Obama announces re-election bid. 2012.

Posted on April 6, 2011 by William Brighenti

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UYGUR: Barack Obama‘s reelection campaign officially launched today, and one of the unspoken but obvious themes throughout the add that he released, is the big role that minority voters will play in the upcoming election. Now, look, everybody knows minority voters are important, but you‘ll going to see with the new data, that they‘re even more important that they were in the last election. The latest census data shows non-Hispanic whites now make up 63.7 percent of the population, as compared to 200 when they were 69 percent of the population, so the white percentage of the population has had a huge drop in just the last ten years, meaning voters and particularly Latinos, are much more important now in this upcoming elections.

And when it comes to impact of minority voters on future elections, whoa, check this out. Of those that are 18 and younger, just over 46 percent are minorities now. In 2000, only 39 percent were minorities. The National Journal‘s Ron Brownstein has a new in-depth analysis of the political impact of these demographic shifts. Brownstein points out, quote, “At the current rate of growth, nonwhites will comprise a majority of children in the United States by 2015.” That‘s only four years from now.

Now, the driving force behind the population shift, Latinos. There were 35 million Hispanics in the U.S. in 2000, and 50 million in 2010. That‘s a 47 percent gain. Now, here‘s the bottom line. Obama won overwhelming support of minorities in 2008, about 80 percent, which is a huge number. If he can maintain that support in 2012 or anywhere near it actually, he‘ll have a real shot of winning some states that he lost in 2008, and obviously keeping a hold of the swing states that he won, even though if you get just type of modest, I mean, in some cases, tiny you‘ll going to see support from white voters. According to Brown CS (ph) analysis, Obama could take Georgia with just 25 percent of the white vote. That‘s a stunning number.

Nevada with 35 percent, Florida with just under 40 percent and Arizona with 46.7 percent of the white vote President Obama would carry. So, the ad that he released today was kind of dull that lacked some energy, but it did most of his talking through who was on the ad rather than what they said, and it was chock-full of, you know, young voters, minorities, it had a young black activist, it had a Latino woman in Arizona. They hit all the swing states, so they get it. Obviously they‘ll going to make a concerted effort to go get those important demographic numbers on their side.

With me now is Ron Brownstein, the man we mentioned earlier. He‘s editorial director of the National Journal Group and MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan. All right. Both of you, great to have you here. Ron, let me start with you, I mean, those percentage of white voters you need in those states is so tiny, I mean, Georgia, I can‘t believe that‘s all he needs. He can‘t get 25 percent in Georgia?

RON BROWNSTEIN, NATIONAL JOURNAL GROUP: Well, you‘re not guaranteed. Yes, I know you‘re not guaranteed. Look, the basic dynamic is you look forward to 2012, is that the minority share of the population is increasing even more than people expected in this census, the minority share of the vote is going to rise in 2012. On the other hand, the Democrats and Obama has suffered an erosion of the support in the white community. The Republicans want a higher share of the white vote, and the 2010 congressional election than they have won in any election since the advent of modern polling, so that is the basic dynamic, can they hold enough of the white support versus the gains that they‘re going to see in the minority committee on likelihood.

Now, don‘t forget that the democratic support among minorities fell off somewhat in 2010, still won about just under three quarters of them that was down from four fists. If they hold that, it puts a lot of pressure on Republicans to replicate what was extraordinary success among whites.

UYGUR: Also, and it‘s not just the people who are going out to vote, it‘s the people that are trying to decide whether they should vote or not, that‘s another critical part of it. But Pat, I want to go to you here, I mean, as you look at those numbers, if the Republican Party keeps demonizing Latinos with anti-immigration rhetoric, aren‘t they killing themselves?

PAT BUCHANAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: No, no, the immigration issue I think in 2008 was about the fifth or sixth most important for Hispanics. But there is no doubt that ultimately the Republican Party has got a hellish problem, but Ron is exactly right, Cenk. Look, in 2008, 74 percent of the vote, I don‘t care the population, was white, and the Obama has had a horrible falling off, especially among the white working class. He‘s not going to win North Carolina this time. I don‘t think he‘s going to win Virginia. I don‘t think he‘s going to win Indiana. I think he‘ll be stronger out there in Colorado and Nevada, but look, I think this election is up for grabs, but let me say, on the long term, given the immigration patterns and the birth patterns, quite frankly the Republican Party as I‘ve known it, as we put it together in the Nixon and Reagan years, is ultimately doomed.

UYGUR: And you know, but you made a choice, right? I mean, I want to pull off on that Pat. I mean, it was called the southern strategy and it was to get white votes. Now that the demographic shift has happens, it seems that you‘re on the bad end of that strategy, doesn‘t it?

BUCHANAN: Not at look. Well, look, I mean, I came into politics in 1966, we‘ve had a pretty good run of it, but the truth is, in every election I‘ve been in, or the Republicans have been is 90 percent of the republican vote or 89 percent is white voters, and as that diminishes as a share of the population, undoubtedly you have to get higher percentages. Like Nixon and Reagan got about 64, 67 percent. Sixty percent is good, but ultimately, Republicans will going to have to do even better than that, or they‘ll going to have to get Hispanic votes, and the problem there is that Hispanics believe in government. They‘re big government people.

UYGUR: OK. Well, that‘s interesting. So, Ron, let‘s go to the idea of the power that Latino activists might have. Because when you look at it, not only is the Latino numbers rising, but there‘s actually a big gulf between that and the voters registration. So, they can get people to actually go out and vote, that would make an enormous difference. Does that give them more clout in this race?

BROWNSTEIN: It would. First of all, that was a really good analysis by Pat of the past 45 years of American politics. Yes, absolutely. There‘s an enormous gulf between 16 percent of the population, 14 percent of the adult population, Latino, only nine percent of the vote. Partially, you know, that‘s some people here illegally. Even people are here legally, many of them have not become citizens. Those who are citizens, many have not registered to vote. They are under, kind of under punching their weight in the elector, but even has, even with all of those hurdles that demography, the weight of the demography is inexorable. And you are seeing, you know, Pat noted 26 percent of the vote in 2008 was minority. When Bill Clinton was first elected, it was only 12 percent. I mean, this is a slow and steady change. It was not just a sudden jump with Barack Obama.

And it probably will be somewhere around 28 percent of the elector, and it does move states like Virginia, and North Carolina, Florida, they are state that I would disagree with Pat, I think there was a states that at least Virginia and Florida, then Obama really doesn‘t want to win, because they are diverse states. And if he can‘t hold those, it starts getting problematic to get up to 270. Not so much Florida, but certainly Virginia, he has going to have to trouble in those heavily white states. He needs to hold some of those states that kind of look like him. They are diverse and they are well educated.

BUCHANAN: All right. Cenk, let me say though. Let me give you some numbers from 2008. Seventy four percent of the vote was white vote, only 70.4 percent was Hispanic, even though Hispanics were about 15 percent of the population and are now 16 percent. You‘ve touched on their problem. It is, a lot of—numbers of these folks are illegal, some of them are very young, there‘s not a great interest on a part of politics, unlike African-Americans who are very political and who are frankly voting their percentages now in national elections. That‘s the problem for the Democratic Party, can you get these people excited and enthused when, after four years, they aren‘t as excited about Barack Obama in Libya and Barack Obama going back to Guantanamo as they were.

BROWNSTEIN: Pat, the challenge for Republicans, on the other hand is that under-18, Hispanic population which is so large, they are citizens, the vast majority of them in over 90 percent are citizens, they were born in the U.S., they‘re going to be eligible to vote when they‘re 18. And the Delta, the gap between the Hispanic share of the population, the Hispanic share of the vote is probably going to narrow at an accelerating rate in the next decade. And that does change the dynamic. Even in places like Texas, you know, there are 18 House Republicans, for example, who are in districts that are majority, minority.

Those are the kinds of places Democrats, Republicans are going to have to take back. And 2012 would offer some opportunity there because we saw a big fall-off in the minority share of the vote in 2010. That‘s one of the reasons why Republicans won districts that were heavily diverse. In 2012, the Obama campaign as you just saw on that video, is going to put a lot of efforts on expanding the electorate, on bringing out those voters. Look at the states they highlighted, North Carolina, Colorado, Nevada, they have an eye on this diverse electorate, and they could have a fix down the ballot as well.

UYGUR: All right. Pat, last question here. Hold on. And I‘ve got to ask you one last question here. Look, obviously that‘s the case, they‘re going to go ahead and put up immigration reform. They know it‘s not going to past but they‘re going to do it to try to get Latino votes, as we get close to the election. That‘s what President Obama is going to do. I think that‘s fairly obvious. If they don‘t do it, I would be really surprise. What is going to be the republican reaction? You said it yourself, they‘re in a world of trouble if they keep demonizing Latinos. Are they good on that Pat, anyway?

BUCHANAN: I don‘t think they demonize Latinos. They got a problem because simply because of demography. Here‘s the situation Cenk, basically, look, if we‘re looking at seven percent unemployment and things are really getting better in Michigan and Ohio, Obama is a clear and overwhelming favorite. If he‘s sitting up there at 8.5 percent or close to nine percent at that time, I think Obama will be perceived to have failed, and an awful lot of people like Michigan, the enormous gain.

UYGUR: I know, but Pat—about these election either, you‘re going to go off the cliff. You notice you‘re going off the cliff.

BUCHANAN: Look, none of us lives forever, Cenk.

(LAUGHTER)

UYGUR: Well, all right, there you go. There you admitting it.

All right. Pat Buchanan and Ron Brownstein, it‘s a great conversation. Thank you so much guys.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

BUCHANAN: Thank you.

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Obama gets involved in the budget battle. Budget: slash and burned.

Posted on April 6, 2011 by William Brighenti

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CENK UYGUR, HOST: Welcome to the show, everybody. I`m Cenk Uygur.

We have got a fun show ahead for you guys. Some serious topics, but we`re going to have fun anyway.

Let me tell you about the first topic.

With just about four days to pass a budget left to avoid a government shutdown, President Obama is getting involved. He`s invited the leaders of both houses of Congress and the chairs of their Appropriations Committees to the White House tomorrow to try to hammer out an agreement.

You know what that means? That means they`re probably pretty close.

So, of course a big problem is the Tea Party. Right? The Republicans can`t get past them, they`re not big on compromising. So one of the ways the GOP may be trying to appease their ultra-conservative wing is by giving them a preview of the giant cuts they`re prepared to fight for in next year`s budget.

