i think. everybody told you. did you know the price is the only industry specifically mention in the constitution. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy correct help us. to make you know i'm sorry and on this show we were real the picture of what's actually going on when we go beyond identifying a problem. rational debate a real discussion critical issues facing america emma are ready to join the movement then welcome to the big picture. on tell marvin in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture president obama gave his

fifth state of the union address last night laying out his agenda for the coming year to the american people while he talked about some good policy changes that executive actions a lot out in just a moment i would give my state of the union pick up where the president left off and ronald reagan hasn't been in the white house for nearly twenty five years but thanks to conservatives our nation is still addicted to fail reaganomics policies is the time we close the book on the reagan era for good and put america back on the path to success that and more tonight sloan liberal rubble. you need to know this last night president obama took to the halls of congress to give his fifth state of the union address the american people and while he did touch on many key issues that our country is facing today there are many things he should have mentioned that he did. so here's what i would have said to americans

last night our state of the union is strong but its politicians are stupid and are bought off by big oil tycoons wall street billionaires and giant transnational corporations and that's the first problem with america right now our conservative controlled supreme court has said that money is protected by the first amendment thanks to the disastrous citizens united decision the conservatives on the bench about a possible for billionaires to float our democracy with corporate cash which is slowly destroying the democratic principles that our founding fathers fought and died for the supreme court has also said the corporations are protected by the fourteenth amendment they said the wal-mart apple are just like you and me they're not they are voluntary associations the bill of rights was not written to protect the east india company it was written to protect individual people of the fourteenth amendment was written to free the slaves not the corporations we need to

undo the damage that the supreme court has done and amend our constitution to clearly and explicitly say the corporations are not people in the money is not speech thank you. second problem our nation is facing is at the core of why we have a government in the first place why did our founders put their lives on the line fight and die to create the united states and why have people fought and died over and over again in the intervening years to keep this nation in a declaration of independence thomas jefferson said that governments are instituted among men to secure the alienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness so why do we have government easy answer to provide life liberty and the pursuit of happiness said if the job of government is to protect the rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. things that the constitution repeatedly

refers to is the general welfare and the real issue government should be laser focused on it's obvious it's jobs back in one thousand nine hundred four f.d.r. suggested that we should put into law a second bill of rights that would codified what he was already doing with the new deal one of the most important among those rights was the right to a job. when capitalism fails to provide for life liberty and pursuit of happiness when the so-called free market fails to provide for the general welfare which by the way happens frequently because those things are not the job of capitalism and logically those responsibilities fall to govern it's why we created government and that means making government the employer of last resort thank you. but it's not enough to just have a job americans need to be able to make good wages that they can provide for their families and not have to worry about where their next meal is going to come from

that's why we need to raise the minimum wage to at least ten dollars ten cents an hour so that everyone has a chance to live comfortably and make a decent living meanwhile working class americans as as they're getting back on their feet we need to ensure that america's wealthy elite are doing their fair share to support the economy in our country we need to roll back the reagan tax cuts and make sure that a family struggling to survive today isn't paying more in taxes as a percentage of their income than a wall street billionaire banks. and we can use some of the money that americans billionaires pay in taxes to help rebuild our nation's crippled infrastructure there are over two and a half trillion dollars worth of infrastructure repair we need just to bring ourselves back to being in the same shape we were when reagan became president and began ignoring infrastructure and you can add to that additionally we need to be building out twenty first century versions of our four most important forms of

infrastructure. those for our our intellectual infrastructure our communications infrastructure our energy infrastructure and our transportation infrastructure. to build out our intellectual infrastructure we need to go back to our government policies of free education these were first proposed by thomas jefferson in fact first put into action by thomas jefferson when he created the internet versity of virginia as america's first absolutely free college this idea was then advanced by abraham lincoln when he gave huge chunks of land to over fifty colleges across the united states to create to wish a free enough land that they could use the land to generate enough money to pay for the tuition for their students to wish in free land land grant colleges all across the united states. they saw a large fulfill during the truman and eisenhower years of the g.i.

bill which raised the percentage of americans would attend college around six percent over twenty percent that intellectual infrastructure built most recently in the one nine hundred fifty s. it was the basis of the invention explosion of the sixty's seventy's and eighty's brought us the modern computer age it's time to fully fund our public schools and make college and trade school free for any high school graduate who wants to attend a thanks. to build out our communications infrastructure we need to lay a national fiber optic network to internet system we need to open it up to competition so that any company can use it and so we can have competitive pricing of high speed broadband like europe japan south korea and many other countries and yes that means protecting net neutrality so internet service providers like comcast and verizon can't dictate what we do and can't do on the world wide web to build and improve our energy infrastructure we need to take

