what we have seen in the clinton administration, of which are was very proud to be secretary of labor, that when we raise taxes at the top, when you expand infrastructure, when you build the economy from the bottom, you get a sustained recovery is, and you get a larger middle class with an upward mobility. >> "the new york times" did a story about the clinton administration when you were secretary of labor, and they found now 15 years later more women and children are falling into poverty than ever before, primarily because that program did not work so well, and peter was right about stepping down because he disagreed with that approach. your thoughts about about welfare program, since we are hearing so much about welfare once again. >> i was very much against the president's signing the bill. i thought it was the third bill the republicans sent. i thought he should hold out for a much better bill. the problem is it only provides a limited amount of time, five years when somebody can collect supplemental benefits and welfare, and if the economy is doing fine or if you have a normal pa

in the clinton administration, the numbers were less than that. paid by the top 1% as a percentage of income were lower. there were lower taxes on the rich during the clinton administration than they are now. we now pay the top 1% pays 40%. how much more do you want? how much more than 1% paying 40% of the taxes do we have to get up to before you start using the word confiscatory for real? >> well, let me respond to that because tj rodgers, i have great respect for him, but he's talking about only income taxes. he's not talking about social security taxes or other forms of payroll tax. he's not talking about sales taxes. he's not talking about a lot of other things. actually, tax rates on most people in this country, if you look at all of the taxes, state, local, federal, and social security, have been going up. the rich have been paying a smaller and smaller portion of the total tax bill, even though the rich are taking home a larger and larger portion of total income. again, nobody is talking confiscato confiscatory. this just a question fundame

our alliances or have a different foreign policy. >> we should add to that. >> i feel that clinton's administration missed opportunity which we had which were later actually destroyed by the bush/cheney administration. >> we should add to that from the lefty democratic side here, that republicans are now trying to ride the horse and saying that ronald reagan won the cold war without firing a shot and whatnot. the more they say that, the more problems that i think it will lead to. >> but clinton had yeltsin. he didn't have gorbachev. and steve, you've written quite a bit about how you say that gorbachev -- gorbachev's ambition was to reform. yeltsin's ambition was to gain power. and you paint a pretty ugly picture of yeltsin as a person who grabbed power and diminished the democracy and the reforms that gorbachev instituted and set up this kleptocracy. you call it a grafatization. clinton had a different leader to deal with, and that must have been a factor here. steve? jack? >> well, that certainly was, but the problem -- the problem during, in my opinion, during the clinton administration was, fir

to some extent, particularly in the clinton administration after somalia, we were highly gun shy. participation ourselves in peacekeeping endeavors that involved particularly the notion that we might have to use force for both good and bad reasons. i think in the end, darfur showed we paid a pretty heavy price for that when it was maybe even too much but much too late if coy put it that way in some ways. you're right, the evolution of the tools is still out there. it's still working. the tool that we lacked the most at the moment is what i would call foresight in preventive measures. they require more courage, more decisiveness, more good analysis and more ability to mobilize than i think currently we have at the international community.

particularly the clinton administration which dispatched secretary of state -- state warren christopher more than 20 times which was more than he went to moscow or beijing. but these and other efforts in israeli peace failed because damascus was interested in participating in a peace process

you said you had been during the clinton administration, returned during the first year of the obama administration but it was not the same gsa you left. i want to agree with you because i believe that when you theft clinton administration and returned after the first year of the obama administration, you would have been joining an administration that had a completely different culture than the clinton administration. a different culture than the bush administration. this is an administration that believe when's government spending is occurring, when taxpayers' dollars are spent that jobs are being created. that was the crux of the stimul stimulus, i voted and many voted against. because the american people actually believe that when taxpayers' dollars are being spent that debt is being created. now, i have some examples of that spending that gsa was doing. mr. foley, you said you weren't aware that the tuxes were paid for by the taxpayers. this is one of those examples of gsa spending miss johnson under your leadership. includes the conference logo and everyone was given one of these