Tomorrow, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Congressman Paul Ryan, is rolling out his plan for that budget. He wants to cut — are you ready for it? — $4 trillion over 10 years. Now, we`ll talk about the specific cuts in a minute, but first I have to tell you what the whole point of this exercise is — the tax cuts.

Of course Ryan wants to continue to extend the Bush tax cuts. That`s a given, no question about that, but that`s not nearly enough.

His plan lowers the top tax rate by 10 points from 35 percent to 25 percent. The richest people in the country would be paying 25 percent. That`s a giant cut.

You know what that is? It`s redistribution of wealth right to the top.

Now, you remember in his first roadmap to oblivion, in my opinion, Ryan proposed a different idea, and it was a national sales tax. You know what that would have done? It would have increased taxes on the bottom 90 percent of the American people. So he actually doesn`t mind raising taxes, as long as it`s on you and not the top 10 percent.

Do you know how bad it`s gotten? Right now the top one percent of the country controls 40 percent of the wealth. Twenty-five years ago, they controlled only 33 percent of the wealth. So the share of the top one percent has gone up dramatically, one percent owning 40 percent.

How did they do that? They did that with the Republicans giving them tax cut after tax cut after tax cut, and subsidy after subsidy, and it goes on and on.

And what was it supposed to do? It was supposed to trickle down, right? Has it trickled down to you yet? I don`t think so.

So let`s get to those spending cuts, because they love the spending cuts because it comes out of your hide.

So we`ve got Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. They`re all top targets, of course.

So, for example, for people 55 and younger, Medicare would become — and I love this euphemism — a premium support system. This means that instead of guaranteeing specific health benefits like it does now, Medicare would give beneficiaries a sum of money to use to purchase private insurance.

What a wonderful coincidence. That happens to be some of the top donors for the Republicans, private insurance companies. So you would get less money and private insurance wouldn`t even have to deliver a set of minimum benefits.

How is that for premium support system? I mean, they are downright Orwellian.

Of course, private insurers would make more money out of this. And, oh, right, and the rich would get their tax cuts. So everything`s going to be OK.

How about Medicaid? Paul Ryan wants to cut $1 trillion from Medicaid`s budget. He does that by giving states lump sums called block grants to fund their own programs.

Republicans say this method provides more flexibility, but with a fixed sum from the federal government, that flexibility would mean states could and would lift enrollment. How do you like that for flexibility?

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi today put it pretty bluntly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), MINORITY LEADER: Putting Medicaid into block grants is one way to tie it — put it in a box, tie it with a ribbon, and throw it in the deep blue sea. This is the beginning of the end for Medicaid once you block-grant it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UYGUR: That`s true. And that`s exactly what the goal is. They`ve been coming for Medicare and Medicaid for decades now, and they`re on the doorstep.

On the other hand, the rich would get their tax cuts. You didn`t think about that, did you, right? That makes it all better. Right?

Well, how about Social Security? All we know so far is Ryan`s budget calls for significant cuts.

It doesn`t provide any of the details, of course. He says, oh, we`re going to leave that up to various committees later to figure all that out. But one thing we know for sure is that the rich would get their tax cuts.

Joining me now is Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a member of the Senate Budget Committee.

Senator Sanders, they`ve been trying this for decades. But as I just said, I think they`re on the doorstep. I think they`re real close to knocking out Medicare and Medicaid.

My top question, the most important question today, how are you going to stop them?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: Well, we`ve got to get the American people to stand up and say it is absolutely immoral, it is insane that we give tax breaks to the very richest people in this country who, today, are doing phenomenally well, and that we sock it to the middle class and working families who are seeing a decline in their standard of living. This is Robin Hood in reverse.

Cenk, this year some 45,000 Americans are going to die because they don`t get to a doctor on time. If you block-grant Medicaid, if you voucherize Medicare, that number is going to soar. So what you are talking about is a life-and-death issue for millions of the American people.

What I have been disturbed about in terms of the whole budget debate, whether it`s the continuing resolution, or fiscal year `12, is that we have not talked about enough is the need to bring revenue into the picture and to say we are not going to extend Bush`s tax breaks for the very richest people. What we need is a surtax on millionaires.

Last week we announced that there were 10 corporations, 10 of the largest corporations in this country, who not only paid nothing in taxes, they got substantial rebates. So the idea of cutting programs for the weakest, the most vulnerable, to give tax breaks to the richest and largest corporations is totally grotesque.

UYGUR: Now, Senator Sanders, I agree with you, and I know you`re a progressive fighter. I know that. There`s no question about that. All right?

I follow this stuff closely. That`s my job. Right?

But I also know, and I`m going to be blunt with you, Democrats have been terrible at defending their ground. Terrible.

SANDERS: Yes.

UYGUR: So I`ve got to be honest with you. I have no faith, I have no trust.

I mean, right now, if you said to me $4 trillion, I don`t think they`ll get $4 trillion, but if President Obama and the Senate Democrats play the usual games they play, they`d give them — here, I`ll go crazy. Are you ready? I`ll make a prediction — $2.1 trillion $2.5 trillion in cuts they`ll agree to.

SANDERS: Well, what the Democrats, Cenk, haven`t done is made the case to the American people that the American people already support. There was a “Wall Street Journal” poll maybe three weeks ago.

Eighty-one percent of the American people thought the best way to address deficit reduction is a surtax on millionaires. They want to do away with these loopholes that allow corporations not to pay any taxes.

UYGUR: But Senator — no, but you`ve got to tell me. Look, you`re right, I know that. OK? But you`re right there in the Senate. What`s stopping you guys? What`s stopping the Senate Democrats —

SANDERS: Well, don`t say “you guys,” Cenk. Don`t say “you guys.” I am. I have introduced legislation to do away with —

UYGUR: No, I know, and I`ve given you credit for that legislation. And I think it`s a great piece of legislation.

SANDERS: All right. You`ve got to ask the president.

UYGUR: There you go.

SANDERS: It is a good question. You`ve got to say, “President Obama, take the case to the American people, whether we ask billionaires to pay a little bit more in taxes, or we destroy the lives of millions of working families.” I think we win that fight overwhelmingly.

Unfortunately, as you well know, this place is dominated by lobbyists who represent the wealthy and the powerful. Now, I wish President Obama would not only enter the fray, but enter the fray on the side of working families.

I think it`s good public policy, morally the right thing to do. And you know what else, Cenk? It`s good politics.

We win that fight. Unfortunately — unfortunately, money speaks very loudly around here.

UYGUR: Senator, you`re 100 percent right about that. So final question for you.

What are you going to do if the president — I`ve got to be honest — as usual, comes out and says I`m going to split the difference, I`m going to agree with the Republicans, I`m not really going to make our case? I`m just going to say look at me, I`m so centrist. Washington, aren`t you happy? I`ve gone three-quarters in their direction.

What are you going to do about it? What are you — how are you going to rally progressives? I`m not putting it all on you. I know you`re a great progressive. I`m saying, how do you fight that?

SANDERS: I`m doing my best. I`ve introduced the legislation. You know, time after time, trying to defend Social Security from some Democrats who actually want to cut it.

UYGUR: How do we get the president on our side?

SANDERS: Well, I think it`s not — it`s millions of people saying, Mr. President, we voted for you because you told us you were going to defend working Americans. Now is the time to stand up to the big-money interests, ask for shared sacrifice, don`t balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, the poor and the sick.

If you do that, we`re going to have tremendous — I would like to see a couple of hundred thousand people coming here to Washington to say hello to the president, say hello to the Republicans, say do not balance the budget on the middle class and working families in this country when the richest people are getting richer. They have not contributed one nickel to deficit reduction. If we can rally ordinary people into this fight, we will win it.

UYGUR: All right. Now, look, before we go, I want the audience to know I`m not saying this because Senator Bernie Sanders is on the air with us. He`s the guy who stood up and filibustered for all those hours when nobody else did. He`s the one that introduced the right legislation.

I want everybody to be clear on that.

Senator Sanders, Godspeed to you. I hope you can represent the progressives as well in this upcoming, incredibly important fight.

Thank you.

SANDERS: Thank you, Cenk.

UYGUR: All right.

Now let me bring in E.J. Dionne, a columnist for “The Washington Post.” His latest column was on the future of the nation`s budget debate.

E.J., let me start it this way — I don`t think the country should take Republicans seriously, Washington media, et cetera. I mean, they say they care about balancing the budget, et cetera, but when you say, hey, how about we take oil subsidies, which are giant, take out farm subsidies — this is people leaching off the government — they should agree in an instant, but they don`t. They don`t because it isn`t about balancing the budget. It`s about enriching their rich friends.

How do we get Washington to say, yes, Cenk, E.J., or whoever, you guys are right, this is nonsense, they`re not being honest?

E.J. DIONNE, “THE WASHINGTON POST”: Well, I think you have to be up front about real choices here.

Four trillion dollars is what the Ryan budget is supposed to save over 10 years. There`s another $4 trillion. It`s the amount of money you would raise if you simply restored the tax rates that existed when Bill Clinton was president.

Remember 22 million jobs? Bob Rubin, treasury secretary, not a socialist the last time I looked he was. And so I think that it really is a tradeoff here.

But here`s why I think President Obama should have been engaged in this fight earlier. But here`s the reason why I think he may finally get engaged after the Ryan budget comes out, because this budget strikes at the heart of his proudest achievement as president, which is the health care reform. A lot of the expansions that he proposes — he covers a lot more people through Medicaid.

If you cut the heart out of Medicaid, you are cutting the heart out of the Obama health care plan. And that`s why I don`t think he has any alternative but to fight on this. I certainly hope he does, because the danger of throwing all sorts of people back on to the mercy of the private insurance market is not something I think the country wants to do.

UYGUR: So, E.J., how does he resolve that politically? Because one of his main themes throughout this whole two-and-a-half years business, aren`t I the most centrist guy in the world? I`ll agree to anything the Republicans say to. Right?

So now he`s got to turn around and fight for this? Here, you`re right. I mean, it`s crazy.

Not only that Medicaid is part of health care — that`s a great point by you — but Medicaid, they`ve been trying to kill this thing for how many decades now? To agree on that would be madness. Right?

But how does he resolve that? I mean, he`s Mr., like, hey, I`m Nice guy. Look at me agreeing with the Republicans.

How do you finally turn around and go, OK, that`s it, I`m not going for this? And do you see that? I mean, so far, I haven`t seen that turn yet.

DIONNE: Well, I think — and I don`t think they made the right choice on this, but I think they figured that this first round of budget cuts, they could get by. They can get by with some cuts that may not go to the heart of important programs, and they were saving their fire for later.

