only

softens the blow for businesses and for average working people but it also stimulates the economy and gets it back on track on the other hand government behavior should be very different at the high points of the business cycle that's when there's nearly full employment and lots of money sloshing around in the private sector so it's the right time for government to dial back spending and to raise enough revenue through taxes to pay off the money spent during the business cycle downturn got it system balancing act president harry truman for example knew that during times of prosperity when the business cycle was on the upswing as it was after world war two less government spending was needed and modest increases in taxation would help to reduce the national debt and as we saw during the earlier republican president who are presidency failing to follow this common sense principle can be a disaster for the economy and those for the nation in one thousand nine hundred eighty nine for example after the great stock market crash president hoover and

republican congress refused to significantly increase government spending as a result the economy continued to collapse day after day month after month for more than three years in fact economists know that there's even a multiplier effect when it comes to government spending as you can see in this chart during downturns in the business cycle government spending produces a lot more bang for the buck because it goes directly into people's pockets and they then spend it into the economy when the business cycle is up government spending doesn't have as much impact or make as much sense but collecting taxes makes a lot more sense when the economy is up the average american has always known this it was such an obvious common knowledge that when president truman gave his presidential nomination acceptance speech in one nine hundred forty eight he didn't have to explain it he just made a passing reference to it he told the crowd in philadelphia quote now everybody likes to have low taxes but we must reduce the national debt in times of prosperity

. think about it like this being unemployed is like being in a business cycle downturn while a person may not be making a salary they still need to survive you can't just pack up live on the street and stop eating so instead people typically rely on credit whether it's actual creditor good will from others or on savings for that matter to get by until you get another job this is the same with the business cycle during times of downturn it's necessary to borrow and spend to get the economy back on track now so you get a new job and once again have an income this is the time to essentially tax yourself and pay down your debt and set aside a bit of money for future times of unemployment it's an imperfect analogy because our nation can borrow easily and print its own money if necessary and generally we can't but it does show how it works so here we are today as america and much of the world are in the middle of a downturn in the business cycle those austerity obsessed countries like greece

italy and spain that are following herbert hoover's one nine hundred twenty nine strategy are experiencing a full out disaster and countries like germany china and sweden that are using government spending to bridge the business cycle downturn are doing great even federal reserve chairman ben bernanke is saying america should be using this common sense principle during testimony on calm capitol hill earlier this week bernanke he told lawmakers this. a substantial portion of the recent progress in lowering the deficit has been concentrated in near term budget changes which taken together could create a significant headwind for the economic recovery headwind as in something you go against in plain english what bernanke he was just saying was given the state of our economy we need to be borrowing and spending more money to give the economy a boost bernanke he went on to say this. besides having adverse effects on jobs and incomes the slow recovery would lead to less actual deficit reduction in the short

run for any given set of fiscal actions or again in layman's terms cutting back on government spending during times of economic downturns by following austerity policies does more harm than good unfortunately republicans in congress fail to understand the econ one hundred one the bernanke he was explaining republicans want to cut government spending in the middle of a business cycle downturn or to use the person with a job analogy republicans want to move out onto the street become homeless and stop eating food after we lost our job rather than use a credit card or savings to help us survive but ever since reagan and his government can't solve problems mentality infested washington d.c. republicans have either forgotten or just ignored these commonsense econ one hundred one principles that have guided our nation for hundreds of years it's time

to return to economic sanity and basic econ one hundred one principles and make sure that this hoover reagan nonsense is debunked once and for all.