from washington, the mclaughlin group. the american original. for over three decades. the sharpest minds, best sources, hardest talk. issue one. widens window of opportunity. >> you go in there and drain the swamp. there have been something like 15,000 attacks changes since that last tax reform. you go in there, clean those out, use the money to hold down the rates and encourage progress. when they did that in the first couple years out of the box, we created something like 6 million new jobs. nobody can say they are all due to tax reform, but it sure helped to set the climate. >> america's tax code last overhauled in 1986, 28 years ago, is holding back our

economy. between now and august of 2015, there is a window of opportunity for a bipartisan tax reform. so says democrat, ron widen, who in a recent political newspaper column, challenged house speaker, john boehner to join him in crafting comprehensive tax legislation. quote, my door is wide open and there is plenty of work to be done on a bipartisan basis. unquote. the center piece of widen's tax reform proposal is lowering the u.s. corporate tax rate from 35% to 24%. in order to make america more competitive with foreign countries. in recent months, a state of u.s. firms have relocated operations overseas through what are known as quote, unquote, inversions. to take advantage of lower foreign taxes. widens stems from an august

column urging president obama to get in the act. quote, president obama must get his allies on capitol hill to do their job. senate democrat des, including harry reid and senate finance committee chairman, ron widen, pay lip service to tax reform. they utterly failed to act. the president, the leader of his party must actually lead it, unquote. question, is momentum for tax reform building? pat buchanan. >> it is building and widen is a good man and it's a great idea and aught to be done. i don't think it's very hopeful for the reason there's antibusiness, antiwall street sentiment. very much in the democratic party and the house and in the senate and it would be very hard to get them together on this. i don't think it's going to come. i was with ronald reagan in '86. i can remember on a plane to tokyo economic summit when we got word that others got together. bradley and they were going to cut the top individual tax rate

from 50 to 28 percent and i said go with it. this idea of simplification and reduce rates is a great idea. actually, john, the last analysis you better do away with the income tax. create jobs and why do you take away 35 or 40 percent of the seed corn of the american economy? >> we're going to get to that in a minute. eleanor. >> i do think there is an opportunity here. widen is a talented legislature and he worked across the aisle in a number of areas. he put together a tax reform plan in the past, as you pointed out, and you have some republicans, the chairman of the ways and means committee, unfortunately, is retiring, but dave camp called the tax system riddled with what he calls lobbyist loopholes. i think the version to how wall street operates in this country actually helps the cause of tax reform, because people want to see those loopholes stripped

and regardless of which party wins the senate in november, neither party will have a commanding majority. thigh will be just a little over 50 or below 50, which is in a way, an opportune time to pursue tax reform together. they will probably start with something on inversions in the lame duck session after the election because people are really disgusted by the notion of burger king taking their operations overseas. >> that's an inversion. >> a company taking its operation overseas. >> burger king denies it, because they are not moving their office headquarters or their actual operation. >> they don't have to move their operation. you merge it with a foreign company because so many foreign countries have much lower corporate tax rates, you get taxed at the level of the foreign company. whereas america's law requires you to tax all of your income all around the world at a much higher rate. it makes perfect sense in a business sense for the

companies to do this. >> who has done it? >> many companies. >> burger king is one. 49 companies have done it just in the last couple of years. >> wallgreens. >> after they got so much negative publicity. >> pfister tried to do it. i can understand why they do it. it gets into the question of chick patriotism and economic treason. is it treason for companies to get up and leave the country that nurtured them, to get lower tax rates and make money overseas and leave their american workers behind? these have a tremendous number of issues. >> we need tax reform. people on both sides. however, the problem is implementing it because everybody has their own sacred saying. don't tax me, don't tax you, don't tax that guy behind the tree. the lame duck session is the time to do it. you have people going out. you have less to lose and the

next congress hasn't taken over yet. >> how many have inverted? >> 49. >> they are all over the place now, john. they are just moving abroad. >> i didn't know walgreen reconsidered. >> because there's a lot of public pressure on these companies. >> from where? >> from the public, from the press. >> why? >> economic treason, john. >> because they want tax revenue here. >> yes, of course they want tax revenue here, but the companies are saying what are we talking about? we have a high tax rate compared to the rest of the world. >> if they come back here, they will increase their prices back here in order to accommodate the tax burden. whereas they go overseas and have a lower tax burden. what about that? >> there is one other option that they have. instead of reducing their prices, they increase their profits. i don't know why that's a probability they might think about. >> have you thought about it? >> wherever i can. >> have you inverted?