get the clinton administration part 3. if you feel it was such a crisis and panic at that time as many say it was coming out of the calamitous bush administration into the tar, bringing in a team of rivals as obama talked about, all you had was larry summers and tim geithner. both of them have their control over the policies that led to the crisis. in my mind, that opened the door to the tea party. it opened the door to right-wing populism. people saw in this white house favoritism towards goldman sachs and the banks. the problem was the left populism has not emerged until now. for too long, many felt with the bomb in the white house that things would be sorted out. that is where movements become important. every administration in modern times has had to deal with insurgency's or movements on its left and right. reagan in many ways was a movement president. i say that with contempt for what he did in damage to this country. you need to see the pendulum has now swung. the tea party in many ways has lost a lot of this mojo be

a georgetown professor and former clinton administration official. out with a new text about poverty in america. his thoughts on what the growing divide between the haves and have-nots means and why the issue does not have the attention of leaders in washington. a conversation with peter edelman coming up right now. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: peter edelman is the founder and director of the center on poverty, inequality and public policy at georgetown and a former assistant secretary at the department of health and human services. he's also d autehod sese latest text is called "so rich, so poor: why it's so hard to end poverty in america," and i am honored to have peter edelman on this program. thank you for your time. >> my pleasure. thank you for having me. tavis: no, it's my delig

human rights watch and a former state department and national security council staffer in the clinton administration. there have been years of chill and years of demands for change. now an american president in the capital. were there some preconditions that the government there had to meet before that kind of endorsement? >> they had to start this reform process but there weren't any preconditions for the trip itself which made the trip kind of risky. you can only send the president of the united states to burma for the first time in history once. so the question was, what was president obama going to get for this apart from the imagery and the speech and there's the glorious aspects of the trip that we saw. we saw that in the video.

and specifically with the deregulation that was brought on under the clinton administration under the treasury secretary. larry summers in fact who repealed or who advocated and succeeded in revealing the glass steagall act which had separated commercial and investment banks that was put to an end that was a very important safeguard that was brought to the american people after the last great economic collapse and that happened you know that was what the great depression was all about about the similar waste fraud and abuse on wall street after the great depression those reforms were put in place which protected the economy protected investors protected homeowners for decades until that regulation that safeguard was repealed under the clinton administration and then you had a series of crises culminating in the wall street crash along with that of the under the clinton administration the reckless derivative trading was also established which enabled this problem to blow up. so what happened was that the big banks. undertook something called predatory lending where they actually target

this was a departure from the approach of both the clinton administration and the bush administration which held to the regan doctrine that a hungry child knows no politics. it also led to a highly embarrassing reversal on the food aid decision following the missile launch, even as administration officials insisted that there was no direct linkage between food assistance and the failed negotiations. our distinguished panel of experts can shed light today on whether succession from the old kim to the young kim has really changed anything in north korea, or is it merely an old kim in a new uniform? further, there is the pressing issue of how we should respond to the possible -- to future provocation, including another nuclear test. we also wish to examine how we should go forward in addressing the simmering north korean crisis, a rogue state in possession of nuclear weapons working on delivery capability, engaged in murky proliferation activities with opponents of the united states, in the middle east, and south asia. the young general at sunday's military parade gave every indication t

the clinton administration has recognized that. i have been a long critic of the clinton administration in a number of areas. in this area, the clinton administration has stepped up to the plate and supported absolutely everything that has to be done to see the olympics are put on in an appropriate way. the olympics games in salt lake city in 2002 are going to be fabulous. we have the best mountains, the best snow, the best facilities. it is going to be a fabulous experience for the entire world and all americans are going to be very proud of the job the salt lake olympics organizing committee will do in putting that on. but the organizing committee could not do it without the kind of support that has been provided by all but federal agencies who have been called upon in the various appropriation bills that have gone through. as a look to the future, and anticipate the possibility that at some point, some other american city will either gain the summer games or the winter games, we should put in place the recommendations of the gao

