hi i'm richard in for tom hartman live from washington d.c. and i'm sam sachs and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. in this year's budget proposal president obama will propose cuts to social security and other social programs is he making a huge mistake we'll talk about this and more internets big picture rumble and how have the giant telecom companies brought about a new gilded age in america susan crawford in tonight's edition of conversations with great minds. and it's friday so it's time for the big picture romel joining us tonight are heather ceremony political consultant and associate a blueskin solutions and adam editor in chief of net right daily welcome back both

of you thanks for joining us tonight so let's start talking about jobs numbers eighty eight thousand jobs added last month that's pretty dismal the unemployment rate did fall to seven point six percent because a lot of people are looking for jobs anymore because it's so bad this is the first jobs report since the sequester went into effect. it's also first job report since the payroll tax cut expired which probably had a considerable effect here we saw the retail sector lose twenty four thousand jobs a lot of republicans going into the sequester were saying this isn't going to be that big of a deal this is just a drop in the bucket when it comes to cuts and within the beltway it sure looks that way but if you look at local if you look locally you really are seeing the effects of sequester and here's a little clip here of various local news outlets talking about it. these new lakota helicopters that california national guard uses will soon stop flying altogether because there's just no money for maintenance key for search and rescue. are

heading home members of the community action committee that help low income people into our county are looking for ways to happen hundred fifty thousand dollars from their budgets of western cuts forced seymour senior citizen center to cut the number of days it provides meals from five to three mission of course all these things mean fewer jobs so we saw what a steady did in europe should we be at all surprised of what's happening now that we've let these massive spending cuts go through and how many more times do we have to see it happen before we're like ok cutting spending during a recession is a bad idea and sam you blame the republicans but let's remember who is i do you blame anybody who thinks that cutting spending during a recession is a good idea and tax increases is a great idea during christmas on who you're going to tax are you going to be taxing people who are actually spending money and driving a car to me or you talk to people who are sitting on billions of dollars off shore and i mean let's remember that's a question was obama's idea no one's excited about the sequester taking place but

the reason he suggested it is because he thought that it would force republicans to you down to him and did it go hold on the second one i think no one likes the idea is no but i think no i agree with you nobody likes it nobody likes a bill that's about libertarian ideas and nobody likes the idea of sequester except john boehner who said he got ninety eight percent of what he wanted in the debt limit deal that created the sequester right he said that this question was obama's idea the idea that's going to go on for a decade is doesn't pass a lot it was a major congress telling the sequester in fact i don't think many on capitol hill like to think that if they don't like it we're going to have to go well i think i just i don't want to wait stop it let's keep in mind let me just throw out the word piece devastated massive cuts they're not there minuscule and what we're talking about is all these missing jobs and the jobs report let's an unfair assumption because first off there has been nothing since the supplier went into effect for these jobs numbers to actually be reflected in the report opens march first bomb of the favorite economists marx then said that. very little support on the site is now

worth it hold on hold on a second for example in the district of columbia itself right if you look at education education title one funding into schools and take a seven percent hit that means a lot of teachers a lot of teachers a lot of you know cafeteria leaders are going to get fired because they can no longer afford them now though how those jobs have been going to happen over ten not here in the fact one hundred forty nine airports i hear about to happen and it's actually had even called these cuts these are close to ten percent increase in the ten percent slashing about employment benefits i mean if you're going to say this i hope that the government is slashed in size and other publications went out of the well known libertarian i understand that you guys think we're spending too much money i get it but i don't really don't you recognize that cutting spending these having harmful economic effects how does fine if they want to do it i can understand if you do it it's as if i know this is going to be painful but we have to get through it that's fine but at least acknowledge that cutting government spending does harm the government that's about

a government doesn't it how it harms the government forms of government that it hurts rich i've been a course we know i know i hear some of the g.d.p. growth is how you determine how an economy grows correct that point one of the inputs for g.d.p. growth is government spending when you decrease government spending you decrease g.d.p. growth that's just the formula am i wrong no you're correct so that means decreasing government spending means you hurt the economy no it doesn't mean but you decided to give us a big no i'm talking about is the employer that if you take decrease what are the inputs to g.d.p. so g.d.p. therefore decreased. the second i guess what happened and this is something you might be able to celebrate here the government will still spend more money next year than it did this year and continually we increase even more you have more you know we have triggered and there's an. increase is and they can be on done at any moment so why don't john boehner gets work get them on done. but then it's not john painters fault. if john boehner is the reality that being that obama signed by one

