still in poetry keep. ignoring. your facebook news feed. suspect. they would like to do is go 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 schreck help us. to make you know i'm sorry and on this show we reveal the picture of what's actually going on when we go beyond identifying a problem. rational debate and a real discussion critical issues facing camera ready to join the movement then welcome to the big.

long tom arbonne in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. earlier today president obama announced some sweeping action to help millions of americans suffering through the student loan debt epidemic but is the president's announcement mean for the average american buried in student loan debt and what else still needs to be done to address this trillion dollar problem also the a.p. is now reporting that sergeant bowe bergdahl was repeatedly tortured and kept in a cage during his time in captivity with the taliban how will this new iteration affect your public and parties relentless efforts to bash bergdahl and his release and as i speak millions of americans are worrying about how they're going to put food on the table tomorrow night for the kids so could a universal basic income be the solution to our nation's poverty problem.

you need to know this the obama administration is taking action to fight the student debt crisis earlier today president obama announced in a white house event that he was signing an executive order to put a monthly limit on student loan payments. so we're announcing steps that will open up pay as you earn to nearly five million more americans that's the first action were taken today. the second action is to renegotiate contracts with private companies like sallie mae that service our student loans and we're going to make it clear that these companies are in the business of helping students not just collecting payments and they owe young people the customer service and support and financial flexibility that they deserve that's number two number three we're doing more to help every bar would know all the options that are out there so that they can pick the one that's right for them or where the plan the president announced today is a good start at fixing

a huge problem right now there's over one point one eight trillion in outstanding student debt in the united states over forty million americans a little over ten percent of our country holds student loan debt and of those forty million borrowers around seven million have defaulted on their debt already make no mistake about it we are in a full fledged student loan debt crisis and the worst thing is that this crisis is sitting in low income americans the people who can least afford it the hardest the bottom twenty five percent of americans people whose net worth is less than eighty five hundred dollars oh now almost sixty percent of all student loan debt we are creating a modern day lost generation because people are spending so much money trying to pay off college debt they're not spending it on other things things that could actually help the economy grow unlike older generations that is college grads aren't buying cars that are buying houses they're not starting businesses or even putting off starting a family until they're well into their late twenty's or thirty's student loan debt

is like a giant vacuum sucking trillions of dollars of demand right out of our economy and because economies need demand to grow this means the student loan debt is sapping the strength of the already wimpy recovery from the bush great recession. the last time there was this much demand being held out of the economy it was during the worst the years leading up to and through world war two when our country was mired in the worst downturn in history the great depression and of course the war the interesting thing though is that right after the great depression america experiences greatest period of prosperity ever and part of the reason for that prosperity was from the forty's until really the reagan years our government actually made it easier for people to form middle class families by doing things like paying for their educations in fact the g.i. bill the government literally paid people to go to college and the federal government made a profit on the g.i. bill because those educated young people earned more throughout their working lives

and paid more in taxes than the cost of educating them it was not time went back to policies. aeration is it even possible to get there if so how do we start let's ask natalia abrams executive director and co-founder of student debt crisis dot org to tell you welcome thank you for having me thanks for joining us so first we'll break down the president's plan for us what's you what's your take on what he did today and said so the president today did an executive action which took his pay as you earn income pays you were in plan which is an income driven repayment program and allowed it opened it up to basically all borrowers borrowers before two thousand and seven currently before the president took actions today those borrowers before two thousand and seven were paying their income based repayment program was twenty five years at fifteen percent of their income so we took it to twenty years at ten percent of their income so we kind of made it across the board

the pay as you were in plan which kind of erased what george bush did in the early two thousand it's interesting because that does that mean if somebody's making a lower they're paying up to you you keep you don't have to pay more than ten percent of your income your discretionary income yes and it's a great program for those who are not finding the right type of job out of college who are underemployed or who have no employment at all very little flip side is they still of the debt and now they're going to be thing longer which means are going to pay more in interest oh yes and i was going to just say that actually it's not the best program if you can pay the ten years standard repayment program go for it that's the best thing you can do right now while we are working on college affordability but defaults as you mentioned in your intro seven million people in default it's almost a quarter of all of those with student loan debt. this program is the best thing without going into default if you make zero if you're not working you pay zero and

you don't go into a default program so it's a band-aid measure and people have said that but i say band-aid stop the bleeding and we need something well and default it seems would also help the banks toure's i mean you know they don't they don't have bad they are on they want us to fall yeah i mean that's why we have bad service service with horrible customer service as the president said today he also said that he's going to be looking into these service contracts with sallie mae with now and that with c.s. and making sure that they are looking out for the borrowers and not just out for themselves somehow you know we managed to get along for at least two hundred ten years or so without basically anybody having student loan debt. and i understand that it's quadrupled in the last ten or fifteen years it's just it's exploded why. will we feel that student debt crisis and a lot of the great organizations we work with that hire not debt or which it's

