UYGUR: We‘ve got new stomach turning details about exactly who is being made to pay for the biggest housing bubble in U.S. history and who isn‘t? First, here‘s who is laughing all the way to the bank. Angelo Mozilo, former chief executive of Countrywide Financial which made billions as the housing market inflated. From 2000 to 2008, Mozilo personally received $528.8 million in total compensation. As he say regulators, say he sold $140 million in country wide stock between ‘06 and ‘07, at the same time, regulators say that Mozilo‘s—he called Countrywide‘s loans, quote, “toxic” and, quote, “poison.” Even though countrywide was still selling the loans. Now, do you think he got punished? Do you think he went to jail? Of course not!
In 2010, Mozilo settled with the SEC and was assessed a $67.5 million fine. Now, that sounds bad, right? Except, of course, he didn‘t really pay it. Countrywide and Bank of America paid $45 million of it, meaning that he paid less than five percent of the money that he had made from Countrywide. Got away with it with nearly $500 million in the bank. And on February 18th of this year, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Feds shelved their criminal investigation into Mozilo, they‘re apparently determined his actions didn‘t amount to criminal wrongdoing. So there‘s no indictments for Mozilo or any other top Countrywide executives. Now, that‘s outrageous, right? Mozilo is walking away incredibly rich even though he knew the stuff was toxic and poison, right? So, that means they went and got nobody, right? No, not true.
Turns out they did get somebody. Now, look at who‘s behind bars. The “New York Times,” this weekend told the story of Charlie Engle, he is an ultra marathoner. And it turns an IRS agent Robert Norlander saw one of Engle‘s documentaries, Sahara where he goes to marathons through the whole Sahara that was produced by Matt Damon among others. And IRS and I just wonders, how could anybody have that much time to train? So, he gets obsessed by this, and he starts an investigation into that guy Engle for fraud, tax fraud. Guess what he found, nothing, nada. But he won‘t let it go. So, you keep haunting Engle and he even did dumpster diving, which means that he dumped, diving to dumpster and looked through Engle‘s garbage.
OK. Now, that all sounds crazy, right? But I guess crazy, he sent a female undercover agent to ask Engle about his investments. And she was pretending to seduce him. She‘s like, oh really, tell me more about your real states investments. Who knew the IRS does that? I mean, if you‘re going to do that, sent him after Mozilo, not after this random Engle guy, and Engle admits to the lady, oh, you know, I was trying to flip real estate at some point which, by the way, many people have done and many people have lost money as Engle did, that‘s not illegal. Engle also mentioned that he had a liar loan that his broker had written down, right? They‘re like aha, we got him, finally after all the dumpster diving.
So, there were two mortgages in particular, right? One claimed that he had made 15 grand a month. And he made $180,000 for the whole year. So, he did make 15 grand a month, he didn‘t even lie on that at all. The other said that he made over $32,000 a month, which he didn‘t. Now, Engle said he didn‘t know about that $32,000 claim. Now jurors kind of believed him, kind of didn‘t believe him and got confused. They found him not guilty of providing false information to the bank, which means he shouldn‘t be guilty of mortgage fraud, but they found him guilty of mortgage fraud anyway. Now, are you ready for this? He‘s serving 21 months in prison. So Mozilo, none of those guys get a prison sentence but this guy is in prison for 21 months. And by the way, you know who owns the loan? Countrywide which is now owned by Bank of America. When he gets out, he‘s got to pay them back. Oh, come on, man. That‘s our system, unfortunately.
CENK UYGUR, MSNBC ANCHOR: Welcome to the show, everybody. I‘m Cenk Uygur. Today, we begin with some good news about the country‘s economic recovery. The Labor Department says that the economy added 216,000 new jobs last month with private employers driving nearly all the gains. That is very good news. This combined with February‘s private sector job growth means that private hiring has added 470,000 jobs in the last two months alone.
Now, because those figures, the unemployment rate dipped slightly to 8.8 percent. It‘s fallen a full percentage point over the past four months, the sharpest drop since 1983. Obviously, very good news. And all that points to the fact that this administration is pushing the needle on unemployment. Now, just take a look at this chart from Steve Bennett (ph) at the “Washington Monthly”.
It shows the monthly job losses since January of 2008. Red columns point to monthly job totals under the Bush administration. And blue columns point to job totals under the Obama administration. OK. I pause there for a second. Look at that thing. It is so obvious what‘s going on. It‘s incredibly clear. This administration has stopped the bleeding in terms of the economy and jobs.
It is making positive headway. Is it enough? That‘s a good question. That‘s a fair question. We‘ll get into that a little bit later. But, obviously, we‘re going in the right path. So, today, the president how (ph) to this progress warned that Republicans possibly forcing a government shut down is actually a very bad idea.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We know that compromises within reach. If this budget negotiations break down, we could end up having to shut down the government, just at a time when the economy is starting to recover.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: Now, that makes sense, right? Well, sadly, not to the Republicans. They want cuts at any cost, even if it means a government shutdown. Even more irrationally, they want those cuts, even though reports have shown that such measures would destroy cut 700,000 jobs through 2012. Now, here‘s John Boehner ignoring those two facts and pushing his budget plan, anyway.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, ® SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Today‘s jobs report is welcome news, but Washington needs to do a lot more to end the uncertainty and get our economy moving again. It‘s clear that we need to cut spending. We‘re going to fight for the largest spending cuts that we can get.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: Now, let‘s see if that makes any sense. Remember, more spending through the stimulus plan created new jobs, you saw the graph. So, how would cutting spending help? And that doesn‘t make much sense to me, but it doesn‘t have to. It‘s a Republican plan. Now, the GOP is being so childish in pushing cuts the Republicans tried to rewrite the constitution bypassing the government Shutdown Prevention Act.
That‘s a bill put forth by Eric Cantor, and they claim that if you magically pass a bill in the House twice, that the Senate doesn‘t have to pass it. Maybe you have to click your heels twice, too. That makes no sense. Anybody would know that. So, Anthony Weiner decided he was going to have a little bit of fun with it. Let‘s watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ANTHONY WEINER, (D) NEW YORK: Rules are not a big thing for them to follow, because this is why it‘s hard. It‘s a big book. So, I brought you this. “House Mouse, Senate Mouse.” Permit to read. “It‘s the floor of each chamber of the Senate and House where each senator and each Congress mouse gets to vote on the bill, and if enough do—if enough do—this president signs it if he likes to.”