i think most of the laws originate in the congress and. the congress obama have vetoed the sequester but you know i think we're missing the point here when we created the sequester we're going to create the committee of twelve the committee of twelve is going to come together everyone you know when disaster oh how do how do you how is bipartisanship ever a disaster it's not bipartisan when you just say we're going to take a look at mid eight sixty that's not over here i'd suggest room and say let's get to work the democrats said we're willing to work here's a we're going to propose and said that to know they did it yes how do you walk away from the table they walked away happy able because let me tell you why they walked from the table how they walked off the table because they said that you guys want to increase revenue and we were absolutely positively never because of grover norquist another lobbyist increase revenue and obama said that we won't and he won't agree with you either we want i think i'll give you the president i know they're trying to present propose a trillion dollars in cuts to the cost of this and cuts in spending but not everyone look it's already and whatever we do with taxes second hold on to what i

just i mean i just you just got the big nugget here you said a trillion dollars in cuts of what was the sequester this year how much did that because the president already put there's already been a trillion dollars of our and it's really hard to argue with the budget this year but unless you have here we go we cry that the roof is falling it look this all these people are going to be fired but guess what obama found a way to save all the customs and border patrol agents obama from the way to save all the food people that were going to be cut in our meat was can be contaminated obama found the way to keep the forty radiation from occurring fish that was supposed to happen today the sequester i don't i'm not saying this is a republican or democrat issue i'm saying are you saying this is an issue. just because look at president obama's budget that he proposed today and he's going to propose cutting social security and into this is still with that austerity mentality that all three of us all three of you guys should speak to at this point i think there is why you're here i'll share it why why i try to say i will with the president the president's budget here that's going to propose change c.p.i. which is going to work out to. about fifteen hundred dollars less in social

security benefits for average senior over throughout the year should we be taking money out of people's pockets during a time when we need people to be spending money it's not out of their pockets first it's also it's only out of their pocket we're talking about corporations millionaires and billionaires and you can take out their pockets but you can take it to grandma's pocket but it's not in their pocket it is in their pocket that's the money she's paid into the so security system nationally to get it out she paid all that money and yeah over live to over a lifetime of work to pay off she paid into a small business of this system that then goes and it's a pyramid scheme and we're seeing this on ramp or your plate what's the end game that's why obama suggesting i want to what do both of you think is the end game here as long as we keep cutting and keep cutting and keep cutting are the layoffs i mean are the layoffs can eventually stop if we keep cutting what's the what's the end game you think you guys think we won't spend as much that's what's going to happen when i mean i'm just curious keep the people have more money in their pocket that so that you guys are bad but that's exactly what europe to europe that we're not going to spend this year as well yes they did they made

a drastic unless they had just what are you talking about and you talk about greece because i'm talking about you if you need to go i think go through all of the problems of note of first of all go to the united kingdom where they could only think they slashed education funding by six percent but six percent on the part of the point of the i wasn't all staring the point of the us this austerity regime as we've seen in europe is to reduce debt to g.d.p. ratios all across so when they're cutting spending in hopes of so they're lowering the spending hoping that if you bring the spending down then the debt to g.d.p. ratio go down to i think a little or c. . and not everything like well europe we are seeing a lot of research or grow the sourcing in greece spain and italy is dead to g.d.p. ratios are actually increasing more and more with austerity because now there's many people are able to pay revenue into the government because they aren't spending money and don't have you know they don't have a job so they can't pay any taxes but i wonder who is clearly not working so what is the endgame here which is not to reduce them on assets is a total of three and a half weeks or so that the sequester is spent in fact but congress is going to tell us that we're going to send it. in effect in europe five years has been going

on what are you going to take all of the economies and in the tank here to sequester three weeks old let's go to i don't think i don't get me wrong i don't think our economy we want to be but i would i would i would say that from when the president took the keys to this economy to where we are now our economy is not in the tank we've seen growth in g.d.p. when he took office we had negative four percent g.d.p. growth now every quarter since he's taken office you seen an increase in the spiral out of what we've all but we just about the let's talk about that let's talk about the economic facts economic facts are there's never ever been a time where deficit spending has resulted in an economic downturn it's actually quite the contrary we're going to we've seen what we had here i know that recessions been over years ago according to the national bureau. of economic difficulty so i'm not saying that we're going to tell that to all of those of millions of people that don't actually want to do that are going to find you have to you are came the ism so keynesianism so you had that i think and it worked and it didn't work it works don't want to work in that there are going to work you have to sort of they're not there you cannot say that what we have right now is came to