in 2001, we decided not to support several of the treaties that had been supported by the clinton administration. bush administration officials were similarly skeptical about the law of the sea treaty. we remembered president reagan's concerns. after a yearlong interagency review, we concluded that the conclusion strongly advanced u.s. security, economic and environmental interests and the administration's first priority list in 2002, we told this committee there was an urgent need for senate approval of the convention. we reviewed the concerns in 1982. we concluded the concerns had been addressed by the amendments to the convention in 1994. the other western countries that president reagan and secretary rumsfeld had successly purr sue persuaded not to sign the treaty had all joined the treaty after the treaty was amended. between 2003 and 2009, senior bush administration political appointees from the department of defense, state, commerce, interi interior, homeland security testified and sent letter to this committee and other committees strongly endorsing the convention. defense department app

>> it was said during the clinton administration that carroll brander did not use e-mail. but we discovered, my colleague horner discovered that carroll brander did, when the clinton administration left they destroyed hardwares that the e-mail was contained owe can't look back at shenanigans that cheryl branner was getting up on the clinton administration. and now they are turning over approximately 12,000 e-mails to us. tom: is that what precipitated her resignation, this is the common reason, i want to spend more time with my family. >> who knows, but it is no cosince -- coincidence she is up to her ears in scandal right now. tom. how widespread is this? other agents accused of using some sort of way to get around the law, federal records law, freedom. in could acts and other, government properties and government records so people can follow. >> yes, two house committees controlled by the republicans are now investigating the richard windsor issue. i hope they will ask that question. how widespread is this illegal practice? who else has been doing it? let's see those rec

. >> during the clinton administration. >> the clinton administration pushed this. it was a mistake. i've said this many times on this show. as far as the loss of $2 billion or $4 billion, charles is right. the people who take the hit from this is shareholders, not taxpayers. >> let's revisit the debt limit issue, something we've talked about here, what, 30, 40 times? >> a fire of debt is sweeping across iowa and the nation, and every day that we fail to act, that gets closer to the homes and the children will love. >> my simple principle of cuts and reforms is greater than the debt limit increase. this is the only avenue i see rit now to force the elected leadership of this country to solve our structural, fiscal and bounds. -- inbalance. >> the united states is expected to -- we had the debate this summer and i bet we will have it again this summer. voters will really enjoyed the debate this time around, nina. >> i am like the voters, i am not going to enjoy it at all. the plan in he hse has bee rejected even by republicans in the senate. we are playing with fire

started in a serious way in the clinton administration. you know the two guys on the ends. the guy in the middle, you may not know, though he's actually a resident at the moment of this fair state. yes, folks, he's living in super max serving what was initially a 23-year federal prison sentence on terrorism charges, and this chap, the clinton administration thought fit to have create and select and train and credential chaplains for the united states military and the u.s. prison system. he's in prison. his chaplains i'm afraid are still at work which is kind of a problem. next slide. this is also kind of a problem. in 1998 that same fellow, a top muslim brotherhood figure, an al qaeda financier, latched up with a guy most of you know and think of as a great american conservative for his work on tax issues, grover norquist. he started with him something called the islamic free market institute. i happen to have tumbled upon this because i wound up renting space from grover norquist for seven long years and witnessed firsthand what i'm about to show you in terms of the influe

i went to work in chicago, and i was also in the clinton administration. t of all, bill clinton, i worked for rodney slater as well, they say remember those who brung you. when hillary was running, i said this is an opportunity i thought to be loyal to the clintons. but at the same time, i was looking at a different form of history, gender history. the first woman president. and i'm a man. i was really gratified by looking at that possibility. so i was really supporting hillary clinton. and then the emergence of barack obama came through, and that was a surprise to some of us. >> sure. >> we were watching that campaign with interest. but at the same time, loyal to hillary clinton. and then when they came together and you saw them in the primary debates, and you start thinking, wow, this is a great ticket, when the ticket wasn't united, some of us didn't know where to go. when the party started to shift towards the left, some of us went right. the title i examined what i learned in chicago, smaller government, lower taxes, and looking at competition and comp