Now, how much later? If it`s later, like, three, four, five months from now, then I think he`s in trouble and anybody who cares about progressive government is in trouble.

If, however, they`re saying the big fight starts now with Congressman Ryan`s budget, he doesn`t have to sound extreme to say, well, look, we have Medicaid and Medicare for a reason, and a lot of — you know, if you cut Medicaid that much, you`re going to hurt a lot of seniors, you`re going to hurt a lot of disabled people. I think you can make a case by yelling. You can also make a very quiet, reasonable case that says the same thing.

Bill Clinton won his budget fight talking about Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment. Those are popular causes in 2011 just like they were back in 1995.

UYGUR: E.J., last thing, look, my whole life now I`ve heard about Democrats keeping their powder dry.

DIONNE: Yes.

UYGUR: It`s so dry. It`s incredibly dry. It`s like the Sahara Desert. And I always hear, oh, no, no, no. A couple months from now, a couple years from now, they`re going to really start fighting.

It never happens. Right?

So my last question to you is, can we agree that if President Obama does not fight for Medicare, and instead agrees to some sort of so-called compromise, where he agrees with the Republicans to chop it off, or to do this kind of premium support system, or anything like that, then he is a disaster as a progressive, if he does it?

DIONNE: I don`t know if I would have jumped there, but I do agree with you that Democrats do have this habit of delaying the fight until it`s too late. You can`t fight in the 10th inning if the game ends in the 9th inning.

And I think that if Obama — particularly — guess I`m focused especially on the Medicaid cuts, because if he doesn`t really put up a battle on those, then I don`t see how the rest of his achievement holds together. And so think he does have to start fighting now. And I think we`ll see tomorrow, when Congressman Ryan issues the budget, I think it`s a real moment of truth for him.

UYGUR: All right. E.J. Dionne, thank you so much for your time tonight.

DIONNE: Thank you.

UYGUR: All right.

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Nontaxable wages of volunteer firefighters and emergency medical responders

Posted on April 6, 2011 by William Brighenti

Volunteer firefighters and emergency medical responders are entitled to exclude a certain amount of their income received for their services from income taxes; however, some municipal payroll coordinators are unaware of this exclusion from taxes.

The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 (P.L. 110-142) included a provision that excludes from taxable income $30 per month of the wages from state or municipal governments to volunteer firefighters and EMS personnel. This benefit is in effect through the year 2010 and may be extended through 2015.

To calculate your annual exclusion, multiply the number of months you provided such services by the $30 monthly exclusion. If you worked the entire year as a volunteer, you may be entitled to a $360 exclusion of income received from the governmental unit as wages for your volunteer services. In addition, your excluded wages would not be subject to federal withholding, social security tax, Medicare tax, and unemployment tax.

Be advised, however, that any exclusion of income from taxes would reduce any charitable deduction for expenses paid by you in connection with the performance of such services.  For instance, if you provided your own vehicle in the performance of your duties as a volunteer firefighter and in the past have deducted the mileage incurred as a charitable contribution, any exclusion of income would reduce your charitable deduction dollar for dollar.  In other words, if you claimed the maximum annual exclusion of $360 for 2010, assuming that your only charitable contribution pertaining to your volunteer services involved mileage of your personal vehicle, unless the charitable mileage exceeded 2,500 miles (or $360 in allowable vehicle expenses), you would not be allowed any charitable deduction in connection with the volunteer service.

Generally your W-2 form should show the nontaxable income in box 14 along with an applicable description.  Those excluded wages should not have been included in the wages reported in boxes 1, 3, and 5, nor should any taxes on those wages have been included in the taxes reported in boxes 2, 4, and 6.  However, I personally have yet to see this excludible income reported in this manner.  Apparently, a number of municipalities and state governments are unaware of this recently enacted tax benefit for volunteer firefighters and EMS personnel.

If your W-2 fails to exclude the allowable wages to which you are entitled as a volunteer, you would be advised to call your town or state government and request a corrected W-2 form.

Incidentally, for all those interested, this tax benefit for volunteer firefighters and emergency medical responders was was introduced by Representative John Larson (D-CT) and Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) back in 2002 in the Volunteer Responder Incentive Protection Act (H.R. 943/S. 1466); however, it was not enacted into law until December 20, 2007.

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Unions unite. Will union-bashing hurt the GOP?

Posted on April 2, 2011 by William Brighenti

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

UYGUR: Republicans be aware. Today, the backlash inspired by the conservative crackdowns on unions enters a whole new chapter. See those eight people? They‘re the eight republican state senators in Wisconsin whom Democrats have bowed to recall because of their anti-union votes. Well, not that recall effort has officially begun. Democrats say, they‘ve collected the signatures required to recall the first of those state senators, Dan Kapanke. And they‘re filing the petition today. The filing begins a 31-day review period of the signatures. An election could be held this summer. Votes have consequences. Those consequences are on the way for Mr. Kapanke.

By the way, the situation for him is seriously dire. A political scientist at the University of Wisconsin Madison says, Kapanke is the quote, “only one of those Republicans who looks like they‘re situated in a democratic-leaning district.” In a pole last month showed that 57 percent of those in Kapanke‘s own district would vote for a generic someone else. By the way, you should know the move on commissioned that poll but it was done by a professional polling organization. But given all this, hanky panky Kapanke looks like he‘s in a lot of trouble. Yes, I know, I just gave him that nickname. It‘s a vice I share with George Bush. It doesn‘t speak well of me.

All right. Meanwhile, it‘s new ball game in Ohio as well. Governor John Kasich signed an anti-union bill into law yesterday, that‘s even harsher than the one in Wisconsin stripping collective bargaining rights from roughly 350,000 public workers. But if Democrats can collect just over 250,000 signatures in the next 90 days, that bill does not go into effect. Instead it goes to a referendum. And Ohio voters get to vote on it. And guess what? Polls show that Ohio voters definitely do not like the measure. Fifty four percent in favor, 35 percent against. That‘s according to a recent Quinnipiac poll. But the really bad news for Republicans is that the backlash isn‘t just in Wisconsin and Ohio. It‘s everywhere. We‘ve told you about plummeting poll numbers for republican governors who backed anti-union measures including Walker, Kasich and Chris Christie. They‘re all dropping.

Now, a new Gallup poll shows that 48 percent of the Americans side with state employee labor unions in these disputes and only 39 percent agree with the governors. And check this out. As Politico pointed out in November, a Hart Research poll showed 47 percent of the building trade union members describing themselves as Democrats. Twenty five percent as Republicans. In January, 63 percent called themselves Democrats and only 18 percent went to Republicans. Now, that‘s a significant shift. And that was even before the Wisconsin and Ohio bills passed. But the news just keeps getting worse and worse for Republicans.

It now appears that even police and firefighter unions are jumping from the republican ship. Cops and firefighters, remember, those are the two unions, they were actually exempted from the Wisconsin bill. The president of the Ohio Association of professional firefighters says, some republican members have actually apologized for supporting John Kasich. Quote, “they are never voting that way again.” And today, the backlash is spreading the Pennsylvania, a state where anti-union measures are even on the table yet. Almost, 3,000 of union coal mine workers from several states staged a rally today in Pennsylvania, an early warning signal to any and all conservatives bent on taking the fight elsewhere. Look, they get it. This republican attack is against them, the workers in this country, the middle class. And they have decided they‘re going to fight back.

All right. Joining me now is Tim Burga, he‘s president of the Ohio AFL-CIO, and Chuck Canterbury, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police. Chuck, let me start with you. The cops were exempted in the Wisconsin bill, why are you joining this fight and why are you so animated by it?

CHUCK CANTERBURY, FRATERNAL ORDER POLICE: We‘re joining the fight because Wisconsin was just the first. Ohio‘s bill SP5 that‘s passed this week, it‘s a terrible official legislation that rolls back, the police labor movement 30 years in Ohio. And we‘re not going to stand for it. We‘re going to stand up and let the American public know that we‘re not the evil doers, we‘re the police officers, the firefighters and the teachers that live in their communities. So, we‘re going to continue to stand up, get the numbers up from the people as you‘ve said earlier in your intro, the American public supports us. We‘ve just got to get our message out.

UYGUR: You know, of course, a lot of people supported the Republicans before, Chuck, I want to stay with you for a second, what made you change your mind here? What woke you up, if you will?

CANTERBURY: Well, this isn‘t about bipartisan issue or a republican or democrat issue. This is an issue of the police officers in this country standing up for those that stand up for us. Right now, the republican governors around the country have decided to point an X on us as a target. And we‘re going to have to use our voices on our votes to answer back.

That‘s going to cause us to lean towards people that support our causes.

UYGUR: All right. Tim, talk to me about how much these republican governors might have ironically helped the AFL-CIO by showing people, how against the workers they really are.

TIM BURGA, PRESIDENT, AFL-CIO: All right. Good evening, Cenk. And President Canterbury is right. There is a tremendous outpouring of opposition against Senate bill 5, because it‘s being seen as a politically motivated attempt to scapegoat police officers, nurses, firefighters and teachers for the economic challenges of the day. And what Senate bill 5 will do, and Ohioans are seeing this, is going to punish all working families, and to take away worker rights. And not only is a galvanized union men and women, but it also has all working families, and the general public up and arms, and we‘re very confident that we‘re going to get this issue on a ballot, and there will be a citizens veto of Senate bill 5 in November.

UYGUR: But I want to ask you about that. First, I just kind of say, well, it really drives me crazy. And I think I‘m hearing it from both of you guys, that they seem to be blaming you guys for the budget problems. You didn‘t cause the budget problems. And then they could turn around and say, oh, no, no, it‘s not the taxes, it‘s not anything else, it‘s not our give-aways, you guys and we‘ve got to cut your pay. But Tim, I want to focus on what you guys are you‘re going to do about it in Ohio. What is the plan of action and how it will work?

BURGA: Well, the process is Ohioans from every corner and all walks of life, will be circulating petitions to get the necessary signatures, to get the citizens veto on the ballot in November. So, the end of April, all of May and all of June, we‘ll be gathering signatures and that will be campaigning the issue in November. And I can tell you that there‘s been an outpouring of opposition against Senate bill 5 because it‘s being seen as a stream, politically motivated overreach and an attack on workers‘ rights. And Ohioans are up in arms and they want to do something about it. And fortunate for us here in Ohio, we have the ability to go to the ballot for a citizens veto and I believe we‘ll be successful.

