i think. they would like to do is show that you know the price is the only industry specifically mention in the constitution which says that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy schreck help us. to make you know i'm sorry and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on and we go beyond identifying the truth rational debate and a real discussion critical issues facing america ready to join the movement then welcome to. the on tell marvin in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. tonight president obama

will take to the halls of congress to address the nation in his fifth actually it's his fourth state of the union address his fifth address to a joint session of congress what should he tell the american people and what can he realistically get done with a sharply divided congress that and more tonight's politics panel also even though he says he wants to reduce income inequality president obama continues to support the transpacific partnership a trade deal that some people call nafta on steroids why is he doing this and what does this say about the relationship between democratic presidents and american trade policy and a group of footballers from northwestern university in illinois i want to start a labor union if they're successful there is will be the first players union of any kind in all of college sports that this be the start of the end c.w.a. labor movement.

you know this tonight barack obama will go before congress to deliver his fourth state of the union address his fifth big part is. it's this is actually the fist. time that is addressed congress in what is the constitutionally defined state of the union address but the fourth time that he's spoken about his state even because the first one was just two weeks after he had been inaugurated every presidential speech is a big deal but this one will be especially crucial for obama twenty thirteen was a tough year for the president maybe his toughest year yet revelations about the n.s.a. secure surveillance programs alienated many people in his base in the messy rollout of the obama what obamacare website threaten to cut the legs out from under health care reform before it really even got started at the same time many of the top priorities of it all of obama's legislative agenda things like passing immigration reform and raising the minimum wage remain undone it should be any surprise then

that the american people are still pessimistic about the future of the country and skeptical of the president's recent n.b.c. news poll found that sixty three percent of people say that the country is moving in the wrong direction fifty one percent of people meanwhile disapprove of the job president obama is doing those numbers are bad but they're not nearly as bad as congress' poll numbers that same n.b.c. news poll found that a whopping eighty one percent of americans disapprove of the job that congress is doing that's as good of a sign as any for president obama if he wants any success of the remaining three years of his second term he needs to hammer home to the american people that congress is the biggest obstacle to progress in washington republicans have killed almost everything president obama pushed for in last year's state of the union address they filibustered gun control they sat on immigration reform they froze efforts to raise the minimum wage and when president obama has been able to make good on the state of the union promises over the last year he has avoided congress

all together work through result executive bridge executive action created new standards for coal fired power plants executive action created the president's promise zone program that funnels resources to regions hit hardest by the recession the bush recession and executive action made a nuclear deal with iran a reality. as a reason that this year's state of the union address will probably sound a lot like last year's state of the union address and that's because republicans in congress have made it pretty much impossible for president obama to accomplish any of his goals as chief executive enough is enough and president obama goes before congress and the american people tonight to make it absolutely clear that the time for republican sabotage is over if the poll numbers are correct americans know that congress is doing a bad job they just need the president to act like he knows that congress is do it .

welcome to tonight's special state of the union politics panel joining me marc harrold libertarian commentator attorney and author of team o'mara president of the young democrats of america and newsome national advisory council with the project twenty one black leadership network thanks for all all of you for joining us but it's great to have you with us. shouldn't we just as a starting point shouldn't we really be talking about congress's failures not president obama is i mean they've been. from from two thousand from january twentieth two thousand and nine the night that obama was inaugurated and fifteen republicans and newt gingrich and frank luntz got together at the caucus room restaurant and basically swore a blood oath to do everything they could to block any any success on his part i mean the agenda that the republicans have always had is ruin the economy to prevent him from having any success and then blame him for all of it and the american people i mean you know this is the old p.t. barnum thing nobody ever got or a.j. liebling to put in his quote book or look at nobody ever fail to get rich