could you invert? >> no. >> john, you live in florida, not d.c., what's your residence? people do it there. why do people put their money in the caymens? why do they put their money in switzerland? they go from one state to another. >> everybody is playing the system, gaming the system and it's all legal. that's why congress has to step in and make sure this stuff doesn't continue. >> it's not going to get -- you have a quarter tax rate for 25%, i think ireland is 12%, isn't it? >> yes. so many of the international tax rates are so far below the united states that it is -- i'm sorry. they are much lower than the united states. i thought that's what i said. it is absolutely going to be a disaster for the united states if more and more of these companies move their headquarters abroad. but the tax rates are so much lower. >> which is why it's likely congress might actually act in december when they come back after the election. >> is obama going to get behind this?

>> i think if he gets everybody together. >> listen. it would help, would it not? >> john, at this stage, it won't get through the house. the republicans are not going to pass it. >> it's very hostile forces to reducing rates on corporations and a lot of corporations going to protect their loopholes in the law. what you need is reagan, reagan was the last guy to do it. >> what year? >> 1986. >> that's correct. what happened? >> we had the blue dogs with us and we had a republican senate, as i recall. we lost it that year after we passed the tax bill. >> and reagan got behind it and pushed it forward. >> i was on the plane and they said, we'll go to 28% and i said i don't care what the terms are, take it. >> and he did take it. he grabbed it and got it through congress. >> he took the rates from 70% to 28%. >> exit question. on a political probability scale, 0 to 10, what is the

likelihood there will be major tax reform next year, pat buchanan. >> i think it's only three to four. >> i give it five or six in @ lame duck only corporate tax reform. i think individual tax reform is probably a bridge too far for this congress. for the coming congress. >> i'll go down the middle. 50/50, which is better than now. >> i think eleanor is right. corporate tax reform is a much more likely outcome than total tax reform, but that in itself is a huge step forward. >> what's the probability, mort? >> i would say it's 49.4%. >> not 50/50. >> i don't want to go that far. >> always the pessimist, mort. >> he got it right. the answer is 50/50. don't forget the mclaughlin group has its own website and you can watch this program and earlier programs on the web at any time from anywhere in the world at mclaughlin.com. could anything be simpler? mclaughlin.com, or more joy us. issue two, banking on the bricks. >> the sixth annual summit of

the bricks countries, brazil, russia, india, china, plus south africa, was held at the beach side resort town. the bricks have a challenging mission. to decouple themselves from the post world war ii international monetary order forged at the new hampshire united nations monetary and financial conference of july 1944. the bricks declared they would establish an alternative to the world bank, to be called the new development bank. based in shanghai, china. the bank will have a $50 billion loan portfolio. $10billion from each brick member. first, however, the legislation of brick states must approve and fund the new bank. china will rubber stamp the deal and president bricks will fund a $100 billion contingent reserve account to replace reliance on the international monetary fund, the imf.

now get this irony. four years ago, four of the five bricks received a combined $6,105 million in the united states alone. >> question, why are the bricks creating their own international monetary instruments parallel to the world bank and the imf? eleanor. >> each of these economies, big economies and they are coming of age when the american economy is no longer the world stage. china is the big dog here, because they have the money. they want the resources and you look at some of the projects they have in latin america and africa and you can see where they don't have all the rules. that the imf has and the other international lending authorities have and they don't make people worry about the environment or impacts on the work force and so people think

they are getting a great deal. i think there's going to be a lot of fallout because the chinese in particular go in, they don't hire local people. they bring in their own work forces. but they do circumvent the bureaucracy of the existing lending agencies which have been around a long time and are very wary of a lot of these new projects. >> there's a lot of nonsense. china and india are colliding over the indian ocean and border areas china took. what does russia have in common with south africa? all they are are the nonwestern countries. canada, u.s., japan, they want to be the nonu.s. countries. this is something that was created, john, i don't think there's any commonty commonality to them. i think they want to say, we're not the west and we are the alternative and they are not. >> the imf dominate. >> eleanor is right. china is the big dog. >> they dominate europe and

they dominate the united states. >> and japan. >> justifiably and predictably have come to their senses and decided they are going to do this. is that fair or unfair? >> they want to be independent. they want to make their own decisions. they want to focus their infrastructure in their own countries and they want to have their own approval methods. they don't want to go through the rules and regulations of the world bank and they will have control of enough money and they will focus on their own development and they will benefit from it. >> i think they do have something in common, money, and the profit motive here. this is a new stage for the world economy, i think, because remember the imf world bank was established after world war ii to rebuild europe. that phase is long, we're long past that now. these countries that we helped to develop in the last half century are included in the new bricks nations and they do want