“Well, the Senate mouse – mice—the senate mices haven‘t passed this yet.” Perhaps, if this were the rules that the Republicans had to follow, it‘s a much thinner book and it rhymes, maybe you‘d get it right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: All right, that was fun. It looks like that, at this point, the Republicans are actually so annoying (ph) to negotiate, but there one risk to entire economic recovery, though, and that is not fun. Look, it doesn‘t really make sense (ph), unless, you relies to what they might actually want. The economy not to get better. Remember, the one number they care most about is 2012.
And they could make argument, hey, you know what, the president didn‘t create jobs, you should elect a Republican president. That‘s a very cynical. Let‘s hope that‘s not the plan, but I don‘t see what else makes sense.
But we‘re going to bring you some guests that might enlighten us. Joining me now is Ed Rollins, the long-time Republican strategist, who‘s also political director for President Ronald Reagan, also with me, former Pennsylvania Governor and MSNBC political analyst, Ed Rendell.
All right. Ed, let me start with you. You‘re in the studio here with me. Obviously, I‘ve said a couple of tough things about the Republican plan. First, let‘s start with Eric Cantor bill. I mean, that‘s crazy, right, the House passing the bill twice. What is that?
ED ROLLINS, FMR REAGAN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: It‘s probably not constitutional and, I think, at the end of the day—
FMR. GOV. ED RENDELL, (D) PENNSYLVANIA: Probably not?
(LAUGHTER)
RENDELL: Ed! Ed!
ROLLINS: I was telling our host here. I said this is a perfect, you know, fast Eddie you and slow Eddie me. And I‘m so glad MSNBC gave you a job because they now take you up that unemployed roll where you were there for about a month. So, it‘s good to be on with you, as always.
UYGUR: All right. So, we agree that it‘s not constitutional.
RENDELL: Tell me I‘m going to rule the constitutional, unconstitutional, but, you know, the bottom line is 218 votes give you the rules. You can pass whatever you want to pass, but the courts get to play.
UYGUR: Right, it‘s nonsense. OK. Now, let‘s get to the heart of the matter. Jobs. Ed, fill me in on this and we‘ll have the governor respond. How does it make sense that spending cuts would lead to more jobs, especially given the data we showed?
ROLLINS: Well, I think, obviously, you‘ve got to argue that runaway trillion dollar debts are not good for the economy either. And as long as you‘re spending money that you don‘t have and borrowing money to create jobs, what is the cost of the jobs. I think anytime we get people back to work, it‘s a positive thing for America. And what I take issue with you is saying, Republicans don‘t want this economy to move.
Every American wants this economy to get back in play. We‘ll argue on lots of different issues and we‘ve got plenty of things to fight over this presidency race with, but tanking the economy is not one of them.
UYGUR: All right. I want to get back to that. That‘s an important issue, but I want the governor to respond that spending cuts might actually somehow create jobs and given the facts that we showed here tonight.
RENDELL: Well, look, Cenk, to be fair, reducing the deficit can, in fact, have a significant effect on the economy, but it takes time. It takes two, three years for the benefits of that to start to kick in. I mean, we saw it in the Clinton years when Bill Clinton, with the help of the Congress, reduced the deficit, eliminated it and started producing surpluses, that triggered economy growth like we haven‘t seen in our lifetime.
So, I think Ed has a point in the long run, but in the short run, it is clear that that‘s not going to have an immediate effect on helping the economy. And what does help the economy is properly targeted government spending, properly targeted government tax cuts which, in fact, do help, like the expensing on small businesses. That‘s clearly been a big help. Smart tax cuts, but not across the board tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
So, there‘s no question that spending cuts are not the immediate answer to the economy. There‘s no question that the stimulus did produce significant new jobs and helped us retain a ton of new jobs. And right now, there‘s a storm cloud in all of this good economic news. And it‘s not the government shutdown, because I don‘t think that will have an immediate effect.
The storm cloud is the continuing loss of public sector jobs. Since September of 2008, we‘ve lost 436,000 public sector jobs. Some of those were necessary, some of those were things that had to be done, but I am worried that in July, when all of the budget cuts, the Wisconsins, the Ohios, my own state of Pennsylvania, when those layoffs begin to kick in, we‘re going to have hundreds of thousands of loss of public sector jobs and that‘s the thing that is going to chill and maybe delay this economic recovery.
UYGUR: Now, I agree with a lot of those points. And so, I want to have a little bit of fun here and go back to my controversial theory that you took issue with, Ed Rollins, because, look, balanced budgets, I‘m totally in favor of them. And I believe that you can get balanced budgets if you cut spending as well, perhaps, raising taxes, depends on who you raise taxes on, et cetera, et cetera, and I believe it‘s a good long-term strategy.
But they‘ve got to know that in the next couple of years, it is not going to help bring jobs. And you‘re telling me the Republicans aren‘t going to turn around and blame President Obama for not creating jobs if we don‘t have it in 2012.
ROLLINS: We are certainly going to blame President Obama for everything. That‘s the strategy of a campaign and whoever our nominee is and get a long a ways to go before that‘s chosen, will make every case he can against the sitting administration. Equally as important, the president gets to lay claims to all the things that he wants to lay claim to. The critical thing here, though, is we can‘t dip ourselves back into a second recession here.
And you can‘t have trillion-plus-dollar jobs. What the governor talked about, the very, very tough job, at least, governors across the country, and he was one of the great ones — probably get lose my Republican housekeeping seal by saying that, but I thought you were. Governors have to balance the budget, and so, unfortunately, a lot of very tough decisions have to be made. And I think we argue at the federal level you have to make the same kinds of tough decisions.
RENDELL: But I think that‘s a good point. You have to make those tough decisions, but you can also do other things. For example, in Michigan where Governor Snyder is making tough decisions, some of which he has to make. He‘s also cutting business taxes by almost $900 million. Now, wouldn‘t that $900 million be better stay in the Ohio—excuse me—in the Michigan budget and continuing to employ thousands of people?
ROLLINS: Only if—I mean, I would argue the business cuts are going to basically help stimulate business.