underestimating the intelligence of the american people they're just assuming people are going to blame the president and it turns out a lot of people are blaming the president but you want to. confuse because if the republicans try to block obama starting in two thousand and nine they did a pretty bad job the biggest peacetime spin to build in history with the eight are any of that near could be. recovery act obamacare had the first year before scott brown got sworn in to replace ted kennedy he had he had a period of time in a few months there were he actually had a year it was a little less than a year wasn't scott brown was elected in january of the next year or so but a year ok so he had about a year where he had a filibuster proof majority in the senate and he had the house when i'm with you and i think he should have been much more ambitious during the year but you know in retrospect i mean because you see now you know he's had four years of just absolute obstruction how can you call it anything other than let's look at let's look at the things that were supposedly block what is it that obama is proposing these grand ideas of the bombs proposing. here at fixing climate change stopping the greatest

threat to democracy to the marquis was shot down here read in the senate democratic senate there were how many there was a filibuster proof senate win here we blocked in or didn't allow works mark come to a vote on the senate floor it was just a more question mark he was the comment i think was a carbon tax bills passed out of the house in two thousand and one. so but it never came to the floor. and i did not know that well i mean i would i would disagree with that i mean today right now the congress is in the midst of deliberating over his seven with the taxpayer funded abortion act you know this issue is definitely something with the hyde amendment passing in the seventy's i want to talk about that when the conversation has been about long term unemployment . extending that specifically and g.o.p. went home on christmas break to liberate that we tried to have the conversation about comprehensive immigration reform and passing you know the dream act and

certain things related to that the g.o.p. passed the buck on that specifically on climate change and anything that would result in building jobs the g.o.p. has definitely been obstructionist about it i mean they've tried forty nine times forty eight times but are attempting to do it forty nine times. ca it's a settled law of the land even republicans are saying that already and that we need to actually look toward implementing reforms to make it the best health care system that we can have so do you think that the president. do you agree with me that the president needs to do more to point this out to people i played on my radio show today a couple of speeches that harry truman made and he just he just kept saying this republican congress was that they were going to enhance social security instead why do we go through seven hundred thousand a lot i mean he just wanted to point after point and every single time this republican got yeah and he wanted to lecture me and the republicans did not you

know that was forty eight the republicans did not hold the house of representatives again until the ninety's for fifty years the republicans forty seven years republicans were out in the wilderness because harry truman beat up side the head so bad yeah well i mean i think it's absolutely true and i think you start to see that after his reelection where he was just like you know this republican congress hasn't allowed me to do you x. y. z. president. the president obama hasn't thought that so i mean he has set that i think a lot more aggressively you'll probably see a little bit of that tonight and certainly in his attitude about trying to do executive orders to get things done has been a definite move towards saying well look i can't get anything done with this republican congress and so i'm going to move forward and do the best thing i can for the american people within my within my power mark george washington did eight executive orders during his two years ronald reagan did twelve thousand. you know it's really grown since then. it really started exploding actually during the

f.d.r. administration he was the first one to have four digits in the number of executive orders instead of three and i think you have to go back to lincoln to be the first one to have three digits but. their argument being made on the right is obama has become a tyrant and that this is. too much executive power well the beltway is all about blame that's how you get ahead and this is at least two countries and obstructionism when you have deadlock you have gridlock that's an expression of the democracy of the electorate itself but one thing that i do believe that i think the politics of this may work this executive action i believe with the numbers you showed with the fifty one percent and what over eighty percent may be good politics to try to point out to the american people i'm not to blame they're to blame or they're more to blame but again the executive action is going to cut both ways i think even especially progressives are going to start to say wait a minute if you're so willing to unilaterally at why are we still at war why is one top of the not closed why haven't you shut down the n.s.a. as a lot of how do is not close because there is actual law this in all cases this is

like reagan you know with the senate needs to i mean by a late at the law there is something to that but there's way to downsize jail for now ok but we're stopping there are some ways you could he could change the way that it's still military he could do because he controls the military if he could pull all the personnel out of guantanamo yes and he would say ok that's it we're going to depopulate it kuantan were to leave the prisoners there right we're going to open the doors and we'll let castro take care of well but i understood that that's what he said during the campaign that we were going to get out of this war he's used executives' action he's been forceful on certain things with prosecutorial discretion but he's done nothing in the drug war there's been a few symbolic things and the changes he could legalize there by pot to begin with absolutely i mean he could do a lot of things so i think in one way i understand where he's going with this he's going to be able to blame somebody else more than him because they're both unpopular congress the president but once you go down that road and say i'm going to start to do things unilaterally people going to start say great in the war do something about the drug war and it goes on and on so i think you get