a coalition of groups working on higher education reforms that state disinvestment is one of the biggest reasons that we're seeing this sense two thousand and eight we've seen a large drop in the state funding while the administration and the department of education has tried to do so create some measures albeit not enough for example doubling the pell grant right after that we saw states just invest more so state disinvestment we think is one of the biggest reasons and then we get into college exhilarate programs and we get into college presidents salaries you know i don't know why somebody at a public university needs to make a million dollars a year as of like gordon mcgee who is the former president of ohio state well that's incredible we did a show on those two years ago in which somebody presented the stats that prior to the reagan administration. and always back to the lincoln in the midst. when abraham lincoln rolled out langridge colleges which were basically free colleges or close to it. about eighty percent of the cost the actual cost of providing an

education was picked up by state federal or in the case language colleges the college themselves or some combination thereof and so when students pay tuition you represent about twenty percent of the actual cost to provide that education those numbers have completely reversed themselves and now students are paying about eighty percent of the cost of the education and state federal and colleges are paying only twenty percent and that was a couple of years ago i'm guessing the numbers are probably gotten even worse yes i don't have the exact numbers but yes we just see states paying less and less per student rate and that morning at los angeles california was free app and you know the early eighty's already became governor yeah my mother in law i went to school for fifty dollars and that was the cost of books in the fifty's. i believe in debt free education i mean i think deep in my heart i believe in free education but i don't think that's the next step i think the next step is debt free we need to make sure that people aren't graduating with an average debt amount of thirty thousand

and that's just the average we're hearing plenty of people with fifty eighty yeah but it's thousand dollars that's the market's yeah it's more i was just going to say that it should and it should be the mortgage not the right mortgage on your debt. president obama called out republicans on this today here's what he had to say. this should be a no brainer you got a group of far right republicans in congress who push this trickle down economic plan telling hardworking students and families you're on your own two years ago republicans in congress nearly let student loan interest rates double for seven million young people last year they tried to strip protections from lower income students this year house republicans voted overwhelmingly to slash pell grants and make it harder for thousands of families to afford college. if you're a big oil company they'll go to bat for you if you're a student good luck. is there anyone in the republican party who's working to try

to solve the student loan crisis or is this largely just you know i realize your organization is not political but i don't see a real political word here i do too. although an interesting fact to state disinvestment the two states after two thousand and nine but didn't disinvest or texas and montana hold those republican governors so i think we see outside the beltway a little bit more that this is not as politicized of an issue but inside the beltway i mean it's anything obama says president obama says the republicans just say no even if it's a good plan i mean elizabeth senator elizabeth warren's bill very clear either stand with the billionaires or you stand with students and i think republicans are making their choice and where do you think senator warren's bill is going to be because going to do unfortunately i think because of what we're just talking about i don't think it has the best chances but i think that there is still time i think everyone needs to call their senator and tell them to vote for this vote my

colleague said you know tell your parents to call their senator tell your best friend tell your mom and tell everyone you know so at least we know we did everything we could to get this bill passed senator warren's think on being on students refinancing act is one of the most comprehensive student loan bills we've seen so far and it's and it basically allows people to completely remove sensually at a much much lower rate we better terms right receive people what eight twelve percent they could refinance that's a four percent the government's loaning money to j.p. morgan right now for a quarter of a percent they're going to students instead thank you so much for thank you so much tom great to have us coming up republican swift boated verbal birdsall last week wall to wall but now their attacks on america's allies p w have fallen silent could have something to do with a report released this weekend of bergdahl was tortured by his taliban captors the answer right after the break.

it's a supply problem it was a problem very hard to make outlets again the among the supply has never had sex with the earthquake there's no let's play a. little i'm just so. live.

this was in the washington well it's a missile that is being suggested in the list of numbers among the many candidates for office even covering issues actually back union doesn't do too much for ad revenue mining tech agriculture giant teeth on a seventy six year old american farmer based in india fallout do you think this is going to create for the cia do you think this is what's triggering a race america's the largest economy in the world it's also the largest debtor nation in the history of the world breaking the set is mostly about alternatives to the status quo but one might give real alternatives points on the working poor the american dream the next they were just trying to survive it's time for americans and lawmakers are forced to wake up and start talking about the real causes of problem.