that. >> russia doesn't give any foreign aid. the chinese are all over africa. the chinese are the big player. >> not doing aide. >> what is south africa doing as a country and an economy doing in any major collection other than it provides the s at the end of bricks. >> providing window dressing for what china is doing. it's basically china and other countries that cover it and make it look like a benign international effort when it's really china influence. >> they are reaping billions out of africa and they are not creating that many local jobs and local development. >> i have to ask mort the key question here and that is, does this pull any immediate challenge to use as u.s. interests? >> sure it does. it will have a completely independent source of huge amounts of capital that are focused on countries outside of the united states. and so we are going to lose what we had in all of these

decisions and not just in terms of lending, but in terms of american investment and american opportunity. there's no doubt about it. >> it's a manifestation of people that do not want to be closely associated with the united states and the west anymore. the divergence has taken place before they got together and call themselves bricks. >> chinese and russia plan to take over the world order through bricks. >> they will do anything. >> my belief is russia has sought repeatedly to join the west and we have virtually driven them back into the arms of china. what nixon broke up recent presidents have put together. >> how could bricks have been diverted? >> on one level, can't be avoided. because you have one institution making the decisions. that institution is dominated by the united states and by england. the traditional sort of western

capitalist countries. it doesn't work for everybody now. they have different values. different ways they want to place their money and different ways they want to invest their money. >> it's totally understandable if they would link together and try to give some push back to the west and their emerging economies need to be treated like their world powers, which they are. >> they also have much larger economies. their economies have grown. china is a huge force in all of this and they will have a platform whether we like it or not. >> okay. >> from the labor regulations and all they have to deal with. >> so big push. glp so the west has a fight on its hands to maintain the world order that we currently have. >> richard nixon. i heard him once tell a foreign minister, bring a long spoon. dealing with the chinese rather than the americans. issue two, a fair shake for salt. >> what has been written about

me is true. i love salt in any food. as a matter of fact, popcorn without salt is not popcorn. while this isn't the healthiest habit in the world, it's not as bad as it sounds. >> michael bloomberg can relax when it comes to his salt shaker. if a new study on low salt diets is true. during his tenure as mayor, bloomberg was one of the antisalt crusaders. under his nsri, national salt reduction initiative, dozens of states banded together to pressure major company c's, like butter ball, hostess, kraft, and taco bell to cut the salt added to food. the goal was to reduce the american salt intake to the 1,500 to 002,300.

now a new study says that those low levels of salt consumption recommended by the experts and the politicians are more likely to get this, kill you than help you. that's right. low salt intake can be lethal. the study tracks 100,000 people in 17 countries, but three years, those who consumed recommended levels of less than 3,000 milligrams per day had a 27% higher risk of death, heart attack, or stroke than those whose salt intake ranged from 3,000 and 6,000 milligrams. in other words, the average americans current salt intake are 3,4 00 milligrams is healthier than the recommendation by the food and drug administration. it turns out that michael bloomberg can have all the salt he wants on his food. if this new england journal of medicine study is correct. >> someone said to me, bloomberg should have egg on his face. if you're going to become an

activist, you should be sure it is beneficial. >> i should have told you that. >> you think i'm in the park of the salt intake? >> i'm just asking. >> the fdi, the heart association, etcetera. i'll go along with their assessment. >> they have all been closed down. >> are they in the leader of the senate home district? >> you mean nevada? >> not that i know of. there's uranium out there. >> you don't want to put uranium on your soup, i'll tell you that. >> i wouldn't either. >> my father happened to have high blood pressure and heart conditions and we grew up in a family without salt. okay. literally. everybody said you had to cut it out. now it doesn't mean that i have a good taste of food, but so far, so good is all i can say and none of my siblings have

had any difficulty nor my sister. >> you can throw out every salt shaker you have and you absorb enough salt in processed food. they put salt in everything. pat has been invoking ronald reagan. he once did an interview where he talked about the changes he made in his diet and he had given up salt. he said except for eggs. only a raccoon can eat an egg without salt. every time i eat eggs, i think of president reagan. >> speaking of nixon, let me tell you a story. he was told by his doctor he had to give up all drinking. and b.b. said sir, if i were you, i would get a second opinion. all these things cancel each other out. >> where did we read, if the salt loses its savor, where with will it be salted? >> it's the new testament. jesus himself. >> who did he say it to? >> jewish fellas, i think. >> that's a good guess.