a lot of attack i do too but i think i don't think the executive actions are good thing i think the criticism good thing i think the risk the far left on this is well because they're going to start to say well if you're doing all these things what about this what about this and i think the war's going to be one of the biggest issues in twenty fourteen if we're not out i think the incumbents are going to suffer for their thoughts on their. i think mark makes some excellent points and that is the danger of is equivocal because one thing that the democratic party has done is continue to sometimes rightfully sometimes wrongfully blame republicans for a lot of different problems but as you get when you get thirty two years or reaganomics it's got of this country and i think that's a lot of ok we can have an economic debate but the key is that as you take on responsibility and say i'm going to unilaterally solve problems that the new set that expectation is there again you start only in the problems as well as the solution is yes and i think that's that's the important one will be back more tonight's big picture politics panel that.

i marinate join me on boom bust thirteen get impartial and financial reporting commentary concert news and much much. only on bus and on. i would rather as questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on r.t.

question for. welcome back with me for tonight's big picture politics panel are marc harrold team o'meara and huey newsome let's get back to it as part of his twenty fourteen plan to breakthrough republican obstructionism president obama is expected to announce tonight that is going to raise the minimum wage for federal contract workers this is where the federal government puts out a contract to a private corporation to do something you know a bit of work in a cafeteria staff the gift shops in the smithsonian whatever it may be. man if. the

construction is a whole variety of things this is going to be done by executive order it will only affect workers employed by future government contracts. my first question on this is whatever happened to davis bacon i thought that this was already the law of the land that if the federal government puts out a contract that the prevailing wage has to be the minimum wage is anybody know about this. is that for contractors with just well i thought it was i thought that were you know and i'm going back a long way here twenty thirty years i don't jimmy carter was the last guy who was really beating people up for jim for violating davis' bacon but davis bacon says that if the federal money is is being used in a project that the local contractors have to pay the quote prevailing wage which was always considered to be the union way. that potentially could be the case i know it's like i could apply to new contractors that are hired as the ten ten ten

ten yeah it could job with some reports that i've read recently that well since this was announced they are saying that for the most part federal contract workers are already paid. now we're you know the minimum that people are saying this would be like twenty thousand one hundred or versus twenty to one which is what's with the we just had the power to realtors on strike here in d.c. the people working in the smithsonian gift shops and things and they're making like nine bucks an hour and fifteen and it was under ten it was under ten and i remember what you know this is like four weeks ago we had one on the show i think this is somewhat symbolic i think this is the one of the i don't really know the federal congress of the right federal contract workers i agree i would look all day or not all day but i look for the numbers on how many people are in federal contracts making less than ten ten and my guess is it's fairly small because of the federal contractors making and how embedded that system is but you know i think it's symbolic i think it's going to one of the launching points he's going to do he's going to say look i can only do so much this is one of the only ways i can up the

federal minimum wage now it's up to the rest of the country and this income inequality that i think's going to be the benchmark and he's going to say now it's up to congress i've done what i can now congress is stopping me from doing it nationwide and this i think this launch as income inequality is the major you know way they're going to i think you're right it's seventy three percent of americans support raising the minimum wage and if the minimum wage was just where it was in sixty eight it would be ten dollars or ten cents. and if we had kept up with productivity the way that we had from george washington to have told ronald reagan we're wages followed productivity the average wage would be seventeen dollars an hour. it's yes well i mean we also take into fact that if you know we raise the minimum wage even up to that level or just a little bit below that then we can actually bring them out four point five to five million americans out of poverty so it's definitely it would be a definite to a lot of them apropos of your question the national employment law project says that three out of four federal contract workers make less than ten dollars or so

