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the
big of a single confirm is this
for now today the house passed a two-week extension of a funding bill
that would includes actually four billion dollars of cuts from the federal
budget
now by the way the democrats want a four week a session in the g_o_p_ on one of
only two weeks internally we were taking bets here as to
which side it would be closer on of course there will be better would be
close to the republican side
so we thought maybe you'd be sixteen is that a fourteen days
they're dropping missed
the democrats accepted a republican version
has seen fit right way and that's what i finance anywhere
taking defund planned parenthood yet
black turnout
berapa vis a week absolutely needs these cuts
fizzle only way to reduce the deficit
here's a judgment
when we say we're going to cut spending
three-mile s we're going to come
we didn't need to cut spending
now finally
that we need to keep the current tax rates at the level that they are
emeritus until today to just add there's a real problem here all understand
that is not paying for
span freaking saying over and over we need to go as many women as spending as
usual
not
they're presenting another false choice
there's another way to cut the deficit
one of the refused to consider
we can raise revenue
yes that means raising taxes and yes
are you ready for this
i hope you're sitting
i definitely think
we should raise taxes
now let me show you how much money we can raise if we just raise taxes out
little bit on the top corners in the country
not teachers not firemen or cops
the very top rack in the country
in just two years we can raise
ninety one billion dollars
by scrapping the bush tax cut for the top two percent
and other twenty three billion dollars by raising this a tax
and forty billion dollars by raising capital gains taxes to twenty percent
the level of they were under prime president clinton
by the way the silicon little rate
but even that would be the job
looked at took me two minutes and i raised won a hundred and fifty four
billion dollars dino conventional wisdom in washington says
raising taxes is political suicide you can't do it but there's also not true
but the proposal bear down at all
all living in the examples it just released new york times c_b_s_ news poll
people were asked
if you have to reduce your state's budget deficit what would you do
forty percent said they would
raise taxes
twenty two percent said they would be creased public employee benefits
twenty percent so they would be crease funding for rose and just three percent
so they would be greece funding for education
and you get that raising taxes means cutting public employee benefits
of course what they're trying to do in wisconsin
by nearly a two-to-one margin
now and also be cutting education by a more that then ten-to-one margin forty
percent say raise taxes
three percent say cut education
come on i keep asking is because the numbers are so clear how much clearer
commending
now that's people saying they were much rather pay more in taxes themselves they
cutting funding for the for these important programs now wait till you see
how much people like raising taxes wanted all the applies to the rich
and national pulled from c_b_s_ news vanity fair has people
what's the first thing you would do to balance the federal budget
sixty one percent said they would be raise taxes on the right
four percent say they would cut medicare
and three percent said they would cut social security
let me sum it up for you in one word
well mainly
they can tell you got to cut social security they gotta cut your medicare
may has you the american people the second novel raise taxes on the ranch
that silent you would
not asking you do we live in democracy for bill wheat
our politicians ignoring the clear popular well
unfortunate as an answer that is because they're representing the rich donors
back got them elected
not you
are joining me now is former with labor secretary robert
he's now professor at u_c_ berkeley
so cherish great to have you here of course and um... project here up l_s_u_
you know they they'll say hey no wheaton can't do this you can't raise taxes in
washington bulls you know
go crazy over this stuff there is not feasible
why do you think it might be feasible
and how questions reserach and of course is feasible i mean under dwight david
eisenhower president eisenhower in the nineteen fifties
who nobody clinic is the biggest socialist and he was a republican
the income tax rate of the bar on the richest americans was ninety one-percent
a minute you know that we've been here we've done
sat we air you know it's not a matter of car soaking the rich and the other point
that is not often talked about
income and wealth is now a concentrated at the very top in america than we've
seen in eighty years
i think we have
the top one percent is taking home over twenty percent of total national income
so if we don't tax
people fairly
if we don't simply though where the money is there is a real week the week
and it's just a giant zero sum game i mean it just middle-class collision now
we see
no increase in income at all
at getting squeezed and squeezed and squeezed and squeezed and losing public
services that are vital to them at the same time
and by the way since nineteen seventy-nine for those of you at home
that and i don't know this
the top one percent have nearly quadrupled their income quadrupled
whereas the rest of us have stayed right about the very
a look at that in the nineteen seventies the share of the top one percent for the
national income was nine percent nations well
but now it's twenty three and a half percent the highest level isbn
right before the great depression now eat hussein terrorist this isn't just
about though hey let's you know get the money from the rich because that's where
it is indeed
if you would all the love of the first time
it also makes sense for the rich if we
expat more equal distribution of income
because of the fact that it would have on the middle class
tell us about that why you think that's a kicks well yeah because you know if
the middle class and gets a shrinking portion of total income as
has been the case of the last few years middle-class doesn't have the purchasing
power drank to turn around and buy the stuff that america can produce and that
means high unemployment means slow economic growth i mean we can't have
an economy there is getting out of the gravitational pull of the great
recession
based upon the purchasing of the top one percent or top five percent or even top
ten percent i mean and the way we actually grow the economy is through
spreading that the benefits of economic growth in economic change i hate you
know the top one percent or even a top one tenth of one percent would be better
off
with a smaller share of a rapidly growing economy then they wouldn't be
right now with a large share of an economy that is is going painfully
slowly and it still having a hard time getting out of this great recession
right now we know that partly because of you know during
to the clinton administration which you work that we created twenty million jobs
we had a booming economy when we have a higher tax rates and it didn't hurt the
economy and all have those higher tax rates you know you may report in your
last article in on this issue
that in two thousand five seventeen million people bought cars
in twenty ten only twelve million people bought cars and home sales went from
seven a half million to four point six million
now the people are buying less cars less homes less everything power corporations
and rich people supposed to make money
i mean it hurts everybody does that
had not only that i heard everybody arrogant zero sub-region kind of anger
i mean so many middle-class people lower middle class people working class people
are frustrated they are anxiously they're worried about paying their bills
they see people at the very top getting away with uh... well i mean the
equivalent of *** i mean at look at what happened on wall street there's not
a single wall streeter who's actually been indicted or brought to justice
after what after that huge implosion on wall street and people get cynical and
they get angry and then they see a you know republicans are very good at
channeling that anger
toward what government
immigrants public employees well an anger a population and an angry populace
could just as easily turned their anger toward the very rich again it is in the
interest of the people at the top to actually
call for a more equitable distribution of the gains of economic growth
at a better tax system attack system that is fair
five former labor secretary robert reich leaping for your time we appreciate it