>> i have to confess, i was there and it's exactly what he said. i couldn't agree with you more. issue four, racial divide. >> this is the meaning of our liberty and our freed why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath. >> when president obama was inaugurated as the nation's 44th president in january of 2009, nearly six years ago, it was a watershed moment in u.s. history. america had elected its first african american president and while president obama has never claimed he would heal the racial divide in this country, to many, there was a sense that progress had been made towards

that goal. but a recent political poll shows that little has changed. voters in battleground states where they are the most competitive senate and house races say when it comes to race relations in the u.s. from the time that barack obama took office in 2009, nearly half get this 46% say race relations have worsened since 2009. only 6% of voters say relations have gotten better. and again, nearly half, 48%, say race relations have stayed the same. among white voters, 49% say relations have worsened while 4% say they are better. 47% say they have stayed the same. among black voters, 38% race relations have worsened. 13% say better. and 47% they have stayed the same. among hispanic voters, 30% relations have worsened. 14% improved. 56% stayed the same. the poll was conducted in the

wake of the event in ferguson, missouri, where a white policeman shot to death an unarmed black teenager. followed by riots and protests. >> question, to what extent were these polling results influenced by last summer's events in ferguson. clarence. >> i think they may have been somewhat affected. i have a theory that the reason why a lot of people say the race relations have gotten worse is because they have to think about them. whereas they could havignored them before and were ignoring them. since barack obama's election, race has come up as an issue in politics as people wonder if obama's opposition is predominantly racist. those are questions, they didn't talk about bill clinton and his opposition. but when you ask people about their personal lives, they'll tell you their race relations are about the same or better because they get along with their neighbors or people at work or at school, whatever. i think that the ferguson

incident affects people as far as their national view. just like the o.j. simpson verdict back in the 90s. >> what do you pick up yourself from your own intuitions? >> as far as race relations? >> i was a kid, we had white and colored signs over the water fountains and restrooms. it has gotten a lot better. i look at my son 25 years old, and he is growing up in a multicultural environment. and their view of racism is different. but they are just as divided by race as far as attitudes toward police. talking about the younger generation. >> did the election of barack obama help accelerate a convergence of the races? meaning a reduction of anything like prejudice? >> i think accelerated it because as i say, we were doing pretty good already. we made a lot of progress since the 60s. but after obama's election, we began to see a color cast to political divides.

more and more apparent. >> look. you have african americans in public service, more black leaders in mississippi than any other state in the union elected. but, the difference i see is what is happening worldwide and we talked about it. people are tending more to move into their own. hispanics in their own communities and african americans in their own communities. they are separating and seeing themselves as us versus them more than i've seen as a community in a good while. >> i don't see that among young people at all. i think there's a lot of inclusivety, if you want to use that word. they do not see ethnic and racial barriers. i think with president obama, i think we congratulate ourselves as a nation that we elected a black president. i think everyone thought we were past a lot of our past. and we weren't. and i think the black community sometimes thinks he hasn't done enough for them and some white

people in this country who are offended just by the fact a black man sits in the white house. and dhows attitudes are not going to go away over a space of 8 years. >> i don't think that's an issue. there's a huge disappointment in his performance as president. >> predictions, pat. >> they will try to do something about inversions and corporate taxes in the lame duck session, but it will not succeed. >> eleanor. >> the race for control of the senate is coming down to so many tight races that we won't know which party controls the senate until december when mary in louisiana will be in a runoff with her republican challenger. >> watch for big announcements on privatized space travel. it is becoming a growth industry in the private sector, much faster than expected. >> are you going to go up? >> i'm thinking about it. i've always wanted to do it. >> what does your wife say? >> she says, to the moon, honey. remember the honeymooners?

>> right to the moon. >> i have arranged for you to come with me. mort. >> i think the chinese are going to continue to grow as a major force in international business and international finance. and the story that we covered here is just one example of that. >> obama care was a death note for the democrats control of the house in 2010. i predict if the democrats lose their senate majority next month, the house and the senate to repeal obama care before the elections in 2016 will be deafening. bye bye.

this week on "moyers & company," the creator of "gilead," "home," and "lila" says democracy is still a work in progress. >> there's something very excessive about human begins. they are brilliant beyond any imaginable use, you know? and i mean, who knows, if we live another hundred years, what we will have done? if we just, you know, refrain from violence a little bit, it's amazing. >> announcer: funding is provided by -- anne gumowitz, encouraging the renewal of democracy. carnegie corporation of new york, supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security at carnegie.org. the ford foundation, working with visionaries on the front of