and so because of that and i'm completely wrong in what i thought i had i could i didn't find the if that's correct yeah i didn't have that's actually very surprising to me but but like i said i couldn't find anything because. well you know federal contract workers includes the you know the edward snowden's the world who are making two hundred thousand bucks a year in the black waters of the world you know and so i don't. want to think i income inequality will be the. debate this year there's no question about it but to two quick points minimum wage hikes by themselves there's no way this point to a short neck gap between the top and the bottom now that need to be careful productivity arguments because a lot of the productivity gains we've seen least in last twenty thirty years come from technology so the least skilled workers are unable to really show gains in productivity because of technology now that's that's the argument conservatives have been making for years on him and me it was the argument that was actually being made before the locker court back in the nineteen teens in one nine hundred

twenty s. and in the before the supreme court you know we were in the midst of the industrial revolution so we can do more with fewer workers so we can pay people less and you know f.d.r. did buy it and here's here's what president obama is going to say tonight about that which i with which i disagree actually said at or more than three decades even before the great recession hit massive shifts in technology and global competition had eliminated a lot of good middle class jobs and weakened the economic foundations that families depend on now he's saying three decades by coincidence three decades is the beginning of reaganomics we had fifty years of new deal mom makes and as productivity went up wages went up in one thousand nine hundred sixty eight sixty nine time magazine did a cover story on how in the year two thousand the average family in america has been going to be bringing home a hundred twenty thousand dollars a year if wages follow productivity or they're going to be working at twenty two hour work week and in fact if the fruit of the increase in productivity had not

gone to the top one percent but instead had gone to the workers as it had from the george washington administration to the reagan administration right now we would be at those numbers the time. magazine was predicting this excludes in the theory that this is a recent productivity gains in the last thirty three decades are based on technological shift versus know what they are the capability over the productivity gains absolutely no i'm agreeing with you what i'm saying is that the here's the church productivity is part of typically goes up that's the redline wages always went up you know so either wages went up or work hours went down we went from the seventy hour week to the sixty hour week to the fifty hour week to the forty hour week right and we end and along with that we saw wages go up so if and what happened with reaganomics and you see in one nine hundred eighty that's when these numbers started split apart and reagan's war on working people and all that productivity that gap is the money that went to the top one percent if if labor had kept up if

wages and kept up with productivity then you know yes productivity increases because of technology but so what if the company is making more money because technology has increased the productivity of their individual workers write their individual worker should make more rather than just the c.e.o. makes but the funny thing that happens when you look at back at that graph and look what happened at the end of the seventy's you see that. the computer and so few were able to make you make that same argument about the steam engine about already . it's hard for us to say specifically what's causing met whining to start what's causing why did you start you follow unionization it tracks that bottom line that's when that's what you know when reagan came in office a third of the workforce was unionized and workers were saying if this company is making more profits that's fine the stockholders make more money in the c.e.o. makes more money but we're going to make more money too and as the unions got wiped out so did wages. make them i think the most interesting thing about this whole discussion is yes i think everybody you know i talk to people who work inside

corporate jobs who work nonprofit jobs that were kind of across the sector they actually cut down how much work they put out in the fifty sixty hour work week to compare to how much they get paid it's kind of a. miserable and so yes it's right but i think that the keeping to understand is that you know four point five to five million americans will be lifted out of poverty they actually raise the minimum wage gives them a chance to actually invest in going to community colleges or maybe a four year university or thinking actually moving out of jobs that are minimum wage if that's something that they wish but they can't do that when they're just trying to like literally make it from bill to bill if they're not had a way to dominate disaster much like the prevailing wage bill the the union wage used to be the minimum wage is also basically a floor that ships and everything about it you know so i mean i'm not sure does this take this the way this is divided down does this take i mean obviously one hundred forty seven of these are not just inflation but you're talking about

a different kind of family dynamic obviously at some point in their you went to where there's more dual income families so yes to some degree i think that might skew the results of this a little what it means is that the reality is even worse because because in one thousand nine hundred eighty you had average household income was around twenty five thousand dollars in today's dollars and right now average individual income is around twenty five thousand dollars so this represents while you've got now at the end of two thousand and seven you've got you know about one point eight. as a factor or you know it was one in one nine hundred eighty s. one point eight now people working in the household and they're still only bringing home this is family income and the average is forty thousand forty thousand dollars in the united states and if you really had two people and they were really and then twenty five thousand had become forty or fifty they should be taken home one hundred thousand dollars between the two basically it's taken two people to make the same amount of money that one person made twenty two that's right because thirty years of reagan's war on. it's it's not this is not productivity we did not