have it we had it for don't have years and the reason a little back the reason why we saw all of the somewhat improvement in the first four years of the obama administration's was the stimulus that's the difference between the united states and between europe is that we passed a stimulus package while europe chose austerity ever since that one stimulus package was passed not one single bit of stimulus has been passed anywhere in our economy which is why we're going sinking back into recession we're projected this years and were projected is this year to have the same amount of austerity you're going to see that's happening in europe other than the let's let's let's go i just want to touch on this point because i hate when republican and conservative say the stimulus and work that's just not true first of all this is that this is the stimulus was all republican ideals the first thing though isn't it was the biggest middle class tax cut ever passed in american history that stimulated the economy beyond that point the stimulus created almost one point two million jobs because it put firefighters back to work a police police officers back to work nurses teachers back. work it good rehab

classrooms and build bridges that put people back to work why wouldn't they don't want it's not happening still and they want to read literally every day as if it was minimal at all. it wasn't big enough to saw ads with the belgian democrats always say what it was you know i'm going to lose there you have a seven trillion dollars all alone in your economy i mean well yeah well i'd like to know what the number with i didn't vote for it and one trillion dollars christine romer you know his advisor put it two trillion dollars number out there they way way less to get republican support but we've got to and here we'll be right back more tonight's big picture rumble after the break. let me let me i want to know we're going to let me ask you a question from. here on this network is what we're having the debate we have our

knives out if. the truth is this right it's about staying there again we're in a situation where being i don't even 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 charming welcome to the big picture.

here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call a dollar. i'm sorry i missed the guy who cares an awful lot of money you sir are a fool you know what that is my other terrorist cells in your neighborhood all want to keep us safe to feature here is a monkey on live from the christian point. you're really going to get the. you know the super to distract us from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven industry that sells of sensationalistic garbage because that breaking news i'm happy martin and we're going to break this that it's. looking good every day guy up in the field that we won't find it here if you're looking for relevant stories unique perspective from top class cans in antarctica.

welcome back to the big picture rumble joining us tonight are heather sermo out of by leave let's get back to yesterday we had fast food workers on strike all across new york city there are many fifteen dollars an hour you know the least they should be asking for you considering the massive profits that the fast food corporations like the brands in the rest of the day we have a chart showing you right there mcdonald's yum brands wal-mart huge profits workers are getting minimum wage but this isn't just happening in the fast food sector this is been a trend that's been going on for the last thirty years if you look at worker productivity averse worker wages i think we have a chart for that too coming up is that they used to track together for one hundred years as worker productivity went up so did worker wages go up then around the late seventy's in the early eighty's they split and now workers aren't getting paid anywhere close to their productivity levels if they were getting paid close to their productivity levels today they'd be making way more than fifteen dollars an hour so isn't just this common sense ok we're used to fast food example that's

become a widely automated industry much more so than it's ever happened the last fifty sixty years where you might notice that divergence have never been to automated mcdonald's it's simply i have it both stories are pretty much like that it isn't but that doesn't mean we have to almost certainly be laying people off i mean what does on it why does automation necessarily have to lead to laying people off it's increasing productivity can't those gains go to more large hotel workers people. since you'll see that it matters it's these people are sitting on i could understand if these people were struggling to meet payroll but they're not struggling to meet payroll never know whether robinson's has a percentage will you have never been higher in the history of the country so you're saying seven twenty five an hour in new york city is a fair wage if that's what they're willing to do and that's what all that gets you by about day one so i hope soon as. little as all costs. so this is the this is the problem that i have with this whole thing is that they pay seven twenty five an