RENDELL: How fast? How fast? They will, but how fast?
ROLLINS: That everything has to be about getting business, small business, in particular, back to where they can hire people, and I think the faster the better. That‘s the bottom line here.
UYGUR: No, but that‘s a great question, and I want to focus in on that, because, look, that goes again to my idea that over the next two years, the Republicans don‘t mind that much if you lose some jobs because then they‘ll use it against President Obama. So, they think maybe it helps down the road. It hurts the short term. Everybody is—it‘s a win for them.
ROLLINS: Right now, Republicans who committed to make gigantic budget cuts in the 2010, most of them are worried about one job and that‘s their job. And that when you look at the tea party that was 41 percent of the vote, at least self-identified, and 88 percent of them voted for Republicans, they want cuts and they want deep cuts. So, my sense is John Boehner has got a tough job here between his members who are trying to be responsible and some—
UYGUR: I‘m going to go at it one more time. In the next two years, those spending cuts, do you think they create jobs or they might possibly cost jobs?
ROLLINS: I think they can do both. I think they can basically create jobs, and they certainly can get us to a point where we‘re not putting our kids and grand kids in debt.
RENDELL: And I think for the long run, you‘re absolutely right, Ed. But I don‘t think this is the time to be cutting business taxes. It‘s not the time to be raising business taxes either. But it‘s not the time to be taking $900 million off of business taxes, and, in fact, because of that, having to lay off tens of thousands of people. That doesn‘t any sense.
ROLLINS: Certainly, we‘ll have a lots of test models out there, Republicans and Democrats, and Jason‘s (ph) states are doing—some are raising taxes, some are cutting taxes.
RENDELL: Well, I‘ll give you a great test model, if I can, Cenk. In Pennsylvania, my last year as governor, we invested $400 million in infrastructure. We invested another $600 million in promoting energy jobs. We invested another $500 million in economic development. And Pennsylvania just was reported this through February to have the third highest number of jobs created in the last 12 months, 107,000.
And that was due to investment. And I stopped the business tax cuts they were phasing in the first six years of my administration. I froze them. I didn‘t raise business taxes, but I didn‘t continue to cut them because I thought we needed to preserve the jobs that we had. And it paid off for Pennsylvania. And I think we have to have a mix—and Ed you‘re certainly right, in the long run, this deficit‘s got to go down.
And we‘ve got to do a lot of things to make cuts, but we‘ve also got to close those tax loopholes. I mean, you tell me why, Ed, we should be giving the oil companies who are making record profits $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies.
ROLLINS: I‘m all for an overhaul of our tax system, which would be fair and equitable. And we close a lot of loopholes, just as long as we don‘t basically use it as an excuse to raise additional taxes on Americans.
UYGUR: All right. Final question for you, Ed, real quick here. If you were advising the president, be honest, would you say to him, yes, go ahead and cut spending like the tea party wants that $61 billion, it will help you create jobs and gets you re-elected. Would you really tell him that?
ROLLINS: If I was a Democrat and I was depending on my constituency group, no, I wouldn‘t. I think the president has a responsibility, though, to sit down and try to make some of this happen. Obviously, we have one house of the Congress. Senate is still controlled by Democrats. And that means it all has to sit down at the table and try and find some compromise.
The democrats had all last year to pass a budget. They chose not to.
Now, they basically have got to have the Republicans in the room.
RENDELL: But Ed, what would you advise the president to do? To continue to agree to give oil companies subsidies in the tune of $4 billion, and at the same time, cut the mortgage relief program that costs $3 billion?
ROLLINS: You know, I think the bottom line is—the president went off yesterday and talked about energy. Whatever the reason these tax cuts and benefits have been in there is to try and make the American oil companies stimulate jobs.
RENDELL: American oil companies are making record profits, Ed. They don‘t need our taxpayers‘ money.
ROLLINS: At the end of the day, they basically need more production and that‘s the key thing.
RENDELL: Yes, but they don‘t need it by our subsidies. They‘re making record profits.
UYGUR: All right. I love that conversation. Ed Rollins and Ed Rendell. Thank you both. Ed, it‘s nice to be with you.
UYGUR: Just a little while ago, we‘re talking about the politics of today‘s new job numbers, but I also want to talk about the reality behind the numbers. What does it mean for our economy? The news today was that 216,000 jobs have been added where the private sector driving most of the game. And unemployment rates slip to tens of a point down to 8.8 percent.
Look, obviously, that‘s a good thing. And yet, there are still 13.5 million people unemployed, and there are almost a million people in this country who simply given up looking for a job. And most interestingly, consumer confidence is dropping through the floor. Why is that? Are these positive job numbers a sign of good things to come? Or do we still have a serious structural problem with our economy?
Now, let‘s try to find out. Joining me now is former Clinton labor Secretary, Robert Reich. He‘s now a professor at U.C. Berkeley. Secretary Reigh, let‘s first dispense with the obvious. The republicans say, oh, my God, if we just cut spending, that will magically create jobs. Does that make any economic sense, in the short run?
ROBERT REICH, FMR. LABOR SECRETARY: Cenk, it makes no economic sense at all in the short run. I mean, in the long term, yes, we want to balance the budget. We want to get rid of the deficit, but right now, when you got 13.5 million Americans unemployed, the last thing you want to do is unemployed even more Americans, fire more Americans, get rid of more American jobs by cutting the deficit.
That means there are fewer people who have money in their pockets to turn around and buy things from other people who need to sell them in order to keep their jobs.
UYGUR: And I want the audience to understand, it‘s not that we‘re focusing on the short term. It‘s that, in different times, you need different remedies. If you got massive unemployment, you need to stimulate the economy. It‘s not just like oh, we‘re just going for a short-term gain here. That‘s why it‘s so important. But Secretary Reich, you‘re still not quite encouraged by these numbers. I know based on reading your articles. Why are you so concerned?
REICH: Well, because at 216,000 new jobs, Cenk, that‘s good. You know, that‘s—we‘re moving in the right direction, but at 200,000 jobs a month, even if we could keep it up, that would mean we would not get back to unemployment levels like we saw three years ago before the great recession until the year 2018. I mean, we can‘t wait that long. We‘ve got five people who are looking for a job for every job that is available right now.