a lesson from germany and help homeowners across the country put solar panels on their homes meanwhile we need to build a national energy smart grid to handle all this new and localised power and we need to backstop local communities and states in building wind farms solar farms wave power installations and a whole variety of other forms of renewable energy and like europe and even china we need to make all of this competitive by making the carbon industry pay for their own externalities the cost of the military to protect their oil lines the cost of health care to pay for their cancers the cost of environmental destruction we make them pay for this with a simple carbon tax which then also instantly makes renewable energies less expensive the nineteenth century fossil fuels it's that simple so why is creating a carbon tax so important global warming. scientists tell us that our current burn rate of fossil fuels could raise the temperature of our planet five degrees celsius

that could warm our oceans enough to release trillions of tons of methane hydrate it's currently frozen deep underground and those greenhouse gases will raise the temperature of our planet another five degrees ten degrees celsius the last time that happened was two hundred fifty million years ago when continents were being torn apart and a massive lava flow that covered most of what is now siberia raise the years temperature at least five degrees triggering the melt of that those same nothing crystals that raised another five degrees at ten degrees celsius increase in temperature is what geologists now refer to as the permian mass extinction ninety five percent of all life on earth both on land and sea died off it was the worst of all the five major extinctions our planet is. it took eighty thousand years for life to bounce back in a shooting in the age of the dinosaurs and we are now creating our own permian extinction we need to stop that right now. creating a carbon tax would be a great first step to ensure the future of our planet and of the human race and

three things. that none of this rebuilding our infrastructure and putting americans back to work or fighting for the future of our planet will be possible if we don't protect american lives we need to address the gun violence up at me that's taken over our country and we need to save american lives by putting into place sensible gun control legislation that starts by treating guns like cars. you can kill somebody with a car kill somebody with a gun if you have a gun it's your responsibility gun owners need to be required to have insurance and pass a proficiency test just like drivers to prove that they're capable of being responsible gun owners neither of those provisions violates the second amendment they just make sure that those who bear arms are responsible citizens who can be held accountable for their actions after all the second amendment as they were regulated arguably regulated so that's the state of our union we're not broke or the richest nation in

the world we don't have a deficit or a spending problem we have a jobs problem and we should not continue to let reaganomics turn us into a third world nation we should rebuild update our critical infrastructures and ensure that all americans have an equal chance at living the american dream and in the process we can save ourselves from extinction these are the challenges before us and while there are many we can meet them it's time for we the people to get behind the issues that really matter. and get america back on the path to success. growing up as president obama was speaking last night police were being called to a college campus in tennessee to respond to another senseless act of gun it's all gun control might be

a touchy issue can we all agree that gun owners should have to have insurance like your car on or those that are more tonight's lone liberal rubble.

i've got a quote for you. it's pretty tough. stay with sob story. but if this guy like it would smear that guy stead of working for the people most issues the mainstream media are working for each other bribery must be sure to fight. the good rather. if it was a. very hard to take. once again to put them on a plane fly had never had sex with that her hair place so that if.

the disk image if it was let's see if it's. safe. if the person.

joining me for tonight's lolo kyle peterson managing editor of the american spectator and jessie jane duff conservative commentator and retired gunnery sergeant in the u.s. marine corps thank you both for joining me and i think you will come back we'll start money in politics this is the thirty this week is the thirty eighth anniversary of the buckley vs fellatio decision which was the first time that the supreme court came out and said the money was protected by the first amount and i've read the first amendment i don't see money in there anywhere but the supreme court somehow magically found it and it's and last week was the fourth anniversary of citizens united when the supreme court said not only is money. in the first amendment protected by the first member corporations are protected by the fourth the fourteenth amendment and my recollection is that the fourteenth amendment was passed along with the thirteenth and fifteenth to free the slaves i didn't think lincoln want to read all of the civil war was to free the corporations but

apparently justice scalia justice roberts doing so is no time to get money out of politics we spent in this last election of two thousand and twelve election cycle six hundred million dollars just from super pacs eight hundred eighty million dollars of outside money it's like you know show eagles and gets in and his guy is out front and then and then you know somebody else gets in his guy it's like we got the war of the billionaires now this is not democracy ok i agree that it's a war of billionaires however it wasn't a gesture by the supreme court for money it basically stated that any representation. by corporations or unions or otherwise is free speech it doesn't necessarily have to be a person it can be an organization so i do agree with you that there should be a very very clear line between the two and often with a lot of these pacs or five twenty seven's or five a one c four as we're seeing or see three as we're saying the very people that fund it standing right behind the candidate as are giving their acceptance is it something that is real it's really