UYGUR: You know, Chuck, you know, in Wisconsin, at some point, Governor Walker gave an order to clear out the protesters from the state house and the cops there said, we‘re not going to do it. We‘re going to do the right thing. And some of the cops even shouted out, we‘re going to join you guys, right? It was an amazing moment, a really interesting moment. But, you know, a lot of politicians after 9/11 has said, oh, we‘re with the cops, we‘re with the cops. I mean, there‘s a lot of empty talk. When it came to action, what are you seeing on the ground lately? In all these states, I mean, it seems like, particularly in the Midwest, but it seems like they‘re coming after you. Do you feel particularly betrayed by that?

CANTERBURY: We feel extremely betrayed because these are the people that have brought our country into this economic problem. They‘re the ones that underfunded pensions. They‘re the ones that negotiated contracts, they don‘t want to keep, it wasn‘t the police officers, the firefighters, the teachers, it was them. And now, we‘ve become their scapegoat, so we‘re extremely annoyed by it. And the over one million police officers in this country are going to stand up.

UYGUR: You know, last thing for the viewers at home, look, the banks, whenever they run into trouble they say oh, the bankers contract, we can‘t violate those. No, no, no, those are contracts. But when it comes to Chuck‘s contractors, guys have the four as well, those contracts well, they‘re not quite good enough. We can cut your pay. When it comes to working guys that Tim is representing, well, we can cut that pay, we didn‘t mean that contract, we meant rich people‘s contracts. I think that what drives people crazy. But look, Tim Burger and Chuck Canterbury, we really appreciate you guys coming out here and talking about it tonight. Thank you both so much.

BURGA: Thank you.

CANTERBURY: Thanks for having us.

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Transformer. Obama returns focus to energy.

Posted on April 2, 2011 by William Brighenti

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

UYGUR: A big and broad plan today from President Obama on energy, including his goal of breaking America‘s dependence on foreign oil—which honestly I always find to be funny, but we‘ll get back to that in a second.

President Obama unveiled his proposals during a speech at Georgetown University. They include tapping new energy sources including natural gas reserves—questionable; encouraging energy efficient automobiles—lovely; investing in high speed rail and mass transit—fine; investing in clean and renewable energies research—well, that sounds good; ensuring safety of nuclear power in new generation of plants—that in reality, of course, means we keep going forward on nuclear energy, hence that‘s questionable, if you ask me; encouraging offshore oil exploration and production—well, that is totally questionable.

Look, it‘s classic Obama—a little progressive and a little conservative. Did I please everybody? Did I please everybody?

The Obama administration is, in fact, already encouraging offshore oil production as they handed out seven new deep water drilling permits recently. Now, that‘s despite the fact that earlier in this month, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told a group of reporters that containment systems for gushing wells still needed some work. That doesn‘t sound.

Here‘s what he said, quote, “These containment systems are a work in progress. Both systems currently have limitations on water depth and barrel-per-day containment capability.”

So, we‘re barreling straight ahead, even though containment systems are, quote, “a work in progress.” That sounds disastrous. In other words, if something goes wrong, oops, we were in the middle of a work in progress.

But to Republicans, of course, that‘s still not good enough.

They‘re calling for more drilling, baby.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), MINORITY LEADER: When you shut down drilling, higher prices and fewer jobs are sure to follow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UYGUR: Fewer jobs for Republicans who get paid by those oil companies.

To that end, Republicans are pushing measures in the House and Senate that would speed up the granting of permits and open up new offshore areas for drilling. They want to do that, even though oil companies are still exploiting a giant loophole that allows them to avoid about $50 billion in royalties on deep water drilling. Yes, look, that‘s $50 billion that go to the taxpayers and, sure, because it‘s supposed to be our oil but it‘s not going to us, whey are the Republicans are there to protect them?

And even though extra drilling would do almost nothing to decrease oil prices in this country, do you understand this. Oil drilled in the U.S. goes to the whole world market. We don‘t get to keep it.

BP doesn‘t go congratulations, Bob and Suzy, here‘s your oil. No, they sell it and make money off of it. And they can sell it to the Chinese. They can sell it to anyone they like.

And now, if you think that‘s bad on a federal level, it‘s also ugly on the state level, too. Republican Governor Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania has a brilliant idea. Even though they‘ve got a lot of natural gas in Pennsylvania, he says, you know what, let‘s not tax that natural gas drilling—even though 2/3 of his voters in the state supported this and saying, come on, please tax them, it‘s our gas, we should be getting something for it.

You know how much they would get for it? The Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center estimated that the tax could bring in $400 million in revenue by 2015. Remember, Pennsylvania has a $4 billion budget gap. They could really use that money.

“The Philadelphia Enquirer” reports that Corbett got $800,000 in campaign donations from the drilling industry. Of course, he did!

Gee, I wonder why he‘s giving away the natural gas. I love his excuse, though. He‘s like, you know what? If we don‘t give them the tax incentives, they‘ll go somewhere else.

Where are they going to go? The gas is underneath Pennsylvania. How could they possibly get it from somewhere else? What are they going to do, drill up from China?

Come on, man. That‘s painfully stupid.

But all of this drilling isn‘t for your benefit, it‘s for the benefit of the energy companies and the politicians that they buy. That‘s why this whole idea of energy independence is a bit of a joke. We don‘t keep the oil, the oil companies do.

All right. With me now is Tyson Slocum. He‘s director of Public Citizen‘s Energy Program. He‘s going to fill me in a little bit more on this.

OK. First, Obama‘s plan. What do you think his real motivation there is?

TYSON SLOCUM, DIRECTOR, PUBLIC CITIZEN‘S ENERGY PROGRAM: Well, I think his real motivation is he wants to get the upper hand in the debate about energy policy and take his case directly to the American people. Right now, you‘ve got the crisis in Libya, which is spooking speculators to drive up the price of oil, even though we‘ve got 2 billion barrels of oil and gasoline in storage here in the United States. You got the crisis with the Japanese nuclear reactors that‘s spooking investors and other supporters of nuclear power here at home.

And all of this is going on while Congress debates whether or not the Environmental Protection Agency should be regulating power plants and industrial facilities under the Clean Air Act, and whether or not they should be regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

So, what Obama is doing is he‘s trying to preview his campaign theme going into the presidential re-election year, saying, look, I‘m trying to drill for more oil, I‘m trying to get more efficient cars, I‘m trying to build new nuclear power plants. And so, that‘s his message that he‘s kind of putting forward.

I don‘t really see, though, that this speech that he made today is going to be able to translate effectively into legislative action because the two parties just continue to fight—and as you just previewed, are very far apart on the solutions to America‘s energy situation.

UYGUR: Is he going to throw the EPA partly under the bus?

SLOCUM: I think that Obama will definitely throw the EPA under the bus if he gets some sort of pro-active legislative agenda to replace it.

UYGUR: Like what?

SLOCUM: And that‘s what he‘s talking about. Well, we saw what he did when he signed off on the climate bill back in 2009 that established a cap-and-trade system, that a lot of environmentalists and some folks in industry supported and that eviscerated EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gases.

And so, I think the things that Obama would like to see is some establishment of a clean energy standard, like what he previewed in the State of the Union address, some expansion of offshore drilling and mandating that oil companies develop existing leases that they‘re already sitting on.

UYGUR: Right. But, Tyson, as far as his priorities are concerned –

is it any way reasonable that the expectation that the Republicans would go towards him? Are they really going to say, oh, cap and trade, let‘s discuss it? No way, right? I mean—

SLOCUM: Right.

UYGUR: Can he get anything from them?

SLOCUM: I really don‘t see that there‘s a point of agreement or intersection between the two parties. I mean, when the Republicans dust off their tired play book of “drill, baby drill,” when even the Bush administration concluded in 2007 that opening up all areas that are currently off-limits offshore in the United States to new drilling would have an insignificant impact on prices and imports, that shows that drilling is not going to be the answer. We have to focus on alternatives.

UYGUR: Tyson, that‘s the thing that drives me crazy. That‘s the final question for you. I mean, for decades, I‘ve been hearing oh, we‘ve got to get independent of foreign oil, as if we get the oil. Can you just am I getting this wrong? I mean, when BP or ExxonMobil drills for oil, they don‘t give it to you, do they? They never showed up at my house and give me a tank of gas. They keep the oil and sell it all over the world, right?

SLOCUM: Well, I mean, most of the time when they‘re drilling domestically here, it makes more business sense for them to sell it into a massive consumption market like the United States. You‘ve got pipelines and infrastructure.

Legally, they can sell it anywhere. But when the number one consumption market, when one out of every four barrels of oil is consumed here in the United States, it makes business sense to sell in to that very lucrative market.

UYGUR: Right. But they‘re selling it to us. It‘s not like we get the oil. They sell it. They get a profit. So, how are we getting the oil?

SLOCUM: Well, I mean, that‘s a good point. It‘s a globally priced market, and the United States is the third largest oil producer in the world. Very few Americans know that. It‘s just that we consume so much.

But the oil companies make out like bandits. When it cost them about $18 in costs to pull a barrel of oil out of the ground and they‘re selling it into the U.S. market for more than $100, you do the math. That is great profit numbers for the big oil companies. And more than 80 percent of their campaign contributions are going to Republicans.

UYGUR: Look, I don‘t mind people making a huge profit if it didn‘t come from our hide. They‘re taking our oil. They‘re saying, hey, let me drill for more oil and then I‘m going to charge you an $82 profit per barrel. It‘s insanity, right? All right.

SLOCUM: And there‘s thousands of leases in the Gulf of Mexico where oil companies aren‘t even paying a dime in loyalties to the American taxpayer.

UYGUR: Aaah! OK. All right. I get frustrated by politics.

All right. Tyson Slocum, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

SLOCUM: Yes. My pleasure.

UYGUR: All right.

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Tea Party slide. Poll: the Tea Party rapidly losing popularity. The GOP’s Tea Party problem.

Posted on April 2, 2011 by William Brighenti

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

CENK UYGUR, HOST: Welcome to the show, everybody.

We start with some disastrous news for the Republicans. As they stick with their Tea Party base, the numbers are not good. And a new CNN/Opinion Research poll has found that 47 percent of people have an unfavorable view of the Tea Party movement. That‘s up from four points from December and 21 points from last January. And that is a disaster for the Tea Party.

You know what‘s happening? People are actually looking at the Tea Party and going, oh, that‘s what they stand for. OK, well, I got no interest in that.

But nonetheless, the Republican Party has said, I‘m with those guys, those guys rock. And they are totally affecting the so-called budget negotiations we‘re having right now. Look, we‘re having the wrong conversation in the first place, OK?