Another thing, the average length of the work week, and one thing you really want to look at, and it‘s not featured, but it is very important, the average work week is still stuck at 34.3 hours. That means that most people in most jobs are not getting basically their full paycheck. Most people who are hourly workers, most Americans are hourly workers are still getting low pay checks. I mean, pay is going down, it‘s not going up.
UYGUR: Is the problem the people in New York and Washington, they don‘t see the struggles that you‘re talking about, whether it‘s the consumer confidence, whether it‘s the amount of hours that people are working, et cetera? I mean, if you look at CEO pay and you look at the stock market. The stock market is in great shape. CEO pay. Oh, my. Look at these numbers. Twenty-seven percent median pay increase this year.
The median CEO pay this year is $9 million. Their bonus is $2.2 million, up 47 percent, three-quarters of CEOs got raises in 2010. So, I mean, these are some great numbers for them. In the other part of that question is why isn‘t it translating to us, the rest of the economy?
REICH: Well, there‘s no trickle down. I mean, the whole trickle down theory, Cenk is bogus. You know, most CEOs, big companies now, most people on Wall Street who are in the big banks, they are doing as well as they did before the great recession, before we, taxpayers, bailed them out. But most homeowners never got a bailout. Most people who are underwater in terms of owing more on their homes than their homes are worth, they never got a bailout.
Most people who are losing their jobs, you know, they got some additional unemployment insurance, but that‘s only 50 percent of the people who are jobless are eligible for unemployment insurance across this country. So, you know, a lot of people who are really hurting right now, and New York and Washington, unfortunately, seems to be oblivious to all of this.
UYGUR: Now, Secretary Reich, I want to get to the heart of this, right? Because, look, it seems that this is coming back way, way too slow as your numbers point out. Is the problem that the CEOs and these companies are making great profits because they‘re actually going abroad, and hence, our middle class here in America is going to really struggle to come back? Is that the heart of the problem?
REICH: Well, that‘s part of the problem, Cenk. You know, I heard your discussion before. I mean, anybody who‘s talking about cutting taxes for corporations now, when corporations are sitting on $1.6 trillion of cash. I mean, they don‘t even know what to do with the money they have right now. They‘re buying other companies, acquisitions, mergers. They‘re buying up their own shares of stock. They‘re paying their CEOs unbelievable amounts of money.
I mean, anybody who says that corporations need tax cuts now doesn‘t know what‘s going on or is maybe not being completely honest with the public. The problem in a nutshell is that we, really right now, don‘t have enough aggregate demand. There are not people out there in the United States with enough money in their pockets to turn around and buy all of the things that are Americans can produce if full employment.
And until we get our wage structure back up to what it should be, instead of fighting unions and fighting employees and cutting their wages and getting job concessions, I mean, that goes in the wrong direction. They‘re not going to be customers out there for all the things we can produce, unless, people actually have jobs and have money in their pockets.
UYGUR: All right. I want to press on one last thing, Secretary Reich. I mean, if we had a strong, progressive president who focused like a laser beam on the middle class, and said, look, it‘s not just for justice sake they were fighting for the middle class, but it‘s for the whole economy, as you point out here. Wouldn‘t we be in a lot better shape?
REICH: Yes. I really do think that the president and Democrats in Congress ought to stop playing footsie with Republicans. You know, cutting the budget deficit right now, which is crazy, but also, it‘s very important that the president get out in front and tell the American public, what is going on? Why this recovery is so anemic? Why we‘re not really getting very many jobs back? And we‘re certainly not getting wages back.
Why we need to go back to the basic bargain? We had in this country, in the first three decades after the Second World War, which is people had paid enough so they could turn around and buy all the things that they produced. I mean, we had labor unions. Even where we didn‘t have labor unions, companies actually understood they had a responsibility to their employees. And that was good for the companies. It was good for the economy. And right now, that basic bargain has completely been obliterated.
UYGUR: We‘ve got to go back and fight for that. I couldn‘t agree more with that. And I also agree with not playing footsie with the Republicans. All right. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, really appreciate your time tonight.
UYGUR: Now, earlier in the program, we told you about how the Democrats appear to be ready to give up more and more ground. And of course, it‘s not good enough for the Tea Party. They want even more in cuts. In fact, they held a rally today outside the capital as you see there. The crowd is a little underwhelming but they still had a lot of heavy weights there. Pens was there, King was there, Bachmann was there, all their top congressman. And as usual, the message was as blunt as ever. They‘re not giving an inch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. STEVE KING ®, IOWA: At $61.5 million, that‘s where the fight came down on HR1, the first CR. All right. So, let‘s fight on that, then. That‘s ground we‘ve taken, let‘s hold it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: Well, I mean, that‘s exactly what they said, they said, all right, I can‘t believe the Democrats have given us all this. Well, let‘s hold that ground and ask for more. Now, if we gave them $61 billion, everything they wanted. Would it be good enough then?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN ®, MINNESOTA: They gets time to get serious, don‘t you?
Yes.
BACHMANN: And cutting $61 billion in my opinion is a starting point, it is not the goal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: No, of course not. Because if you you‘re giving 61 billion, they‘re going to ask for 120 billion. If you‘re giving that, they‘re going to ask 240 billion. That‘s what the problem is when you keep giving and giving, you encourage Bachmann as you does that laser—it can goes, oh, my God, I want more cuts.
All right. Now, but there‘s got to be some room in negotiating, right?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE PENCE ®, INDIANA: Liberals in the Senate would rather play political games and shut down the government instead of making small down fame on fiscal discipline and reform. I say shut it down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: Well, he is very clear on that, shut it down. That‘s apparently what the Tea Party wants, but hey, don‘t trust me.
Let‘s bring out a Tea Party guy and found out for ourselves. Justin Phillips is the founder of Tea Party Nation. Justin, thank you for joining us. Well, we got an audio issue. I thought we had an audio issue earlier. Apparently, we do. I don‘t hear, sad day. Here‘s what I‘ll tell you, Justin, is saying in the press at least. He says of course it‘s not good enough. And that the $30 billion in cuts, they‘re not really cuts. It‘s a joke and that, in fact, Boehner should be fired if he goes along with this. I would like to ask him, under what circumstances he should be fired or under what circumstances Justin would be happy but let‘s try again. Justin, do you think Boehner should be fired if he agreed to $33 billion?