see this happen when when the when the internal combustion engine came along we did not see it with fact what we saw was wages went up and which ended the route realities of american working families now it's that we're having it so. that discussion about you know wages in terms of like if one person brings them a very good check but you know i talk to people now and they stay there are women who i know stay home to actually take care of the children because they realize the amount of money to pay like a daycare person would actually cost her right so they just like it's not working and so i mean these are just sort of the realities of how they're navigating a two income household that's not even getting paid all that much right so it's it's a it's a tough time in america and it's a tough time because of this dynamic in my opinion in this this anyway climate change i want to be in the last couple minutes we have here i want to talk about this back in may we hit four hundred parts per million of carbon dioxide the atmosphere that never before in the history of the human race under sixty five thousand years on this planet we have never seen for the parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and there is

a pretty good argument being made right now by some climate scientists that the difference in temperature between the the air over north america or over the united states and the differ and the the temperature of the air over the north pole that temperature gradient which is i think around a seventy or eighty degrees difference that that difference is what built basically a giant wall of air that kept the jet stream in place circling around north of us and that as the because the polar regions are warming four times faster than the temperate regions the difference in temperatures has diminished it's gone from like say seventy five down to sixty five or something like i don't know the exact numbers and this has weakened the the wall that holds the jet stream up so the jet stream is like by we all were down in texas and dumping all this polar air on top of us this could be the new normal i mean this is like global warming is causing some really bad stuff in the minute we have left any thoughts anybody on this you

know the congress the president somebody should be doing something shouldn't be. i'm out of my wheel house on the science but i will say this and i you know i think the a.c.s. with the c.a.a. of the e.p. . or the i.r.s. . the e.p.a. and this i think this is a new way to really expand government and law enforcement which is yeah i mean i think if this is an opportunity for the president to certainly work with stakeholders all across the aisle who have invested interests whether it's you know farmers whether it's labor whether it's environmental organizations about what actually works in making sure that we're working on climate change that actually brings jobs to our country and you know helps us move forward and if you think it's time for waxman markey. the one thing i will say i think i'm not i'm like mark on my car you forget i'm not an expert not close but if the american people are saying that this is a problem and they believe there's a consists among the public that this is a problem that we you will see i don't think government intervenes i think of

people started realizing that this is this insane cold is the result of global warming which is totally counterintuitive that maybe the maybe that be the way any of marc harrold team o'mara he knew some thank you all for being with us coming up during his state of the union address and i president obama will be focusing heavily on our nation's wealth inequality epidemic and on how to bridge the gap between the wealthy elite and every one else but if he's serious about fighting wealth inequality should we abandon so-called free trade deals that do more harm than good. i know c.n.n. the m s n b c news have taken some slightly but the fact is i admire their commitment to cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate. that was funny but it's closer to the truth and i think. it's because one politician in the

mainstream media works side by side with joe actually on here. at our team we have. different. because the news of the world just is not this funny i'm not laughing dammit i'm not how. you got to the jokes will handle them.

think i suspect. they would like to do is go did you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioning the constitution. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy schreck all books. will. never go on i'm sorry and on this show we reveal the nature of what's actually going going on we go beyond identifying a problem to try rational debate a real discussion critical issues facing america in particular ready to join the movement then welcome in the big picture. welcome back to the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour each year college athletic programs rake in millions of dollars thanks to the hard work and dedication of student athletes so should student athletes share in some of the

well they're helping to create and republicans love to argue the tax cuts are a great way to help spur economic growth and put americans back to work that of course couldn't be any further from the truth i'll explain why i'm still here to. screw news based on previews from administration officials president obama will be spending a great deal of his state of the union speech tonight discussing the issue. of wealth inequality in america but in discussions about inequality in america one of the things that often goes overlooked is our nation's addiction to so-called free trade deals nafta calf to shaft all these deals are signed under the guise of helping to improve the economy and put americans to work in reality they take jobs away from americans and help to further the gap between the wealthy.