Here‘s how the conversation went—all right, we‘re going to give giant tax cuts, over $800 billion in tax cuts, and then we‘re going to have a conversation about how we‘re going to cut spending.

Well, that‘s a Republican conversation. We shouldn‘t be having that conversation in the first place. But, of course, as always, the Democrats agreed to it.

.Now, the only question that remains is: how much are we going to agree with the Republicans?

So, in that regard, let‘s look at how, again, the so-called “negotiations” have gone so far. Oh, we‘ve got a new graphic—fun for everybody.

OK. In the beginning, Barack Obama gives away basically $40 billion from his 2011 budget proposal. You see, the car moved a little bit, or whatever that thing is. It‘s an arrow, it moved. OK, you see it‘s going through, it‘s a roadblock.

And then we had a continuing resolution that said that, hey, you know what? We‘re going to cut $4 billion more. And we had another continuing resolution for another three weeks that said we‘re going to cut $6 billion. There it is. It‘s going and going and going. Still, the roadblock has not moved at all.

And now, we just found out recently, the Republicans have offered—

I‘m sorry, the Democrats—of course, the Republicans offer nothing—the Democrats offered another $20 billion.

And where have the Republicans gone all this time? Nowhere!

OK. And you know what happens today? Now, there‘s talk of the Democrats offering another $6 billion in cuts.

Will you—for the love of God—stop already! OK. Look—but it doesn‘t look like they‘re ever going to stop.

And everybody sees like this as a loss for the Republicans somehow. Sometimes, I can‘t understand Washington conventional wisdom. They‘re like, do you know, that they‘re fighting amongst themselves. Now, they‘re patting exactly where they were.

I‘m going to give another fact. Do you know when all this started? You forget the original $40 billion—the Republicans said that they wanted $32 billion in concessions. They‘re already at $30 billion in concessions from the Democrats. And it may jump out to $36 billion in concessions. They‘re massively winning.

But, finally, the Democrats have gotten a little tougher and they looked at that poll and they‘re like, whoa, the Tea Party is unpopular. Time to hit them.

So, here‘s what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had to say about the Tea Party.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MAJORITY LEADER: The country doesn‘t care much about the Tea Party. The people who care about the Tea Party are a very small number who care about them positively.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UYGUR: And he laid the smackdown. That‘s as tough as Reid gets.

The country doesn‘t care about the Tea Party. Go get them, Harry!

All right. Now, “The Washington Post” is reporting that Republican leaders are talking to Blue Dog Democrats to get a budget compromise before next week. Maybe they saw those polls after all. Is this the beginning of a tiny, itsy-bitsy, little-bitty, this much compromise? Maybe.

Senator Reid said yesterday the Republicans were willing to move down to $36 billion in cuts from their original $61 billion. Are they not merciful?

But, so far, there‘s been no public commitment on that from the GOP. Though Eric Cantor digging his heels this morning, saying that for some reason, the House is going to hold another vote this Friday on the budget bill that they already passed. Here‘s how he explained it:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ERIC CANTOR (R-VA), MAJORITY LEADER: This week, again, we will act. On Friday, we will bring to the floor the government prevention—excuse me, the prevention of government shutdown act. And that will say to the American people the Senate‘s got to act prior to the expiration of the C.R. If it does not act, H.R.1 becomes the law of the land.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UYGUR: That is wildly and comically wrong. A bill does not become the law of the land if the House simply passed it twice. That was weirdly wrong. Was that a slip of the tongue or does Cantor have no idea how our system of government works?

Has he even watched Saturday morning cartoons? That even tells you how a bill becomes a law. It‘s not like hey, you know what, if the House passed it and the Senate doesn‘t, and the House votes again! No, that‘s not how the system works.

But, unfortunately, that is the Republican vision of America. If the GOP insists hard enough, their proposals should just become the law.

All right. Joining me now to talk about all this is Congressman Jim McDermott of Washington.

Congressman, you know, I think—as you just heard, I think we‘re having the wrong conversation in the first place. So, I‘m going to keep it real from you right from the get-go. Whose fault is it that we are seeing a tiny little compromise on how much we cut spending from Republicans as a victory, instead of the gigantic loss which I think it is?

REP. JIM MCDERMOTT (D), WASHINGTON: Well, I think the president and the Democrats never should have agreed to extending the Bush tax cuts for my extended period of time at all. We made the deficit worse at that point.

What we‘re doing now with the Tea Party, these are a group of people elected not to govern, not to understand government, not to figure out how it works—but simply to come in here and tear it apart. And what you‘re going to see when we have a government shutdown here in a week or so that, like children, they‘re going to find out that what they‘ve been told that government has a role and a responsibility, they‘re going to find out that the American people are really going to be angry when they can‘t get into their national parks, they can‘t get into their museums, they can‘t get their passports, they can‘t get all the myriad of services that they get from government.

The Tea Party would have you believe that public servants do no good, no place, no time, and we could do without all of them. And that‘s simply not true and we‘re going to find out very shortly because we‘re going to hit the wall.

UYGUR: So, Congressman, let me ask you, you seem like you‘re pretty sure there‘s going to be a shutdown. I mean, there‘s talk about how Boehner is reaching out to the Blue Dog Democrats and you might strike a deal with them. Do you think there‘s going to be a compromise? Or do you think we‘re definitely headed towards a shutdown?

MCDERMOTT: Well, Mr. Boehner has a terrible problem. He‘s got 85 people in his caucus who simply just don‘t understand what this is about. They are neophytes, all of them. They think they know everything. They‘re just like little kids who think they know how things work and they don‘t.

So, Boehner‘s now got to lead them by the side of the road and reach over to the Democrats, and, ultimately, when he puts together—he‘ll say, well, I‘ve got a bipartisan proposal. But it won‘t go through the Senate. So, then, they‘re going to try and blame it on the Senate. The Senate Democrats killed the bipartisan agreement from the House. I think we are headed for a terrible mess here in the next few days.

UYGUR: Yes. Look, if the Democrats lose that public relations battle, I‘m going to lose my mind. I mean, right now, you‘ve got Cantor, you saw him in that clip. And you‘ve got all these guys saying it‘s the Democrats‘ fault, they‘re the ones who are going to force the shutdown. That seems mental to me. But, of course, most of the Washington media takes it seriously.

How do you fight back against that?

MCDERMOTT: Well, Mr. Cantor has been running the Republican follies in the House now for 13 weeks. You know, we read the Constitution and we‘ve done—we passed all kinds of silly bills that had no impact. We haven‘t passed a single bill related to a job.

And then he comes out here and says if the House tosses this bill, it will become law. Well, we have to explain to him how a bill has to pass both houses of Congress before it can be presented to the president. He doesn‘t even understand the basic mechanisms of government. It really is a classic farce going on in the Republican caucus.

UYGUR: But, Congressman McDermott, let me challenge you on one

premise. You know, you‘re saying that the Tea Party guys are kids and they

don‘t get it, et cetera. But hasn‘t that intransigence worked? I mean,

like I said, initially the Republicans just wanted $32 billion in cuts, the

Tea Party forced them to $61 billion, and the Democrats—for some reason

went along and now it looks like they‘re going to get more than $32 billion in cuts.

So, didn‘t the Tea Party‘s stance in some way work? And didn‘t the Democrats enable it by constantly compromising and not drawing the line?

MCDERMOTT: You know, I‘m a child psychiatrist and I‘ve dealt with children my whole life. And there comes a point in which you tell a child, don‘t do that, it‘s going to hurt you. And you say, don‘t do that, it‘s going to hurt you. Don‘t do that, it‘s going to hurt you. Ultimately, they get hurt and then they cry and say, you know. Well, that‘s what you‘re going to hear around here when the Republican Tea Party people actually get what they‘re wishing for, because you cannot run government on two weeks at a time.

Nobody in business runs two weeks at a time. Nothing in the world works two weeks at a time. And they are simply strangling the economy and destroying the job opportunities for their own people and the people back home know it. And you‘re going to start to see the reaction. You‘re seeing it in the polls you‘ve already shown.

I think it‘s only a matter of time before the people get on to them.

UYGUR: All right. Congressman Jim McDermott, thank you for your time this evening. We appreciate it.

MCDERMOTT: You‘re welcome.

UYGUR: All right. Now, let me bring in MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe.

Richard, let me ask you this first. You know, you cover the White House extensively. So, what is the White House plan? Are they planning to just give more and more and more concessions on the hope the Republicans will move at some point? Or do they have a bottom line? Is there a line in the sand anywhere?

RICHARD WOLFFE, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. Sure, there‘s a line in the sand. What they want to do is come out with something in the middle and show that they‘re reasonable. In fact, what they want to do more than that and the numbers can get dizzying because, remember, we‘re halfway through this current year and there would be various compromises along the way in terms of cuts.

But what they really want to do beyond the numbers is explore the different ways the Republicans are fracturing here. You‘re seeing them already moving towards negotiating directly with the Democrats, with the White House. There‘s some kind of intermediary here. You‘ve got Boehner‘s staff is talking to Reid‘s staff.

And this whole Tea Party dynamic, combined with the presidential dynamic that you‘re seeing on the Republican side, is a new playing field for this White House. It‘s such a different prospect from what they had for the last two years. That‘s where you saw real intransigents on the Republican side and it was very effective. It‘s not just the same kind of politics anymore and I think the White House is exploring this.

The results, of course, do mean cuts, and they‘re going to be painful cuts. But the politics does look different and that provides different opportunities for the White House, too.

UYGUR: Well, Richard, help me out on that—walk me through that, because right now, it looks like they gave the Republicans the tax cuts that they want, and now, they‘re giving a giant portion of the spending cuts they want—it‘s still not enough, but they‘re negotiating over that.

So, where does the wind come in? Like talk to me about the politics. Like people talk, oh, the Republicans are fracturing, and?

WOLFFE: Well, and the big momentum they had in the last election came from this grassroots support, which is about to be massively disappointed. You can say that they‘ve got everything they want, but that‘s not how they view it because they‘re not going to come up with the $100 billion of cuts that they wanted. And, remember, you‘re going to have to go through all of this all over again when it comes to the debt ceiling and next year‘s budget which the president unveiled earlier this year.

So, this is a rolling pain for the Republican leadership. And that‘s just the internal dynamic for Republicans. You know, there are serious budget discussions, deficit discussions that both parties want to have.

For the president, looking for re-election—yes, he‘s had to concede stuff, but he was elected to bring red and blue America together. The more he‘s drifted away from that, the worse it has got for him among independent voters. For him to be able to say he‘s the man of compromise, you many not have liked the tax cut deal, but actually, voters—especially, independents—really liked it.