welcome back to the big picture it looks like the republican swift boat ship has sunk last week the conservative media led by fox so-called news spent every waking minute slamming the obama administration for his decision to swap five taliban prisoners for u.s. army sergeant bowe bergdahl pundits label bergdahl it does serve her in a traitor and even got some of his former two mates to speak out against him as well and the far right even went after bergdahl parents the point where the f.b.i. is now investigating death threats made against them but as most of us knew there was a lot more to the story than the conservative media was reporting the a.p. is now telling us that u.s. sergeant bowe bergdahl has told people treating him at. the american military medical facility in germany that he was tortured beaten and held in

a cage by his taliban captors in afghanistan after he tried to escape so it looks like the republican swiftboating operation designed to smear sergeant bergdahl and drum up another obama scandal might be turning into a nightmare for the republican party joining me now for more on this latest fabricated scandal is tommy christopher white house correspondent and political analyst with the daily banter tommy welcome back thanks for having tom great great for you great to have you with always great to get us so what do you make first of all i mean when this first started this whole these started ginning up this you know obama scandal machine it's like these were the same people who had been tweeting and petitioning and back in two thousand and eleven when these particular five taliban were mentioned and bergdahl had been saying go for the deal but well you know i think it's like the deal came as kind of a surprise you know i mean it surprised me on saturday when they when it came out with the announcement and i think they just weren't prepared for you know and then

they just sort of went nuts there with a sort of comedy but really when you feed the grammys after midnight and like. you know a meth addict like nuts they just took this in every direction they possibly could and this is the thing that you know they stopped attacking him for the moment. because of the torture thing but i mean they've got multiple fallback things to get mad about here you know i mean it wasn't just oh east does or you know but oh you know we gave away the fire you know important guys and you know well why do you have to make such a big deal about it rose but i mean there's a million things for them to get mad about and you know it's because obama did it right you know this is that's what it boils down to i mean i had had obama not there was a there was a but this is the problem is that the me. i revisit this the maritime we talked on because fox is going to fox but the mainstream media has been going along with a lot of this garbage too and saying you know and when they say oh well you know why did he make such a big deal about in the rose garden you know it's like ok you expect fox it up but

like i want my question to any normal reporter would be what do you would what did you want him to do what do you think people would say if you just put out a written statement you know the prime cover up cover up you know why does why does obama hate the troops you know so there was no way you could do it right and so what he did was he said well you know what regardless of how this guy got captured it's a big deal for america that we got our guy back because that's what we do and that's what he said in the rose garden. the arizona star did a satirical piece that first time i saw it i thought it was so well done i thought there's got to be real that behind the r. and c. headquarters there were five hundred thousand. flyers you know posters in the dumpster of the set of peach obama for leaving behind a soldier yes and it's like you know had he done so that that's what they would be talking about it doesn't matter what the it's unfortunate. how do you think that this is going to play out now that the story is getting more nuanced and or are the

republicans going to go back to yelling about the v.a. some of them that that's a problem that became a problem for them because the story started coming out that they voted against the v.a. . seven times in the last six years you know i think that the v.a. story is going to be kept it's going to come back because people on our side liberals care deeply about it. and you know a lot of reporters in the mainstream press care deeply about it and so you know the disposition all along was the republicans were just you know getting angry about the v.a. because they could score points against obama and once they got shinseki said it be on to the next thing and the mainstream media is similar but i think that that the thing is going to drive it coming back is going to be people on our side and and people the mainstream media who genuinely want to see you know reforms made but there's with regard to bergdahl and his family do you think that there's any possibility that anybody on the right is going to be saying oops i mean is that i guess is that kind of the same question with with now we know that this this

a shooter couple you know there have been down at the at the bundy ranch i mean is sean hannity going to say sorry for making that guy families well that's not going to happen though and. i think with regard to the bergdahl is what you're going to see it depends on how this plays out you know if it there turns out to be like really hard evidence that the guy was torture etc and you know then if they've already got it pretty well sewn up that you know he walked off the post seems a wall and so you know they're never going to have to back up to the point where they call the guy a hero. and if there's enough wiggle room where they can still call them deserve because you know you can't prove a negative then they'll just keep doing that and it'll become you know another article of faith but it was a well for a year. during a time of war when john mccain was traded for p.o.w.'s i mean it's just. so i don't get why people are side don't bring those things up in response in the

media or the media you know but any. great have. thanks for having me thanks so much for dropping by tommy tommy christopher with you. and screw news right now millions of americans are struggling to survive day to day and provide for their families thanks to a federal minimum wage that hasn't moved north since two thousand and nine growing student loan debt and recent slashes to social safety net programs americans are worse off now than ever before fortunately progressives across america like new york city's mayor bill de blasio are trying to change that blazin is getting a lot of criticism for his plan to reduce the work requirements for the city's welfare recipients essentially he's arguing for an unconditional basic income meaning that all residents of new york city would receive a guaranteed amount of money every month from the government whether they're working or not wall street banker would get the same amount of money as rocks for