. >> tim geithner, going back even to his days in the clinton administration, he's sort of known as a cool head in a crisis, and in how do you manage a really troubled financial system. >> narrator: in the clinton administration, robert rubin was the treasury secretary, larry summers was his top deputy, and undersecretary tim geithner was always in the room. >> they had this bonding, unifying experience during the clinton administration putting out these various crises, from thailand to japan to indonesia. geithner was one of the guys who was sort of part of that swat team that understood how to react to a financial crisis. >> narrator: they engineered massive bailouts when american banks were threatened by financial turmoil overseas. working with the international monetary fund, they loaned hundreds of billions in countries like mexico, thailand and south korea. rubin and summers, along with federal reserve chairman alan greenspan, became superstars of the financial world. >> you had this infamous, now, time magazine cover with bob rubin, larry summers and alan greenspan, called "the

the other thing that occurred in the clinton administration was the weakening of financial regulation it continued under the bush administration. again, it is a kind of activity that was more directed at moving money from the bottom to the top, then creating more wealth. predator lending, abusive credit card practices, but meanwhile, the banks weren't lending to create the new jobs that would make a stronger economy. so again, by deregulation, we didn't make a stronger economy. we made a bubble economy that eventually broke and left us in the situation we are in today. tavis: there are those who feel, professor, that what you're calling for -- that is to say, more equality and growth are oxymoronic. >> the right has tried for a very long time to sell a bill of goods. they tried to say we could only get more equality if we give up on economic growth. they say you shouldn't complain anyway because trickle-down economics where it is you throw money at the top and everybody's gonna benefit. nothing could be farther from the truth. i wish trickle-down economics worked because we've thrown

that is, i was in and out of ostp throughout the clinton administration in my role as the council of advisers on science and technology. so i actually knew quite a bit of what goes on in ostp before i ever got the job. there are other folks who have been in before and are now back again but weren't carried over from the previous administration. because in a lot of ways, we deal with continuity. but i think we're doing well. >> the benefits -- i know there are benefits and limitations of this current model. but i think what it does emphasize is that outcomes are not necessarily partisan. they're strictly based on -- >> we think of science and technology policy as bipartisan over the years. i think it continues to be. there is wide bipartisan support for at least most of what we do. and we don't think of ourselves as a partisan office. >> does your budget adequately support the mix of staff, and that you think might be best? or do you get too much? >> of course, we took a 32% budget cut for fiscal year 2012. and fortunately -- and that caused a lot of stress, a lot of challenges to man

military issues, so we now forget but if clinton -- there was a wonderful critique of the clinton administration the was called diplomacy by the cruise missiles, and that was his approach. i want to get to other questions that pakistan i actually agree with the substance of what you are saying. my chapter on bin laden in the book and i know the people have written about him i have a different slant of the account, which is -- it is more than a obama ll in it. the stories are correct. he was leading the administration's thinking on this. no one is focused on exactly how many choices obama meeting to say we don't care what pakistan by the pakistanis even if you told them for 30 minutes in advance the fear was a would be ticked off its more hawkish than bush in the go ahead the bush policy was to work with pakistan the plan in which obama was leading to take when a sample, one of the questions was what happens to counterfactual, what happens if the team gets surrounded. all of the military -- there's only a handful of people so sooner or later one of the original first solutions which called talk y

administration? >> there were several years of surpluses, congressman. >> okay. so clinton reduced spending relative to gdp, he contracted our entitlement obligations, he turned in budget surpluses during his final years in office. bush, on the other hand, increased spending relative to gdp, expanded our entitlement obligations, and turned in major budget deficits. it seems to me that if increasing spending, increasing our entitlement obligations, and turning in major deficits toward the path of prosperity, we should be in the golden age of the american economy right now. let me ask you this question. how does this recovery tract with the reagan recovery? senator phil graham has estimated that if the economy tracked under the obama administration as it did under the reagan administration, as you recall reagan inherited double digit unemployment, double digit inflation, mile long lines around gas stations, interest rates at 21.5%. graham estimates that if the economy tracked today as it did under the reagan years, at this point of the administration, there should be 16 milli