UYGUR: Well, Richard—

WOLFFE: That‘s going to be his path for 2012.

UYGUR: I‘m going to respectfully disagree with you. I want to show you two polls here and get your thoughts. New polls out on President Obama and now, his disapproval rating is up to 48 percent and his approval is only 42 percent. Well, that‘s disastrous.

And then when you ask, does he deserve another term? Fifty percent say no, he does not. And only 41 percent say he does. Also disastrous.

Here‘s my theory, Richard, it‘s that President Obama wins a lot of short-term battles by appearing to be reasonable and compromising, et cetera. So, people go, oh, yes, that‘s reasonable. OK, I get it, I get it, I like him.

But in the long-term, he never makes his own case. He keeps agreeing with the Republicans, agreeing, agreeing, agreeing. And at the end, in the long-term, you look at him and you go, why do I approve of this guy? I guess I don‘t.

WOLFFE: Well, you picked up one poll today and I can show you the Gallup poll today which actually flips those numbers around. He‘s still within this range. The only time he‘s really broken out of it is when he got all the stuff done in the lame duck session at the end of last year.

So, I actually don‘t think that—it may have been a temporary win for him, but pulling back those independent voters, that has been the big dynamic in the last two years against him. That‘s why Democrats are struggling and the bigger issue for him is the underlying problem in the economy.

You can make any number of different compromises in Washington. You can look reasonable. But people don‘t think it‘s working unless they see the economy and especially jobs come roaring back. So—

UYGUR: That‘s definitely true.

WOLFFE: That‘s why it‘s temporary.

UYGUR: No, that‘s definitely true. But the problem is, if you agree to spending cuts, you‘re probably going to have job losses, not job gains. So, that doesn‘t seem politically smart either. But I know I‘m tough on the president. Maybe he knows better than I do. Hey, he‘s president, right?

WOLFFE: He got elected. That‘s right (ph).

UYGUR: All right, Richard Wolffe, thank you so much for joining us tonight. We appreciate it.

WOLFFE: Thanks, Cenk.

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Manslaughter charges for BP

Posted on April 2, 2011 by William Brighenti

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

UYGUR: Justice Department investigators are considering whether to pursue manslaughter and forgery charges for the explosion aboard deepwater horizon ring which killed 11 workers. If pursued, the measures would finally hold the company with the history of problems responsible for its deadly negligence. Even before the BP spill, this was a company with many, many problems. It had been cited for 760 egregious willful safety violations between June of ‘07 and February of 2010.

By way of comparison, Exxon only had one over that same period. It beat Exxon 760 to one in safety violations, that is not a good record. But the company reached new levels of inept attitude and the days and months leading up to the explosion. BP was repeatedly warned by Halliburton, the company that it hired to seal the well with cement, that it should use 21 devices called centralizers to make sure the well was properly sealed. They opted and said to use just six. Can you imagine? They were more irresponsible than Halliburton. Now, on top of that they ignored clear warning signs in the hours leading up to the explosion.

Investigators learn that there was quote, “a very large abnormality in a negative pressure test,” which expert leaks in the well. But workers later decided that the test was successful after all. Gee, I wonder what kind of pressure was put on to get to that result. During the testimony months later, BP called that the fundamental mistake, although there were many mistakes, of course. Now, why the rush to get that work done? And to avoid dealing with promise that would lead approves to be deadly? Money, of course, BP leaks the Deepwater Horizon oil rig from Transocean. It was hoping to use that rig to drill another well in the gulf.

Now, BP had hoped to start a new well by March 8. The delays had put the company behind schedule. Based on an estimate of $500,000 per day to drill on the site, the delay of forty three days had cost BP more than $21 million by the day of the explosion on April 20. So, they risked the operation and people‘s lives because they wanted to hurry up and make more money. And there‘s no clearer example of their cost-cutting than the infamous blow-out preventer. The one thing that was supposed to be the fail state in cutting the flow of oil. This last line of defense didn‘t work for numerous reasons. Among the promise cited, a dead battery in its control pad, a useless version of a key component and last but not the least, the failure to install a 500,000 switch in case blow-out preventer failed.

Well, that extra $500,000 wound up costing them $20 billion in damages, and much more importantly, 11 lives were lost because of the explosion on that Deepwater Horizon oil rig. That‘s really—see those folks? I mean, I hate to tell you this, but they died. You know that, and they had families, and now they‘re not with us anymore, because somebody didn‘t want to spend a little extra money. And of course, an estimated 172 million gallons also spilled into the gulf affecting all of us. Look, corporations demand special rights in court, and they usually get them. Cases like Citizens United give them human rights like freedom of speech. But when it comes to responsibility, then all of a sudden they don‘t want treated like human beings, they don‘t want to be held criminally responsible for their actions.

Well, you can‘t have it both ways, you can‘t say you want all the constitutional rights of real human beings and none of the responsibilities. And who should shoulder that blame? How about the guys at the top who are making all of the money. They get all the up side, so shouldn‘t they be held responsible for the down side? My guess is that if we did that, and they were on the line, all of a sudden, we would have a lot more safety precautions, because those guys don‘t want to go to jail.

Joining me now is University of Maryland Law School Professor Jane Barrett to talk about this more. Professor Barrett, what would happen if we said, hey, you know, the CEO of the company is going to go to jail if people die on this job because of criminal negligence, do you think that that would help make the jobs a lot safer?

PROF. JANE BARRETT, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND LAW SCHOOL: Well, I think if there were personal accountability of corporate management for these types of accidents, that‘s clearly would make people pay more attention to the laws, and I agree with you, it would stop some of the workplace disasters we see.

UYGUR: And how about the specific case of BP? Do you think there is some chances that some people are going to go to jail, and if they do, who would that be?

BARRETT: I think that there is a possibility, based on the reports, the government is looking at a wide range of potential actions, ranging from false statements to Congress, false statements perhaps to investors, as well as what actually happened on the rig. The seaman‘s manslaughter statute has provisions to hold both of people who are on the rig responsible for negligence, as well as people who are onshore or up the corporate chain. The government can always use an aiding and abetting to kind of loop in the senior executives. I will tell you, this is a long process, this are not easy cases to bring, in my view one of the worst things could happen is if the government just simply settles for a large corporate fine and doesn‘t try to at least hold some individuals accountable.

UYGUR: You see, here‘s my problem with middle management, right? Or, set the guys on a ring, they have a ton of pressure on them, to make money, make money, we‘ve got to go, we‘ve got to open up that second rig, it‘s costing us a lot of money, and then if something goes wrong, then you blame them. And if they don‘t do it, and they don‘t succumb to that pressure, they get fired sometimes. So, it doesn‘t make more sense to move it up the chain, so that there‘s a culture at the company, oh my God, don‘t play with people‘s lives, because ass is.

BARRETT: Well, absolutely. The problem is under our system of laws, you‘ve got to have the evidence. And sometimes, the only way to get the evidence is by working your way up the chain just like you do in any other criminal case. If you‘re investigating a company for falsifications in terms of government contract, you start with the lower-level employees and you work your way up. That‘s not to say that all of those lower-level employees would get charged, but they‘re clearly going to be part of the investigation. And in my view, you need to get this investigation up to management that are off the rig who are making some of the decisions, if it‘s going to have a deterrent effect.

UYGUR: All right. Professor Jane Barrett, thank you so much for joining us tonight.

BARRETT: My pleasure.

UYGUR: We really appreciate it.

BARRETT: And look, I want to tell the audience one more thing here, look, again, I can‘t emphasize enough, those 11 guys died. It wasn‘t a simple mistake. It wasn‘t an act of God. It was people saying I want to save a nickel and a dime, and if people wind up dying, OK, so be it. There‘s something wrong with that, and I think the government should take criminal action on that.

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Tea Party Budget Battle. GOP Refuses to Negotiate on Budget.

Posted on April 2, 2011 by William Brighenti

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Today, we appear to be in the middle of a big budget battle between the Democrats and Republicans. But I don‘t think that‘s the case at all.

I‘m going to explain this fun graphic to you in a second. I like that. It looks like an egg, but it‘s actually a rock.

I don‘t think we have a fight on our hands at all. I think we have one side who will not budge at all, and we have another side that wants nothing but to give concessions.

So, let me start explaining this graphic that you‘re looking at.

Initially, the Democrats gave $40 billion away to the Republicans. President Obama‘s budget proposal for 2011 got cut by $40 billion. That included giving away, you know, the heating oil for the poor, giving away community organizing, et cetera, et cetera, and then two weeks continuing resolution in March 2nd got passed, giving away another $4 billion. As you show there.

And then, another $6 billion was cut—I like the sound effect—as part of another three-week continuing resolution that got passed on March 18th. So far, the GOP has not moved at all, and you see that jump, that last one? Well, that‘s today. The Democrats have offered $20 billion more in cuts. And what have the Republicans done in return? Nothing.

They have not moved an inch. So why are these guys continuing to do this? It doesn‘t make any sense.

The Democrats are stretching like an accordion and the Republicans—because of that Tea Party rock you saw at the end of that graphic—are like an immovable rock.

So, you might be wondering why? Why do they have these incredibly different negotiating strategies, let‘s say, right?

Well, look, Democrats look at the national polls and the White House looks at the national polls. One of these polls they see is this one. It‘s by “Bloomberg,” OK? And it says that 20 percent say that holding out for deep cuts and risking a shutdown is a very bad—or is in favor of it, I should say. Seventy-seven percent say that compromise is the way to go.

So, Obama looks at that and goes, I‘m going to run in a national election, that‘s a national poll. And so, that‘s the right way to go, right? So why aren‘t the Republicans reacting that way? Because they should look at that same poll and have the same reaction, right? Why are they in the position of defending the 20 percent?

Well, it‘s because they‘re not going to run in local races. These are I‘m sorry, in national races. These are House Republicans that are going to run in their local races. In a lot of the districts, they‘re in incredibly safe Republican districts.

So, they‘re not going to lose to the Democrats, they think. They think the only way they lose is to—in a primary to a Tea Party candidate. So, in which case, they don‘t move, because the Tea Party tells them not to move. So, obviously, then, the Tea Party becomes incredibly important.

So what does the Tea Party believe?

Now, this is an interesting question, because a new poll shows their incredible extremism. When you ask non-Tea Party conservatives and that‘s conservatives: is Barack Obama destroying the country? Only 6 percent agree. When you ask Tea Party conservatives, 71 percent believe Barack Obama is destroying the country.