showing me about where there are i'm seeing this i saw this in this in the president's state of the union address last night there were a half a dozen things that i thought he should talk about that i know i believe he did not talk about because moneyed interests would get all bent out of shape about you know the keystone x.l. pipeline for example you know he talked about global warming in carbon keystone. because of the context so the total presidential campaign about two point three billion was spent on both campaigns so that's a lot of money or write off with think about it out of context of federal budget that is about three point five trillion dollars we're talking about a few tenths of a percent of that to decide who is going to run the most powerful country on earth . i would say that it's not that much it's let's let in so could you as a marketing it is it is so much that the average citizen cannot purchase it and i don't think that's true at all and i think that i agree with you that we should get money out of politics the way to get much will get money out of politics is to get

politics out of business i don't think c.e.o.'s are sitting around just overjoyed that they're spending all this money a lobbyist feel like i can tell you to protect their business if you go back to when mccain feingold was passed you know john mccain and russ feingold on the floor of the senate were talking out loud about the fact that and where i do my radio show were in an office building is two blocks from the from the hart senate building and we've got a half a dozen of these offices in our building constantly running into senators and congressmen in the in the elevator where they have to go off premises and so. there and dial for dollars four and five hours a day five days a week all of them but none of it were republicans so like it democrats don't like it give them half a chance to get money out of politics they will do it they passed mccain feingold but the supreme court came along and said nope nope we're going to let the billionaires run the show but and now they're back to dialing for dollars i don't think a but i don't think anything's changed let's go back to the willie horton era let's

go back and look at this with that vote the swift boats that is you know what i'm talking about that all of these have had a detrimental effect on campaigns and they were around long before the supreme court decision so there's always been some sort of influence and i think the best thing you can ask for is to try to manage it so bad so the gilded age i mean we're we've got we've got levels of money thrown flowing into politics like in the mid and late nineteenth century or the late nineteenth century early twentieth century and you know americans rebelled against that in one thousand seven teddy roosevelt was president they passed the tillman act making it a federal felony to give to give campaign donations to any campaign candidate for growth for a corporation to give a campaign donation and that's what counted up a lot of the unions too because you might have been a big catalyst in why this has happened because they've had such an overwhelming effect like when you look in washington d.c. itself where i live the only people who will win in the election here are the ones that the unions get behind and that's pretty sad because a lot of people want to see an influence outside of the union so so let's let's all

agree that the supreme court is wrong on this and needs to be modified or we need to model and we got a solution to say money is property it's not it's not speech and therefore not protected by the first amendment and corporations or voluntary associations are not people and so they're not protected by the four to be argued he want to think about what the alternative is to the citizens united case where it came down to it was about a group of citizens that got together and created a documentary about hillary clinton and wanted to air it and so if you are if you're putting restricted any choice of a luxury sure sure sure but you're going to put the government in the position of saying this this is. electioneering and this is not this is this is a protected hollywood film you look at the cover of the position of saying this person who is blogging on the internet is a journalist and this person is not a journalist who's going on the internet only the government has that rule i really have. no idea no no it's we're pretty much the only fully developed democracy in the world out of the thirty four we do see countries that doesn't regulate political you know money and political we're also in the u.k.

where you can spend over one hundred thousand dollars i don't want to live like the u.k. i mean the reality is is that i don't know if research is right now but this. hard sleazy arrest by conservatives ronald reagan again back to back to the state of the union rise you know yeah but. we're still we're still hooked on reagan overexerting is are ok is it time to change that and i think we should start by rolling back the reagan tax cuts larry beinart points out over time he opposed he says the truth is that tax cuts cause crashes or we cut taxes but that what follows is a cycle of boom and bubble boom bubble and bust economy goes into freefall unemployment soars the american people suffer when the fact the matter is that if you look at the history the united states whenever the income tax top income tax rate after about three million dollars a year of income whenever the top tax rate goes above fifty percent then you don't have hot money flowing around in the system and so people don't gamble with that

money and you don't get these bubbles and you don't get these crashes you know we had the period from night from the one nine hundred thirty s. until the one nine hundred eighty s. no bubbles no crashes top tax rate was ninety percent and then reagan comes along drops it down to twenty eight percent bubble crash bubble crash bubble crash three of them in three decades so it isn't time to raise the top tax rate back to where it used i don't think that we had a robust economy like we've had ever since ronald reagan put a lot of these into effect we have not had the stimulation within our economy my money is mine and i'm sorry i don't want the government managing my money for every dollar i give the government i'd like if they're evil then ideas anywhere in the dollars and never go. heartless you're looking at the top five percent people want to bastardize them and make them look like they're so evil their pedo that huge of hers are three million dollars in their stocks and we're talking the top one hundredth of one percent why don't we get tax reform so that it's a fair and everybody a skin in the game you got forty five percent not paying any and you've got the talent i've got no problem paying nothing i mean you know george bush got a capital gains rate out of five percent of us modify the tax code mitt romney is