JUSTIN PHILLIPS, FOUNDER, TEA PARTY NATION: Hey, good evening. In the immortal words of the Verizon guy, can you hear me now?
UYGUR: Yes, I can. God bless. Go forward.
PHILLIPS: Hey, yes, I actually, I do think he should be fired. As you quoted me accurately, $33 billion is not a cut, it‘s a joke.
UYGUR: Here‘s the thing, Justin. What I‘m curious about, I mean, you get that you‘re negotiating with somebody, right? I mean, like for example, for the tax cuts, I hated them. I didn‘t want any of those tax cuts. I think they blew up the budget. I think they‘re terrible idea. But if you said to me, $400 billion in tax cuts or $800 billion, I would say all right, I‘ll take the $400 billion, because I‘m negotiating with somebody, I give somebody another side. Do you get that on this process that you have to compromise at some point?
PHILLIPS: Maybe you can compromise at some point, but when the House is on fire, you don‘t sit there and negotiating about how long you‘re going to stay. You get everybody out.
We have a $1.65 trillion deficit this year. Our national debt is now equal to our gross domestic product. When are we going to stop spending? When are we going to stop borrowing?
UYGUR: But Justin, what I‘m hearing from you in this regard, you‘re saying maybe I would compromise on some future date, but maybe not today and not on this. You want a hundred percent, you want 61 billion, and even if you got 100 percent of what you wanted, would you still want more?
PHILLIPS: Right now, I want hundreds of dollars in cuts. And hey, let me tell you something, a month ago, the government accounting office came out with a report that said, we could save hundreds of billions of dollars, just by eliminating programs that are not working or that are duplicative. So, I want to know where is anybody in Congress, Republican or Democrats, why are these guys having fights on who gets to introduce the bill that says, let‘s cut hundreds of billions of dollars. Nobody is going to object to cuts of hundreds of billions of dollars that eliminate fraud in waste.
UYGUR: Well, look, there are hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud and waste, I wish there were, that would be easier.
PHILLIPS: Sure, there are, the government accounting office says, there are.
UYGUR: No. That‘s not how it works, look, at this point, in your mind, obviously, Democrats in the Senate can‘t win, when you have no interest in that, but John Boehner also can‘t win, right? I mean, even if he got you the 61 billion, you still want him fired, right?
PHILLIPS: At this point, he‘s not committed to 61 billion, I don‘t even know if he‘s committed to 33 billion. Honestly, I don‘t know what the guy is committed too. He talks a great game when he gets out there on the road, talking to folks outside of D.C., but when he goes back up to D.C., who knows what he‘s doing. But he‘s not cutting the budget. And that‘s what the American people wanted when they put him in power.
UYGUR: You‘ve got to be living in the situation that you‘re in. I know, ideally you would cut it all. There would be nothing, there would be no government. We would live in a wonderful, you know, libertarian anarchy, Ayn Rand inspired, you know, Sharia law, Valhalla, it would be all this lovely things. But in this situation, the Democrats hold the Senate and they hold the White House. So, why should they give you what you want because you want it really bad?
PHILLIPS: Because the Republicans control the House and nobody can make the Republicans in the House appropriate money.
UYGUR: All right, well, then, all right, then Democrats control the Senate and nobody can make them do anything. So, right back at you.
PHILLIPS: That‘s right. The Republicans can stand firm and say guess what? We‘re cutting a whole lot out of this budget. Because we have a fiscal crisis here. Look what‘s going on in Europe. They have a debt crisis, how did they get there? They got into a lot of debt. Well, guess what America is doing.
(CROSSTALK)
UYGUR: Look, if you want an argument about how to cut the budget, you would lose that argument massively in my opinion. And I‘ll tell you why, OK? It‘s because you don‘t want to raise taxes at all. You‘re ignoring one side completely and I don‘t know how you feel about defense. I would be interested in that. But you‘ve got to cut defense. Even if you cut all the discretionary spending you want, you still would have a $1 trillion deficit. So, you‘re going about it all the wrong way. But that‘s not my point. My point is look, right now we‘ve got a situation where the Democrats control the Senate and they control the White House. Why do you think they should bend to your will? That doesn‘t make any sense. You‘ve got the compromise if you actually care about governing?
PHILLIPS: How about, here‘s the reason why they should listen. We had a referendum in November. And guess what, the American people spoke loudly and clearly about what they wanted. So, the Democrats need to pay attention.
UYGUR: All right. Just a little.
PHILLIPS: They‘re going to be out the door in November.
UYGUR: No, I hear you. I hear you. Let me ask you about that. In 2006, the electoral spoke very clearly, overwhelming victories for Democrats. Did you come out after that election and say George Bush should stop it and the Republicans Party should stop, and we should just simply listen to what the Democrats say?
PHILLIPS: Oh, absolutely not.
UYGUR: Oh, really?
PHILLIPS: No, absolutely not, and you know why?
UYGUR: That‘s weird.
PHILLIPS: No, that‘s not weird at all. You know, why, the Republicans were acting just like Democrats. They were big money spenders back then. The American people got sick of it. They said, hey, no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, we‘ll put the other guys in charge for a while.
UYGUR: So when the Democrats get overwhelming victories, we should listen to the Republicans. And when the Republicans get overwhelming victories, we should listen to the Republicans.
PHILLIPS: We should listen to the conservatives. Because they certainly make a whole lot more sense than the Democrats do.
UYGUR: But, no, that‘s not a logical argument. If you used talking about the mandate of the people in 2006 and 2008, huge mandate, that‘s why the Democrats control the Senate and the White House. But you‘re saying, ignore that will of the people. Just pretend, by the way, you know, you guys are losing support, right? I mean, you see the polls, right? You‘re down to 47 percent popularity in March in terms of the Tea Party. You‘ve lost how many points here, 19 points since January of 2010. You can get the sense that maybe your intransigence isn‘t really working with the American people?
PHILLIPS: Hey, I‘m reminded that the great quote form Israeli, there‘s lies, there‘s damn lies and then there‘s polls.
UYGUR: OK, the polls are inconvenient, and logic is inconvenient.
OK. I hear you.