Now, look, there‘s something visceral there that doesn‘t make sense. Destroying the country? Well, what, Bill Clinton didn‘t destroy the country, Al Gore didn‘t destroy the country, none of these other Democrats. But somehow, Barack Obama, he‘s something that is dangerous. He‘s not like them. He‘s another. There‘s something driving them and they will not budge.

It reminds me when Dick Cheney, when offered a great offer by Iran said, you know what? We don‘t negotiate with evil, so we will even turn that down. Now, that‘s absurd.

What—and you begin to wonder—is that how they view Obama? Is that why they won‘t move? Because they think any compromise to Obama is a compromise they cannot live with. So, if you‘re a Democrat, what lesson do you learn from this?

Well, look, you can‘t negotiate this. They‘re never going to move.

If they don‘t move, why should you keep moving? It doesn‘t make sense.

We showed you the graphic. Forty billion, 6 billion, now 20 billion and they still won‘t move an inch. Are you crazy?

All these concessions—all it does is it encourages them. And now, the Democrats are having an internal battle on whether they should blame the GOP publicly.

Are you ready for this? Of course! Of course, they should. You‘ve got to show that to the American people. If you don‘t show it to them, how do they know? You‘ve got to make your own case.

All right. Now, someone who isn‘t afraid of making that case is Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur of Ohio. She‘s joining us now.

Congresswoman, look, as you see that, is there any sense in still sitting at the negotiation table with these guys when they won‘t move an inch and they say, they just keep saying, no, no, no we‘re not going to budge at all?

REP. MARCY KAPTUR (D), OHIO: Well, there‘s a real problem on the Republican side of the aisle. They have a lot of frogs, and they can‘t keep a majority of them in the barrel. They can‘t keep the majority of them in the barrel. And it‘s sad.

Some of the new members that have come here within 100 days have been bending over backwards for the top 1 percent of the wealthiest people in this country, Cenk, where they are literally trying to balance the budgets on the backs of the middle class and the working class, and they‘re not holding accountable. They‘re raising money from the very same groups that caused the deep recession we‘re in—from Wall Street, which only pays 15 percent of taxes compared to 35 percent like other businesses.

UYGUR: Right.

KAPTUR: And they‘re fighting eternally. They‘re not making G.E. pay its fair share of taxes. Well, G.E. is not paying any at all. Or ExxonMobil that just raised our gas prices to $3.50. They‘re not going there.

They‘re trying to fight among themselves about how much more they‘re going to take out of the hides of the American people, the people who are actually paying their fair share of taxes.

UYGUR: Well, Congresswoman, apparently, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid agrees with you. I want to come back and ask you what you want to do about this.

But, let‘s watch first.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MAJORITY LEADER: The Republicans refuse to negotiate on a final number. That‘s because the biggest gap in this negotiation isn‘t between Republicans and Democrats. It‘s between Republicans and Republicans.

The infighting between the Tea Party and the rest of the Republican Party, including the Republican leadership in Congress, is keeping our negotiating partner from the negotiating table. And it‘s pretty hard to negotiate without someone on the other side of the table to talk to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UYGUR: Now, that‘s all exactly true, what you said is true. So, the question is, what are you going to do about it? You got another side who won‘t budge. Are you going to keep giving in?

KAPTUR: Well, I hope that we don‘t keep giving in because you can‘t get where we need to go on 14 percent of the budget. In other words, what they‘re trying to do is an impossibility.

The governor of Michigan, a state in deep economic recession, just said he‘s going to cut six weeks of unemployment benefits. Rather than dealing with: how do we create jobs? Because that‘s the real answer. If we create jobs and keep the focus on jobs, we can gain the revenue to balance the budget.

They‘ll do anything to avoid that subject. And they‘re running into trouble internally because they can‘t get to where we need to be in order to balance the budget, and they‘re threatening a government shutdown now, because the current budget resolution only runs through April 8th. So, they‘re between a rock and a hard place.

And I would agree with the leader in the Senate that there‘s nobody on the other side of is the table, because they are in total disarray on their side of the aisle.

UYGUR: All right. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, thank you for joining us. We appreciate it. Interesting to see how it turns out.

KAPTUR: Thank you.

UYGUR: All right. Now, let me bring in a totally different voice. Philip Dennis is the founder of the Dallas Tea Party. I‘m sure he has a different perspective on this.

First thing I want to ask you is: what do you want? I mean, do you want the Republicans to just stay at that $61 billion number and not budge an inch?

PHILLIP DENNIS, TEXAS TEA PARTY ORGANIZER: What we want is or government to spend less money than it takes in in revenues, just like we must do to live our lives. That‘s exactly what we want. And that is—if that‘s extremism, if that is out-of-touch—well, then all of America is out of touch because that‘s the way we live our lives.

UYGUR: I hear you, and I‘d love to have that conversation, we might in a second. But what I‘m asking is a specific question. You got these budget negotiations. Democrats have given, given, given, $40 billion, $4 billion, $6 billion, $20 billion. The Republicans haven‘t moved an inch.

So, do you want they to move at all, or do you not want them to move and say no, even though this is supposed to be a negotiation, we will not give in anything?

DENNIS: We have a $1.65 trillion deficit this year alone. Last year, we had a $1.5 trillion deficit, which means that we are printing or borrowing over $5 billion a day to keep this government running and you‘re bragging because the Democrats want to cut four days of borrowing? I‘d say to the Republicans, you need to do a lot more.

UYGUR: You‘ve got to answer the question. I hear you. But I‘m asking you, you wouldn‘t budge. You‘re saying, no, you wouldn‘t budge.

DENNIS: I don‘t know if you hear me or not. Well, the Republicans promised in the campaign season to cut $100 billion in spending, which to most Tea Party people out here, we think that‘s just basically ridiculous when we got a $1.6 trillion deficit.

UYGUR: So, you won‘t budge?

DENNIS: So, now, they have backed off to $61 billion.

UYGUR: So, you wouldn‘t budge an inch?

DENNIS: Absolutely not.

UYGUR: So, how are they supposed to negotiate?

(CROSSTALK)

UYGUR: Look, Phillip, you know, you guys claim that you‘re in the business and stuff like that and you understand it. You know, I run a small business, my dad‘s run a small business for a long time. I know you get in negotiations, right? And in negotiations usually, you have to come to some sort of agreement. If one side says I‘m not going to budge at all, well, you‘re not going to have an agreement, isn‘t that right?

DENNIS: Well, let me ask you this. In your father‘s business, if he made $12,000 a month, did he spend $13,100 —

(CROSSTALK)

UYGUR: But, Phillip, I‘m trying to get you to answer a question. So, the question is: if you‘re in a negotiation, if you‘re in business, and you say I won‘t give into anything at all, do you think you‘re going to have a deal or you‘re likely not to have a deal?

DENNIS: Hey, listen, let the Democrats do what they vote and let the Republicans vote the way they did. I don‘t know what anybody missed in November with the elections there. We send a bunch of Democrats home. And this time, we‘re going to send a bunch of Republicans home if they don‘t do what we send them up there to do, which was to repeal Obamacare and to reduce the spending dramatically, not this $51 billion, $61 billion.

Like I said, we‘ve got $1.65 trillion deficit. It is not sustainable.

UYGUR: So, even if they got 100 percent of what they wanted, you still wouldn‘t be satisfied because you‘re saying $61 billion?

DENNIS: No, absolutely not. We got $1.65 trillion deficit. I mean, how much more money do you people want to spend and borrow?

UYGUR: OK. So, Boehner was a disappointment no matter what then, right, because he‘s only asking for only $61 billion?

DENNIS: Absolutely. So far, absolutely. That‘s been a tremendous disappointment.

UYGUR: So, you would shut the government down then?

DENNIS: Well, absolutely. Shut it down.

UYGUR: Shut it down, right?

DENNIS: Shut it down, until they—

UYGUR: All right. You‘re very, very clear about that.

DENNIS: Until the Republicans and Democrats that go to Washington, D.C. can learn to spend $1 less than the government takes in in revenue. We don‘t have a revenue problem in Washington. We got a spending problem. And it‘s unsustainable. How many secretaries of the Treasury have to come out and say, this debt is not sustainable until somebody in Washington, D.C. listens?

UYGUR: Let me address that for one quick second here. You know, you‘ve been making that point throughout. Now, you know that non-defense discretionary spending is only $610 billion and the deficit overall is $1.6 trillion.

If you cut it to zero, you got everything you want. They cut all the programs, EPA, gone, Department of Education, gone. Everything is gone, right? Zero. You still would have about $1 trillion. So, how do you balance this thing without going into defense or raising taxes?

DENNIS: I think most people on the Tea Party side would like to see across the board cuts and everything is on the table for cuts. Look, we have to—we have to totally revise the way Washington does business, because it‘s gotten fat and it has gotten large and it has gotten away from what the Constitution advocates. And that‘s—

UYGUR: So, you would cut defense?

DENNIS: Absolutely.

UYGUR: All right. Good. Good, we have agreement on that.

DENNIS: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

UYGUR: Look, and, you know, right now, we‘re in historically low taxes as a percentage of GDP, et cetera. But you‘re still saying not low enough, you still want to cut taxes and give us a bigger cutting thing that we got to get passed. So, you really, really have to cut the heck out of defense.

DENNIS: Now, wait a minute, I haven‘t said anything about taxes. You said that. We‘re not averse to paying taxes. We‘re averse to paying our fair share. But—

UYGUR: So, you don‘t mind raising taxes if it‘s necessary.

DENNIS: Well, we will—absolutely, if it‘s necessary.

UYGUR: OK. Great.

DENNIS: Our government has gotten so much larger since Bush and Obama and their administrations and Americans that pay the bills, that create the wealth out there, that are seeing their children‘s futures mortgage so these people can spend money line drunken sailors. The only difference is drunken sailors spend their own money.

We are tired of it. We send the Republicans to change that. And if they‘re not going to make the big boy decisions we sent them up there to make, we‘re going to get bigger boys in 2012. If the Democrats want to spend—stand by this, oh, the Republican and Tea Party are extremists for wanting to cut spending—then, let them stand by their votes and we send them a whole bunch of them home last time. And we‘ll do more time this time.

UYGUR: All right. Look, Phillip, obviously, I don‘t agree with a lot of what you‘re saying, but those last two points I respect, because it‘s honest, because you can‘t do it from non-defense discretionary spending. So, if you‘re willing to go after defense and you‘re willing to say, hey, we should look at the revenue side, that‘s at least an honest conversation.