donald employed and an unemployed single mother from queens it's actually a lot of support for a basic income on both sides of the aisle granted the reasons for supporting it are different but not everyone thinks that of unconditional basic income is the solution to america's economic and poverty woes let's talk with one of those nonbelievers david seely conservative commentator and pro-business advocate david welcome back. thanks for having me on tom it's always a pleasure david the basic minimum income works really well in alaska where sarah palin gets fourteen thousand dollars every year as a baseline minimum income because she has five kids and it's two thousand dollars a person why do you hate sarah palin. and i don't hate sarah pailin and you know it but let's get to brass tacks here first of all the government is not giving these individuals a minimum income this is taxpayer dollars and dollars that the government is just

printing is actually oil industry law in texas in the in alaska it's from the oil industry. secondly secondly i think the motivation behind our mer is bigoted and biased you know these phony progressives i suspect they are closeted racists because they genuinely don't believe in their heart of hearts that many of these people on the dole are capable of making it on their own so what they do tom is they would hand out a little bit of money keep them at levels perpetual poverty and exchange to buy their votes but what are they really doing they are depriving these able bodied men and women of the dignity of work and the right to succeed and it's not right tom we have seen or if there are no white people who are on the dole. you know there most certainly are but i'm talking about

a particular group. the not real progressives like yourself the pseudo progressives who take agree just advantage of you and your ilk by pandering to you you know they have been so divisive particularly here in new york there's been so much race baiting and argue endo that you have been devoted to what i would legally i said there was i don't do something for nothing dido you know what's wrong this this idea of a guaranteed minimum income was first floated in seven hundred ninety three by thomas paine in the idea of a booklet that he wrote called agrarian justice you know that idea that along with social security propose both of them you know that's what you call a bad old idea tom but if it works in alaska i mean when alaska put on into play what are they doing are they just trying to prise the other end is that what this is really no every man woman and child in alaska this was put into place by republicans is such

a lick hucksters are buy up the votes of these these poor individuals who they are . theel aren't capable of working are incapable of being self-sufficient and they're depriving them tom you know it's like telling a person over and over and over your worthless you just can't make it come on let's eat honestly there have been what you're saying is loney here's here's twelve to fourteen thousand dollars a year as a baseline or whatever it is you know whatever the. valences fourteen thousand here's your basic guaranteed annual income now a you could increase. you could be creative and do i mean this could spark a new renaissance you know the renaissance came about renaissance or just you know i don't even think you believe that i think this is jive and it's a lousy idea and it begs the question why is the mayor promoting such nonsense so that he has poor people on stamps so he has fewer people on welfare so he has fewer

people on housing assistance so he has fewer people on medicaid you give josel a hinge on the name you're not hauling it some yourself you're hyper simplifying it you're reducing the bureaucracy associated with it or at least the mayor would he would be reducing the bureaucracy reducing the number of programs just saying you know instead of a lot of qualifying for programs care here's some cash good luck now now if you want have a decent life get a job get a job there you go how about get a job ok problem is there's not all that many jobs out there david category is mrs bailey never been so antagonistic towards business but you know tom i believe in a safety net but why do we have to give able bodied men and women who could go out there and make it on their own is it's good i do it how can i mean you know live with it when those people lady a bad example to their progeny you know that it would stimulate the economy this you know that's a lie it doesn't stimulate the economy it certainly doesn't alas you know the

dollar it works in really well in alaska and in the other countries that have a beer a guaranteed minimum wage you give somebody something for nothing they don't. value it. that's not true that we should out ok it's. deleterious to our nation we need to be a strong country. ok a big public school. it was free you know i did not value it until much later in life when i look back and i thought wow did i squander a great opportunity and that's the same with these individuals you give them. basically telling them you're incapable of doing it yourself that's a bad message to send. thanks for being with us thanks for having me tom. the federal reserve board of governors are supposed to include people from all walks of life so why is it made up entirely of economists and lawyers more on that with right after the break.

comedy news to be. looking. into the next in the corporate elite billionaire freaks well they're going. with mine. chances are force that. looks at the finish line of the marathon.

bombing hearing coming up i. think. 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 our t.v. question more. over

. did you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution which says that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy shrek. well i'm. going to go on i'm sorry and on this show we're a deal the live picture of what's actually going on we go beyond identifying the problem trying to fix rational debate and a real discussion critical issues facing them for ready to join the movement and welcome the big picture.