All right. Justin Phillips, thanks for having the conversation. We appreciate it.
Now, you know that there are reports all over Washington that the Democrats and Republicans are close to a deal on the budget. The figure that they‘re talking about is $33 billion extra in spending cuts.
Late yesterday, Vice President Biden seemed to confirm that this was, in fact, the case.
Now, I want to make the argument to you tonight that that is a huge loss for the Democratic Party. But you know, of course, for the Tea Party, it‘s never enough. They were upset. They had a gathering today. People say it was a big gathering. It numbered in the hundreds. They‘ve had much, much larger gatherings than that today (ph), of course. And it appears that they‘re going to get a lot of what they wanted, but of course, they said it‘s not good enough anyway.
We‘re going to come back to them in a little bit. But also there‘s this idea in Washington that—and it‘s really conventional wisdom—the president is going to win if it‘s a negotiated compromise. Hey, he got a deal.
To me, that doesn‘t mean much. Anybody can get a deal. Like, if you wanted a deal, you could have just said, All right, I‘ll give you $61 billion, in which case, by the way, they would have moved it, and then he would have given them that. The question is, What‘s in the deal? That‘s why I think the conventional wisdom is wrong.
Look, I wish it weren‘t so, but I got to be honest with you, I don‘t think the Democrats won on this at all. And let me show you why. Look, remember, the Republicans originally wanted $800 billion in tax cuts, and in December, they got $800 billion in tax cuts. That‘s a big fat check. They got it. They got exactly what they wanted.
Then at the beginning of February, they said that they wanted $32 billion in spending cuts. And guess what happened? Now they got $33 billion in spending cuts, if this deal is accurate. That‘s a billion dollars more than they originally asked for. That‘s another big fat check. So when it came to taxes, they got exactly what they wanted. When it came to spending, they got exactly what they wanted.
Now, later, because of the pressure from the Tea Party, the GOP moved their number and said they wanted $61 billion in cuts. But in reality, when all of this started, their real ask was for $32 billion. So it looks like they‘re going to get more than they could have imagined at the beginning of this process.
So in the midst of the Tea Party bellyaching, the reality is, it‘s mission accomplished for the Republicans. They got all the tax cuts, they got all the spending cuts they wanted, and then some.
So look, you got to understand something. Am I rooting for the president? I thought he was a better candidate than McCain. I made that very clear before the elections. So of course, I want him to succeed.
I desperately want him to succeed! So am I happy telling you, Hey, you know what? I don‘t think he did in this case. I think it was a loss.
And look, let me ask you. Well, what do you think? I mean, when you look at those numbers—don‘t worry about what I think. Who cares what I think. What do you think? I mean, when you look that, don‘t you go, Oh, my God, they‘re giving them a billion more than they originally asked for?
Why do we constantly give in? It‘s a source of frustration for all of us! And there‘s got to be an answer to it, and so far, I haven‘t seen it. It‘s—and you know, the thing is, a lot of people are saying, Oh, Tea Party‘s crazy, radical, et cetera. And look, we‘re going to talk to somebody from the Tea Party later. And I think they‘re radical in a lot of ways and they won‘t negotiate. But the sad thing is that their strategy kind of worked. They wanted to push the country to the right, and so they made more and more demands. And then you know what happened? The Democrats went along with those demands.
Whatever they ask for, we go a little more than halfway. So when they asked for more, we went more and we gave them more spending cuts.
Those are not progressive values. I wish we had a win tonight, but I don‘t think we do. And my job is to show you the numbers, show you the reality, let you make your own decision on it.
All right, now I want to bring in a guest right now. And it‘s, of course, former Pennsylvania governor and NBC News political analyst Ed Rendell. Governor, look, am I seeing it wrong? Let me—I‘m asking the audience. I want to ask you, too. I mean, when you look at those numbers, if I‘m a Republican, I‘m snickering while nobody‘s looking, going, I can‘t believe I got a billion more than I originally asked for!
ED RENDELL (D), FMR. PENNSYLVANIA GOVERNOR, NBC POLITICAL ANALYST:
Well, let me start off by saying, Cenk, that I care what you think. And I think you‘ve been doing a good job on this issue.
You‘re absolutely right about all this, but the thing that‘s so tragic about this is we‘re playing on the wrong ballfield. Look, all of us understand that the federal deficit has to come down. At the same time, the president‘s absolutely right, we‘ve got to invest in the things that are important to the growth of the country and keeping the country competitive.
But we‘re cutting right now from discretionary spending. And discretionary spending‘s less than one eighth of the budget. The big items, the things that we should be looking at—the military budget, the long-term entitlements—and I know that‘s hard for some of our folks to hear, but that‘s where the money is—we‘ve got to start looking at those things. We shouldn‘t take it out on the discretionary social spending.
And there are things that are outrageous. I mean, we give the oil companies almost $4 billion in tax subsidies a year in the budget, and yet we cut out LIHEAP, which is Low Income Heating Assistance, mostly to older people, $2.5 billion. Well, we could save LIHEAP, keep it intact, by just taking away 60 percent of the subsidies we give the oil companies. The oil companies are doing well. They don‘t need the subsidies.
We‘re all out of whack, but we‘re fighting in the wrong playing field. This is all like an argument about who receives the ball first. The game hasn‘t even started. The game is next year‘s budget.
UYGUR: Well, look, I know this. We seem to have lost this game that‘s at hand…
RENDELL: We have lost this game. I agree.
UYGUR: All right. So governor Rendell, I mean, that‘s the thing. You know, you agree with that. You know, Congressman McDermott comes on last night. Congresswoman Kaptur comes on. Everybody agrees, like, we‘re on the wrong—Bernie Sanders—we‘re on the wrong battlefield. We‘re playing the wrong games. We‘re losing these games, et cetera. But we have the White House and we have the Senate, so why are we losing? I mean, isn‘t it a frame of mind? Isn‘t it a constant, like, All right, I‘m going to give in and those—like, doesn‘t it seem like that‘s real fundamental problem is we have the wrong strategy?
RENDELL: Well, and it traces back, in my judgment—and you‘ve heard me say this on your show before, Cenk—it traces back to the way we campaigned in the 2010 election. We campaigned like scared rabbits. We didn‘t fight and say, Look, there is a role for investment, there is a role for the safety net. Good Lord, ladies and gentlemen of America, do you want these programs cut, or do you want millionaires not to receive a continued tax break?