DENNIS: Hey, we spent $600 million in Libya over the last week, and no one knows what we‘re doing over there. Not even the president.

UYGUR: Right. That‘s different conversation. We‘ll do that in another night.

Phillip Dennis, thank you for joining us tonight. We appreciate it.

DENNIS: Anytime. Thank you.

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British Invasion? UK faces its own budget battle.

Posted on April 2, 2011 by William Brighenti

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

UYGUR: Hundreds of thousands in London on Saturday protested massive cuts by David Cameron‘s government in the U.K. It was an amazing protest. And you know what? They also had some fun chants.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Banks got bailed out!

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: We got sold out!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Banks got bailed out!

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: We got sold out!

Advertise | AdChoicesAdvertise | AdChoicesAdvertise | AdChoices.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

UYGUR: All right. I was enjoying that chant. And also very accurate.

About 250,000 people showed up, apparently, according to police estimates. Some estimates were as large as 400,000 people.

Given the size of the crowd, there was just very little trouble, mainly a sit-in where a lot of people were arrested, according to “The Guardian,” for not much purpose. And you wonder, of course, with such a huge turnout—you‘ve got teachers, you‘ve got government workers, and you‘ve got all these supporters—what were they protesting? Well, let me tell you.

Apparently, we‘ve got 80 billion pounds—that‘s $130 billion—in public spending cuts that are going to be implemented next month. The sales tax is also going to be raised, so they raised taxes. But again, that goes mainly to the middle class.

Five hundred thousand public sector jobs will be lost, which is a gigantic number and obviously one of the reasons why they‘re doing this protest. And 18 billion pounds, or $28.5 billion, are going to be axed from welfare payments.

And then the pension age, which is, of course, the retirement age, is going to be raised up to 66 by the year 2020 from 65. So they‘re getting hit from all sides like we have been here in a lot of the states, including Wisconsin.

Now, in the Netherlands, they have done some social media and Twitter campaign against ING. And you know what they said? Look, we‘re going to withdraw our money en masse because we‘re so angry that the CEO and executives of that bank are getting million-dollar bonuses and more in some cases. And they said look, we‘re going to walk with our money and we‘re not going to do it.

And you know what happened? The CEO of ING agreed to wave his bonus and told the other directors that they‘ve got to do the same thing. Hey, now we‘re getting somewhere—protests that actually work.

And politicians are now in the Netherlands supporting a 100 percent retrospective tax on all bonuses paid to executives at banks that receive state aid. How awesome would that be here at home?

Now, we‘ve also been doing protests here, of course. Now, we did US Uncut protests over the weekend. And in D.C., they again went after Bank of America, because apparently they have a huge amount of profits and they don‘t pay much taxes. In fact, they didn‘t pay any taxes in 2009. We‘re going to talk about that in a second.

There were 100-some-odd protesters. Now, it‘s not London, but they‘re getting there. They‘re getting there.

And then, as you see here, of course, we had huge protests in Wisconsin as well for many weeks on end. And they had, you know, some success in galvanizing people.

And as you‘re about to see, they also cost the Republicans some serious poll numbers. And that has an effect as well. But one thing it didn‘t have an effect is with Governor Walker.

Today, in defiance of a court order, he came out and said I‘m going to publish my law of taking away collective bargaining rights anyway. The court had told him, you‘re not allowed to publish it, and if you do, the regular way of doing it is to publish it in the Wisconsin State Journal, and it has to be done by the secretary of state.

And he said, I don‘t give a damn. Instead, he had published on a Web site of the legislature and just skipping all the laws and skipping the courts, because, courts, what are they for? I mean, this guy really thinks he‘s a tough guy, and I guess he thinks he‘s modeling himself under—you know, over Ronald Reagan, which doesn‘t make any sense.

But he‘s ignored all the public opinion. And guess what it‘s done to him? Well, it‘s cost him a lot of popularity.

According to a WPRI poll, Walker‘s unfavorables went from 35 percent in November of 2010 to 53 percent. So he got hit by 18 percent.

Now, the same thing is happening to other budget-cutting GOP governors all across the Midwest, and in other parts of the country as well, actually.

Here‘s Kasich. His approval rating is down to 30 percent. That‘s disastrous. That‘s of course, in Ohio.

And Chris Christie is also feeling the effects in New Jersey. Rutgers-Eagleton poll has his favorability dropping by eight percent after he gave his budget address in February where he said he was going to cut money for state workers.

Now, you see our own protests here in the U.S. are working to some degree. Now, one reason is because it draws attention to what they‘re doing.

Now, you know what else that led to? It turns out today we find out victory in Indiana. What is that victory?

Do you remember the House Democrats had been holding out for almost a month in Illinois, and they finally returned today. Why? Because they won concessions from the GOP, really important concessions, including shelving the right to work law, going to apply to private unions.

So, they were going to say, hey, private unions, you can‘t have right to work laws. Now that is being walked back. Concession by the Republicans. But it gets better.

They also abandoned a bill making a permanent ban on collective bargaining for state workers. You‘ll remember Governor Daniels had done that early on, but it‘s not permanent. He was trying to make it permanent, or the Republicans in Indiana were trying to make it permanent. Now it will not be permanent.

They‘ve also weakened Governor Daniels‘ education bill. Now, that‘s a good thing, because it caps the number of private school vouchers and it abandons a plan to let private companies take over failing public schools.

Now, we did all of that with protests in Wisconsin, some US Uncut protests, et cetera, et cetera, some protests at banks, and the poll numbers went down. And now you see Republicans panicking and saying, all right, all right, we give, which I haven‘t seen in years.

Now, imagine if we had protests the size of those in U.K. over the weekend. Well, that might get you a lot of results.

Joining me now is Carl Gibson. He‘s the co-founder of US Uncut.

Carl, I want to ask you first about the protests in London. How do we do that over here?

CARL GIBSON, CO-FOUNDER, US UNCUT: Well, Cenk, first of all, thanks for having me on your show.

But, really, with London, you look at UK Uncut has been together for about seven months. And (INAUDIBLE) had I think between 250,000 and 400,000 protesters, just through social media and word of mouth.

I mean, this is the new face of organizing. It is decentralized, leaderless movements. And that‘s exactly what US Uncut is about. We‘ve been organizing for about a month. We‘re not at UK Uncut‘s numbers yet, but we‘re getting there.

UYGUR: All right. And what do you think drove those numbers? I

mean, is it the spending cuts or is it more inequity, where they see, hey -you know, you saw the chant there. The banks got bailed out, and it doesn‘t look like they‘re contributing at all, but we‘re getting all the hit.

Is it the unfairness that you think are driving so many people to the streets, or is it just simply that we‘re getting cut too much and we can‘t take it?

GIBSON: I think it‘s just the magnetism of their message. Their message is so simple.

It‘s, you know, before you cut us, before you make teachers and police officers and firefighters pay for these budget cuts, how about you make sure corporations are paying their fair share in taxes, too? And that‘s what drove me to get US Uncut started. I got some help from UK Uncut.

And as long as you keep the message simple, a lot of people can access it—Democrats, Republicans. Of course, we were talked about recently on Fox News. Bill O‘Reilly and Lou Dobbs talked about corporate tax cheats. The message was on “60 Minutes” last night.

I think we‘re starting to permeate the national narrative and say maybe there are alternatives to deal with this budget crisis that don‘t involve Draconian budget cuts that hurt working people.

UYGUR: Well, I know you guys go to Bank of America and protest there all the time. Now, tell me why you‘re doing that. And what is it that you want? Like, what could Bank of America do that you would say all right, OK, mission accomplished?

GIBSON: Well, like you mentioned on your program last month, after our last day of action, Bank of America had I think $4.4 billion in profits after 2009, and instead got $1 billion back from the federal government instead of paying federal taxes. So what we would like to see companies like Bank of America and FedEx and Verizon do is simply to pay the effective 35 percent rate, take the earnings that you have off shore in bank accounts like the Cayman Islands and Ireland and other places, bring those profits back to the United States, and pay the effective rate.

We would get $100 billion extra in revenue every year if corporations just paid a 35 percent effective rate and paid taxes like the rest of us.

UYGUR: My guess is they‘re not going to volunteer that. There has to be some sort of movement that then moves politicians, et cetera. But that‘s of course exactly what you guys are trying.

One last quick question for you, Carl. Do you think we‘re going to get protests of that size here? Is it going to build to that at some point?

GIBSON: You know, I think after one month of organizing, when you see US Uncut protests in 40 different U.S. cities, West Coast, East Coast, South, Midwest, I think there‘s a good chance. I think by this time next year, you‘ll see a lot more numbers in the streets.

UYGUR: And look, conservatives have got to join in, because if they care about fairness and they care about people not getting away with not paying their fair share, they‘ve got to be on your side. So it‘s an interesting point.

Carl Gibson, thank you for joining us tonight. We appreciate it.

GIBSON: Thank you.

UYGUR: All right.

Now, there were a lot of dumb moves around the whole Wisconsin budget debate, but there‘s one bone-headed move that we want to tell you about tonight that really takes the cake.

Last month, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker‘s office received a—shall we say an interesting e-mail from a deputy prosecutor in Indiana. The deputy prosecutor was offering some advice. Thought it was kind of strange advice since it came from a state prosecutor.

The e-mail suggested that Walker fake an attack on himself in order to create sympathy for his cause and discredit the Democrats and union opponents. Now, the Indiana—I keep repeating this because it‘s amazing deputy prosecutor, Carlos Lam, wrote, “If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions‘ cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the public unions.”

I‘m blown away by that. How unbelievably dumb is that idea? Thank God Walker didn‘t do it. I mean, it would have caused him harm, let alone everybody else.

This was, of course, while conservative commentators at the same time were railing against union thugs. I wonder which side is more enamored with violence.

Lam, by the way, of course, initially denied that he sent the e-mail. Me? Me? E-mail? They must have hacked into my account. I can‘t believe that!

And when the reporter showed him the e-mail, he literally said, “Jeez,” like he was so surprised by it. And guess what happened? He admitted it was a lie and, in fact, of course nobody hacked his account. He sent the e-mail and he has now, luckily, resigned.

All right. Now, up next, a word of warning for all you singles looking to move to Alaska, in case there were any of you. Someone is actually floating the idea of making premarital sex illegal in that state. Fascinating.

And you want to know which group Fox‘s John Stossel thinks got the most help from the U.S. government? American Indians.

Oh, come on, man! American Indians?

All right. We‘ll explain his crazy theory when we come back.

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