not paying nothing that was said by harry reid and you're going to give us that you know here tonight eighteen percent yes he did so if you look at fifteen percent being paid by everybody across the board that would be fair and then nobody could complain about him a year so you've got forty five percent or so on and yes i am saying that somebody who is who is making millions or millions dollars and therefore heavily using our court system to present as all two hours of the money for somebody making millions and millions and if you know a lot of money for somebody making ten thousand dollars you have no and guess what and i have some skin in the game and maybe i will show up and start voting and start thinking about what because instead of saying give me give me give me the same where's my tax dollars going and they would make sure that it's being spent fiscally responsible if i have no money going and i pay right or left or right what me working people at the bottom of the pile are in many cases paying more in taxes than bill and i agree then let's get a fair tax you know that me and kyle and no i totally agree i mean i think that the history is not that long and it's easy to cherry pick data and there's a lot of factors that go into

a crisis like the housing crisis other than just the tax rate we saw the same thing in the twenty's sure but i don't think bob bottom line i don't think conservatives are going to be persuaded by any of the data because for a lot of conservative it's a moral issue they believe in private property they believe in individual. no no not really that they believe that if somebody makes it doesn't matter that it's marginal at what point this begins somebody makes ten dollars the government takes nine of them they believe that to be flat out immoral but that's that's where all our debts wrong and so i don't think it's going to persuade anybody i think conservatives could get behind little because it was making more. more than three million dollars a year at that point and this is why we had by the way we have four decades of over three point two percent and decade per decade g.d.p. growth that we've never had since we have it hasn't been i have a fair tax code no it's rehydrated cut the top tax regard as we were exhibit are designed to do so because they write angry or cherry picking your data you have got to have balance your tax rate because i'll give you

a forty year block people who have no investment in taxes could care less how the tax dollars are spent and that's important that even if you're giving one dollar those you'll care where everyone knows if somebody is making ten fifteen thousand dollars a year they're paying payroll taxes they're paying sales taxes they're paid not around all of this their entire existence other bulk of theirs they're paying enormous amount of taxes as i said in many other papers and i agree we need to cut a lot of taxes you look at any of your bills and you see taxes going to play when reagan came into office corporations were paying about a third of the total cost of running our government now they're paying eleven hours and i know this feeling you know t.j. and this you've got a right you've got a live you've got to aim for ration is sitting on. three trillion dollars what is wrong with having economic prosperity that's why people flock to this country so that they can have that opportunity prosperity three million dollars doesn't try a little lot of these days when you look at what three million buys but if you want everybody to listen to a communist house where we all live in identical homes you care about six million dollars a year you're not ok you're saying that our big should be the same why would you

like to visit america go better when c.e.o.'s only took thirty times what their workers did because when they took thirty one times what their workers did they started paying ninety percent taxes that america worked better during those four decades when they took ninety percent of their dollar after the first three million yes americans then we're making three million that's that point you know what do you make of three million and then you stop your show that's fine i'll live on three million dollars of that would disable the success that we hear all of our c.e.o.'s still have these great whatever is shameful we this is the period of the greatest growth of corporations in the history of the united states and we're only . listen three hundred years old we don't have a lot of time to grade ourselves so to take instead of taking an extra five million dollars out of my company i think i'll keep that money in the company i'll grow the company i'll hire more lined up already in the. beginning that's the difference between conservatives and progressives progressive start from a standpoint of this is what will make america as a whole work well and we're just going to do we're going to implement it we're

going to do it right a conservative start from a standpoint of we believe how do i get it i know we believe in private property we have fundamental first principles should not be violated and then i'm going to sit in the right to private property what does that have to do with how much money you don't you know you have the government taking our money and that is where i find it very ludicrous that you suggest that the government should have access government exhausts we are the government i don't want to give you my money the people here i don't want to give you my money how is that if i have three million i'm not giving you any how's that i'm going to ask me if there's you know ok. here's our shares in our share and we all have the chance to leave you with the last word peterson but you also need to use. coming up in the state of the union address last night president obama basically said he's going to have to bypass congress altogether it was getting down to washington is this what progress is running for office want to hear the answer after the break.

we welcome erin eight and abby martin two of a terrific hosts on the our team network. it's going to give you a different perspective give me one stock i'll never i'll give you the information you make the decision only about how breaking the set works it's a revolution in the mind it's a revolution of ideas and consciousness and frustrated with the system the i'm extremely new approach to things would be described as angry i think i'm a strong enough or single. dramas that can be ignored to. stories others through a few posts in the. third since changing the world writes next. to picture of today's events. from around the globe.

look to. me. i would rather ask 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. i think. i'm.

a. big fuss. over. did 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 which i call books. that are you know i'm sorry and on this show we would be a little picture of what's actually going on will we go beyond identifying a problem to try to fix rational debate in a real discussion critical issues facing america by him are you ready to join the movement then welcome to the big. welcome back to the big picture i'm tom arbonne coming up in this half hour last night's state of the union address left a lot to be desired for us it is with the president barely talking.