You know, it‘s interesting. The public was all in favor of cuts until they saw what the cuts were. I told you I think last week, there‘s a poll in Pennsylvania that says 98 percent of the people don‘t want education cut to balance the budget. Well, good Lord, 98 percent of—that‘s just in Pennsylvania — 98 percent of Pennsylvanians can‘t agree today is Thursday, and that‘s a staggering number.
UYGUR: Right. But I—you know, I hear you on all that and you‘re right about all that, but…
RENDELL: Where were we last fall? Where were we last fall?
UYGUR: So what‘s the problem? That‘s what I‘m trying to drill down to, right, because everybody that comes on this program seems to agree that we should fight harder. We should fight for progressive values.
RENDELL: Well, here‘s the problem…
UYGUR: But we never seem to do it! So I mean, what goes wrong? What is it in Washington that the Republicans always have the framing, and we accept their framing and give up instantly?
RENDELL: Because Republicans are willing to stand their ground for things that they believe in, even when those things might be unpopular. I mean, you see it in Wisconsin. You see it in Ohio. Polls not—you know, polls began (ph). They continued to go forward on ending collective bargaining rights, even though the people of Wisconsin and people of Ohio don‘t want to do it.
They seem to have a lot more courage of their convictions than we do. We seem to tend to cut and run as soon as there‘s the slightest bit of trouble instead of talking about our values. And our values are the right values.
And then there‘s a second problem. The president like the governor, like the mayor in cities and states, is the adult in the room, and they do have the responsibility of making government work. They do.
When I was governor, I felt it was my responsibility to put it all together. And so you‘re in a position where you do want to—not make deals, but you do want to keep things going and going forward.
UYGUR: No, no, no. But here‘s the thing, Governor. Look, I‘m going to press you on this more because we—we always talk generally, like, Hey, Democrats are doing the wrong thing, Washington‘s doing the wrong thing. But there‘s individuals behind this. And I know the executive has to make tough decisions, and nobody on our side is saying, Don‘t make a deal. Of course you got to make a deal at some point. The question is…
RENDELL: Make the right deal.
UYGUR: Make the right deal. And it seems like we never make the right deal because, honestly, the president is always willing to negotiate and he never draws the line. I mean, shouldn‘t he call their bluff at some point? Shouldn‘t he say…
RENDELL: He should call their bluff…
UYGUR: … I‘m going to stand here and I‘m not going to constantly give in to you guys?
RENDELL: And the way to do it is to take the items that have the most emotional appeal, like low income heating assistance, like—the Republicans want to cut the mortgage assistance program right now in America? Come again? You want to cut the mortgage assistance programs, and you‘re giving the oil companies $4 billion in tax breaks? No way!
So the president should say, Guys, I‘m willing to negotiate on this, but there are some things that are so important to the social fabric of this country, some things so important to American families that are in trouble, they‘re off-limits. They‘re off-limits.
UYGUR: Right. Unfortunately, Governor, you know low income heating assistance—that‘s the first thing President Obama gave up, even without the Republicans really asking for it.
RENDELL: And it‘s crazy because that‘s something that there‘s—Americans understand. They understand. They don‘t want anybody to go without heat during the winter. Americans understand that. Just like Pennsylvanians understand that we shouldn‘t be cutting education funding.
UYGUR: Right.
RENDELL: They understand it. So we should fight—we should take a few things and fight and draw the line there and say, That‘s not the America that we want. We‘re not going to see Exxon get tax cuts and older people not get heating assistance.
UYGUR: Right. Well, again, we agree. I hope somebody in Washington is listening.
RENDELL: Well, I think there—I think there are people that are going that way. And Cenk, I think the big battle is going to be next year‘s budget because that‘s going to set the tone…
UYGUR: I always hear next year, though. I always hear next year.
RENDELL: Well, you‘re right. You‘re right to be frustrated.
UYGUR: You know? And I hear they‘re going there and I never see them get there. That‘s my problem.
RENDELL: You‘re right to be frustrated.
UYGUR: Right.
RENDELL: We‘ve got to draw the line and fight for the things that are the things we believe in and the things the public believes in.
UYGUR: Right.
RENDELL: That‘s the thing that gets me. We didn‘t fight against the tax cuts for the top 2 percent when the polls showed 65 percent of Americans, including a lot of Republicans, thought that they should—those tax cuts should expire.
UYGUR: Absolutely.
Governor Ed Rendell, thank you for your time tonight. We really appreciate it.
RENDELL: It was fun.
UYGUR: All right. Now, with me is Bill Press. He‘s the host of “The Bill Press Show” on Sirius radio. You know, Bill and I spoke about a month ago on the same issue, and I said that President Obama and the Democrats would give away a lot more to the Republicans. Now (INAUDIBLE) a little bit. I‘m sorry, Bill, but I‘m calling you out on this a little bit.
BILL PRESS, RADIO SHOW HOST: That‘s fair. That‘s fair.
(LAUGHTER)
UYGUR: All right. Now, at the time, I want everybody to remember, the president giving an initial $40 billion in cuts from his 2011 budget proposal. And then he gave another $10 billion in cuts during the continuing resolutions. So he‘d given about $50 billion in cuts already. And our discussion that Bill and I had was whether he would give in more.
Now, let me show you a little bit of tape on that. Let‘s watch.
PRESS: All right.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UYGUR: He‘s already given away half. You agree with that. Half is out the door. They haven‘t really started negotiations. The Republicans haven‘t given him anything. Right?
PRESS: Right.
UYGUR: So he‘s got to go at least another half. That‘s what‘s going to happen. I mean, you tell me if it‘s not. Are they really going to stand their ground at $50 billion. They‘re not going to, right? They‘re going to give away another 25 percent, 30 percent, 40 percent, right? So then what are we left with?
PRESS: No. No. I don‘t think they are. I think they‘re there and I think they‘ve got the ammunition now to say, We can‘t go beyond this because you‘re going to shut everything down.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
UYGUR: All right, Bill, you know, I feel like a bit of a jerk pointing that out, but was I right there?