hour you guys say it's a fair wage but then the program would be unfair actually might be too high well ok so that's the government so the government that everybody does pick up the government doesn't want you know i've got to the government and the picking up the tab in government programs if we pay them a higher wage the government would have to pick up the tab for them or have to pay for section eight housing or welfare or wic programs if we paid the american worker the what they deserve we're the richest country in the world and the minimum federal having a federal minimum wage i think you're right i mean new york city fifteen dollars an hour may make sense i mean it's an expensive city and i if i go buy a big big macin new york city it can be a lot more expensive than if i buy it we don't have the federal minimum wage though then what i'm saying it doesn't think would see that's a problem democrats often say well it's fifteen dollars in new york city and he's made fifteen dollars across the board back to me start making i think what democrats are arguing with the president argued at least is that we need to raise minimum wage to ten dollars instead of having congress act every time we match up to inflation i mean every most or in the cost of living or the cost of living most

that most people most folks who don't work minimum wage get a cost of living wage regardless most companies give their executives three four point three times more than the cost of living wage increase in point is goldman sachs goldman sachs pays its part time board members half a million dollars a year they only need fifteen times that's the reason why these folks who work at mcdonald's forty hour forty hours a day forty hours a week or down to forty hours a week very productive they work forty hours a week and they only make seven twenty five an hour which was fifty thousand dollars a year less something that's going to waitress actually hired some states they do make one some point five so that's actually unfair to suggest that you bring up the stress issue that's their choice we limit a lot of choices that people can you know if you're not making the choice you're actually forcing certain choices are damaging to the economy and deciding to pay your executives more than they can ever spend while paying your workers poverty wages tell is a bad all. inflated wage is limiting choice you're not letting the market set the

wage you're saying well it's so unfair we're going to have the same learned in global markets as that wage and we do is we have to compete with bangladesh they want to race to the bottom this is absurd this is absurd what you're doing is here you are forced to relax you are marking you're arguing over who the and your are basically it sounds like you're justifying shantytowns in a raid on where you are not that it's just that simple either way that's absurd and that's an add on that i meet other. people should have the choice to get you to show you here are great for race to the bottom would be a lot of people out there you. go to the radar is that's the problem are not talking about an open american market anymore we're talking about an open global market kind of american workers american workers and bangladesh workers when they set the rate and you know the five government her days working on free there are people that cannot get work because the rate is at seven twenty five and there are fortunately not we're seven twenty five have you want to break it down into a point that to say the right on a second you do that is just not true because they do not speeding up companies

can't afford to pay that companies are making money hand over fist labor all these are making at anytime you hand over this and we're going to do a lot of goes all the chart hierarchal point out of the fact that it's scientific there's one thing certain on earth and that's you know the last appliance that you had a one certain thing and every time you raise that wage here we'll raise the unemployment rate and here you go you know you carry around a recent report from bloomberg estimated that eighty three of the biggest companies ship one point four trillion dollars of their money to off shore tax havens right and a court of the public interest research group the tax havens cost the u.s. government one hundred fifty billion dollars a year individuals one thousand and twenty six dollars a year enough money to feed a family of four for a month at the core of the corporate pay of the fact that the corporate pay is effectively the effect of tax rate of twelve percent what is actually thirty five percent you're telling me that this i did i just. understand why we can't close these loopholes ok. first off. i think we may have

a simpler tax system you know i mean i don't think that the reality is something that is what i mean. i mean i think there are quite a few suggestions out there i like the idea of a flat tax. you know i heard one conservative say we want to simpler tax code that means they want to raise taxes on people who currently don't make enough money to pay taxes so that they can lower taxes on people at the top right what i am saying is a wise thing in the tax cuts what i'm saying is that the tax code if you complicated and tempest are people who can afford to find loopholes do and i think we close the pile and make a point i think this really does look more like that sam was making was when you create a flat tax where everybody plays nine percent across the board those who have a higher discretionary income they're going to end when you have a lower income you have a marginal margin president to consume a lot more because you just have less money and you have to pay for all your expenses when you're rich or a millionaire or a billionaire you don't consume that much so if you're not so you're saying

anything rich people don't use the government is as much so i'm saying that rich individuals that end up saving more because they save more they don't buy more so they don't pay into the flat tax. ok that's better got a lot of people i wasn't going to be why but the funny part of how it's set up on how the flat tax is well we believe this economic this is that as a lawyer that's ahead this goes back to when mitt romney said forty seven percent of the country don't pay taxes even though they do pay sales tax it's a process. that we're talking about it is a tax system it should be fair how it works all of it out of the system and it's not fair and evenly across the board i mean how would you would it be a payroll tax would be a sales tax the locals take a compromise and do a sales tax you can figure out how to do it i don't know you we're not anywhere near imposing such a system. what we do know is that what we do know is that corporations you cited the fact that he said it's costing these people money it is it's not yes it is not what you're talking about is a government that doesn't budget correctly and boss this is why there's