he was a key adviser in the clinton administration and now, as head of investment firm evercore, he's plugged in to corporate america and wall street. and are apple's hot-selling products cooling off? is the competition winning over even apple's loyal fans? that and more tonight on "n.b.r." john boehner is pushing for his "plan b." this is the latest twist in those crucial fiscal cliff negotiations. the house speaker offered a back-up plan today to avoid falling off the cliff. he promised to bring a bill to the house floor this week that would raise income tax rates for people earning more than $1 million a year and no new spending cuts, for now. the white house immediately rejected it. darren gersh reports. >> reporter: house speaker john boehner says the president is asking for about half a trillion dollars more in taxes than he is willing to cut from spending. that means the two sides have narrowed their differences, but the speaker says not enough progress has been made to call it a deal. so he is making other plans. >> our plan b would protect american taxpayers who make a millio

. >> yes, those eight years of prosperity under the clinton administration.all he's proposing is we go back to what we had in the '90s. >> the rich got nothing but richer during those years. that was a great period. >> and the middle class thrived and we had balanced budgets and even surpluses back then. >> why do you think that there's been such a strain on the republican side, possibly up to now, about letting something happen to this top tax bracket because clearly people in that bracket split their votes between president obama and mitt romney and plenty of rich people voted for president obama. >> you know, i can't tell you, because it defies logic at this point. we've had ten years since these tax cuts and we've seen the results of them. we are looking at a horrific deficit, all traceable really to the root of this tax cut and the two wars that weren't funded. and the fiscal cliff that we fell off of in 2008. so we've watched the results of what happens when we don't tax at those levels and we've watched the middle class get, you know, the crap beaten o

of course, we worked on that in the aftermath and ultimately the treaty was signed in the clinton administration at the very end of the administrati administration. >> i want to give harold an opportunity to respond. maybe just picking up on david to bring this story about the international criminal court. i would like to give you an opportunity to respond just your general reaction to both of these men as, you know, from your perch now as someone within the government having to deal with these issues on a practical level, and then we'll come back to the international criminal courts. >> well, my strongest reaction -- i had a book that i had out there for distribution out there tonight. [laughter] >> you can't do that in the government. i should say what a thrill to be here and with bill shawcross whose book i have read for many years. david scheffer and i were college freshman 41 years ago. and he's from oklahoma. my roommate was from oklahoma. and since he was a oklahoma and i was a korean advisor we'll see you at the holocaust museum 40 years later and here we are. i think i had a couple of r

need to look out for is whether or not these pardons are politically motivated as in the clinton administration where he gave at the very last day of his presidency hundred forty part. of all hopefully hours to spare you know it would be interesting to see what happens thanks so much for coming on breaking it down. like we see so far go to our you tube channel at youtube dot com plus breaking the set answer scribe got our facebook page at facebook dot com slash break in the set you can follow me on twitter as well abby martin and i'd like to take a break from my preaching but stay tuned to hear whether or not the t.s.a. security actually makes us safer next. wealthy british something. that's not on. markets why not scandals find out what's really happening to the global economy with max conjure for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kaiser report on r t. do we speak your language anytime of the wall and out of the. news programs and documentaries in spanish what matters to you breaking news a little tonnage of angles kittens stories. for you here. in troy altie s

during the clinton administration. the average over the clinton administration's eight years was 32.8% of the total income tax burden was paid. under bush it was 36.7% and then the top 1% paid 40.6% which was a larger share than the entire bottom 95% of the -- now, again, you're saying that's not quite enough. that's not a fair enough share. >> senator johnson, the root cause there is the tremendous wealth accumulation by a few. and the fact that our middle class has not -- has not benefited. >> we have a very progressive tax rate. that's why when we have recessions we have such a falloff. it's not fair enough that the top 1% paid here than 40% and paid more than the entire 95% bottom part of the income tax. >> i think it's fair that we are in a situation where we need deficit reduction and that reduction should come in part through revenue. the president is proposing $2.50 in spending cuts for $1 of revenue in fair share and that the wealthiest 2% should pay their fair share and we should have no tax cuts on those und