a company to watch morrison nobody knows this and then says oh if it wasn't for our own law that we wrote we would have the most is why it cost middle class and working families more a cup of the first reason why it cost middle class and working families more is because their it results in results in government deficits right because not enough money coming into this is going to pay out the system and also know that also called for calm it also cuts critical programs like education programs like hospitals firefighters and fire fight firefighters firefighters and police that there you're before we go there we have so much pork that we get we get right i mean part of it yet and i'm not going to defend bloated spending anywhere and it's across the board yes some will take it into education hospitals let's look at like the federal bureau like you are oh yeah you're right. we have we subsidize boroughs like there are so many things that we do that are

unnecessary and if people don't even know about you there's a song that they seem to seem to agree on this point that we should get rid of loopholes we can all agree that we should never loopholes but the goblets or i'm going to get rid of pork we'll cross the border why don't we do that and i agree that you're going to if you're going to conservation programs that look to study how you know certain carcinogens affect the forest or whatever you know that's not pork those are important things to our side of the fence the farm and with a chainsaw we're down. another does a federal judge ruled yesterday the f.d.a. had to strike down the current age restriction on over the counter purchase of plan b. the morning after pill and twenty eleven the abomination to the f.d.a. to restrict over the counter purchases to only those over seventeen concerns argue that the pill in induces abortion not true it stops being fertilized or makes a. so was it was this the right decision either let me say this right now as a teenager you can't go into a drugstore and buy birth control pills and what this emergency contraceptive pill is is

a double dose of birth control pill so it's ridiculous that there's this inconsistency that as a teenager you can go in and buy this but not you know birth control but that is the only contraceptive a man could go will make you go into a pharmacy and buy condoms a woman could go in the pharmacy and buy things for a moment we're talking about hormonal pill and our mono birth control pill that obviously people think can be abused especially by minors to such a lift the age district restriction on this but to say that birth control pill is still by prescription only means they can morning after pill an abortion i didn't say that i said it's a hormone hormone pill it's filled with more about these i've got a birth control pill is which is why we have restrictions on who can buy it you have to have it when people shooting the use of the morning after pill limit abortions. but i've been talking about that right now we're talking about is whether minors should have access to this pill in a drugstore without having it minors are showing we can't we can't get around that

i see this right now what this judge is really about what this judge is saying is that my eleven year old boy can go out and buy it that's what he's saying you know age restrictions by bubble gum and emergency contraception that every time i do a story take it out of either the obama administration we don't support or the problem here is the problem here is that children on fortunately in our culture whatever you want to call you would call pop culture you want to call it music they are making adult decisions so should they have the right to get the book to put them over here is another weird thing that's going on right now just introduce this year we have a bill that would restrict cough syrup from being bought by minors you have to show that you are eighteen years old why because five. teenagers at some point have abuse cops are up and gotten high on it so we see that you know teenagers should not be entrusted with cops they're up but you can go and get emergency contraception there's all hormones for teenagers yale's have

a field day i mean you know how do you tell this if there has been intelligence on the morning after pill that have proved that it is a safety net that you can take is ok i think there's also been i did take morning after pill is go and make speed with this girl but you don't always have the borelli. that is. how they are out of thanks so much for being on the big picture of us this friday having us. looks after the break the united states used to lead the world when it comes to telecom internet and technology but times have changed and we've fallen behind so where do we stand today compared to other developed nations. susan crawford in tonight's conversations with the great mark.

the same story doesn't make it news no softball interviews no puff pieces the tough questions. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly 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 harvey welcome to the big picture. of 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 boston proper earlier today

it was very sticky you can see it start to become much more connery down so the bottom line there's still a lot of snow out here a good place for snowball fight the fire. season it is been a pretty incredible day there and even record snowfall throughout much of it might still be a slog through driving and listening merging see fear learn exceptions. the worst cure for those things. white house to give it to the radio guy and call it a day ok minestrone click off that i want you to watch closely to do because you've never seen anything like this on trial.