that is, i was in and out of ostp throughout the clinton administration in ms. role as a member of the president's council of advisers of science and technology. i knew quite a bit before i got the job. there are other people back again but weren't carried over from the previous administration. thardz a lot of ways toe deal with continuity, but i think we're doing well. >> i know there are benefits and limitations of this country model. i think it does emphasize is outcomes are not necessarily part of something. it's strictly based upon finding -- >> we thif science and technology policy of a domain that's bipartisan over the yeerdz and continues to be. there is wide bipartisan support for at least most of what we do, and we don't think of ourselves as a partisan office. >> does your budget adequately support the mix of staff that you think might be best? do you get too much? >> of course, we took a 32% budget cut for fiscal year 2012. and that caused a lot of stress and a lot of challenge ostp's wide range of responsibilities with a budget cut of that magnitude

turn to robert reich, former secretary of labor under the bill clinton administration.rofessor of public policy at uc berkeley and author "after shock." mr. reich, great to have you with us tonight. is this a good idea? what kind of revenue could it generate? would it close the gap? what do you think? >> well, it is a good idea, it's a min you mum tax, in other words it doesn't -- the least that somebody who is a millionaire would be paying, and the estimates are really somewhere in the range of 40-80 billion dollars. this is not chicken feed we're talking about. it's fair, most americans support this, i think republicans will be in a very difficult place and difficult position saying no to this. >> here is republican senator john kyle on the floor today. here it is. >> president obama's campaigning for reelection on a soap the rich kind of platform. argues income inequality and check with fairness, in his narrative fair society requires more balloons or redistribution. >> mr. rick, if we go back to the old rates, which they were when you were in the clinton administrat

and that was a very reassuring decision, but why the clinton administration-- why? why did you do this to us, bill? why he had to appeal this to the supreme court, and this supreme court is-- you know, i don't know. it's for the psychic friends network. it's really out of my bailiwick to say why he did this. well, the case did, in fact, go to the supreme court to resolve, really, one issue, and it had to do with language in the enabling legislation, the funding legislation, that said the n.e.a. should take into account standards of decency. it was an advisory piece of guidance from congress. and then the supreme court had to decide whether that was an infringement on the first amendment of the constitution. and the supreme court decided... well, the supreme court decided-- actually, they decided, because the statute read "they may take into consideration"-- they could but they didn't have to-- general standards of decency, that that was constitutional and that if the supreme court-- or if they were required to take into consideration, that that would be unconstituti

it's far more monolithic in its secularist mind-set than the clinton administration was. previous democratic administration. give you an example, one of mr. obama's appointments to the eeoc is kai feldbloom who is a georgetown university law professor who has written a law journal article saying in effect, whenever the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people collide with religious liberty beliefs and rights, the rights of religious people must give way to the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. i would say that's a mind-set out of sync with where the general public is. and it's one that is inherently hostile to religion. and this -- i find the obama administration on this particular issue to be monolithic. >> next question, gentleman on my left. >> i'm representative mike mcgee from missouri. and, first of all, i'd just like to say that missouri filed that first piece of legislation to try and block the lawsuit against president obama's health care bill, and we are also right now on our primary ballot this next few months, we'll be

if you look at the clinton administration, which was so effective at this, they brought in donors to the white house and let them stay overnight in in a lincoln bedroom in exchange for donations to the dnc. that may have crossed the ethical line but they gave access to top financial backers. the obama campaign has shooed this type of donor maintenance and those who are high minded in their giving want that recognition. >> eliot: the lincoln bedroom is probably the most expensive leaveoversleep over in history. president clinton loved hand-to-hand donations barack obama doesn't. >> they are not getting anything. they don't feel like they're getting anything in exchange for their donation. yes they want him to win. i talked to a representative for peter lewis the progressive insurance magnate who gave around $20 million or more to the 527 groups who was supporting john kerry. that left a bad taste in many mouths yes peter wants barack obama to win but he wants want to give to the super pac. i don't see him coming back to the game. >> eliot: this is personal experience. i knew peterly w