PRESS: Well, first of all, I have to say, you know, the cruelest thing you can do to any of us, right, is to play a tape of something we said…
(LAUGHTER)
PRESS: … three weeks ago because you know, in this town—look, Cenk, I believed what I said then. And I do think that they have gone too far. But I do have to caution you about one thing. I think it‘s important to point out. There ain‘t no deal yet. I mean, they‘ve said $33 billion. Boehner hasn‘t agreed to that. Harry Reid (INAUDIBLE) to that. Joe Biden has said that. Number one, we don‘t know what are in those $33 billion of cuts. We tried to find out at the White House today. They wouldn‘t say, if they know. And two, again, you know, the Republicans can‘t necessarily even deliver on $33 billion. So I just want to caution you and your—and our friends and listeners, this game is not over yet. I think the Democrats…
UYGUR: But let me…
PRESS: … they have gone too far. I would agree with you and Ed Rendell.
UYGUR: Right. So let me press you on that a little bit, though. But I…
PRESS: Sure.
UYGUR: You don‘t think that the Democrats are going to take that $33 billion number and walk it back, right? I mean, if anything, the Republicans are going to say, No, it‘s not good enough. And then I worry that they might even give them more. But you don‘t think they‘re going to walk that back to, like, a more reasonable number, do you, the Democrats?
PRESS: No, no, no. No. No. Once they give $33 billion, they can‘t take it back. But what‘s the real battle here is not between the Democrats and the Republicans. As you know, the real battle is between John Boehner and the Tea Party. He lost 63 of his own caucus on the last vote. He had to get Democratic votes.
So I think—as you were just saying, I think it‘s time to call their bluff now and let them shut down the government and then take—pay the price because it would be a hell of a price to pay if they do. I really don‘t think Boehner has the votes even for $33 billion. So this is far from over, Cenk.
UYGUR: So that‘s the critical part, Bill, because look, the fact that they have internal dissension doesn‘t really mean much unless it leads to something, right?
PRESS: Yes.
UYGUR: It has to have a conclusion. And the conclusion is, Hey, wait a minute, if they shut down the government because of that internal dissension, boy, aren‘t they crazy? And boy, hey, you shouldn‘t support those guys, right? I mean, that would be the conclusion.
But it seems like the Democrats are desperate to avoid that conclusion. So that doesn‘t seem to make sense to me, right?
PRESS: Well…
UYGUR: You see what I‘m saying?
PRESS: Look, you know, they don‘t want it. I don‘t think, frankly, Boehner wants it. I don‘t think Mitch McConnell wants it. But I think it‘s the tail wagging the dog across the street with this Tea Party, and these Tea Party freshmen really feel, you know, they‘re like the kamikaze – kamikaze Democrats, I used to call them. They‘d go over the cliff, right, rather than compromise. And that‘s where they are. So…
UYGUR: So that‘s why…
PRESS: I don‘t think the Democrats can give more. And I think the Democrats have to hold—they shouldn‘t have given this much. They can‘t give any more. And if it means shutting down the government, let them do it.
UYGUR: Yes, and look, it‘s not a matter of us saying shutting down the government. It‘s a matter of saying, at some point, I can‘t just give you 100 percent of what you want. That‘s crazy talk. We‘ve already given and given and given. So if you want to take that action, you got to shut it down.
But look, one last thing for you, Bill…
PRESS: Right.
UYGUR: … and I don‘t know if this‘ll be another point of disagreement or not, but I think the Tea Party has done an amazing job. I don‘t say that, like, as a good thing. It‘s a very unfortunate thing. But they have pulled this debate further and further right, and they got more and more spending cuts. So I mean, don‘t you have to say that crazy or not, it worked?
PRESS: Well, first of all, I agree with you. They have done an amazing job in splitting the Republican Party and pulling the Republican Party to the extreme right, to the point of view—look at that rally today, a hundred people out here in Washington. There were 100,000 last summer. I think they‘ve become so extreme that they‘re losing their support among the public, Cenk. But they still have these freshmen members of Congress who are demanding $100 billion and who have the votes. That‘s where their power is right now.
And I think they‘re more powerful than John Boehner, and Michele Bachmann is the real speaker of the House of Representatives today.
UYGUR: That‘s an interesting comment. All right, always a great conversation with you, Bill. Bill Press, everybody. Thank you.
UYGUR: While Republicans across the Midwest were working to take away union rights, we said, they might be able to win the short term legislative battle. But their draconian measures would cause them to lose the long-term war of public opinion. And now we‘re starting to see that play out, now just in Wisconsin, but across the Midwest. Steve Bennett of the Washington Monthly reports that governor of three states with recent high-profile union battles are feeling the heat in the polls big time.
In Ohio, Governor John Kasich eked out a victory November with a 49 to 47 win over incumbent Governor Ted Strickland, but a recent poll shows if Ohio voters had to do it over again, Kasich would lose by 15 points. Only 40 percent of the people would vote for him. And it‘s worse for Governor Rick Snyder in Michigan. When he took office in January, his favorability rating was 59 percent. It‘s just very high. Since then, it‘s taking a 15 point nose dive to 44 percent. And in Wisconsin, the Koch funded union busting Governor Scott Walker is also hurting. When he was elected in November, 35 percent of the people had an unfavorable view of him, but this month, that number shot up 18 points to 53 percent unfavorable. Now, after those dismal numbers, these Republicans must be feeling a little something like this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Someone help me, I‘m still alive, but badly burned.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: Badly burned. Meanwhile, the president may have benefited from the republican assault on unions. Even though he barely weighed in on the subject, in Ohio, a key battleground state, a recent poll shows the president is doing significantly better, his potential 2012 challengers, than he was just three months ago. At that time, he was up by just two points against Mitt Romney. Only one against Mike Huckabee, he has a six point edge on Newt Gingrich and seven on Sarah Palin. But now he‘s up by six on Romney, seven on Huckabee, and he‘s blowing away Gingrich and Palin by 12 and 16 points respectably.
And while Ohio‘s internal union battles may not be wholly responsible, but the president turned around in the polls, it seems like the illusion of Republicans being the answer to our nation‘s problems is over. And this is the president‘s main advantage going into 2012. It could be worse, it could be those guys.
Joining me now from Milwaukee is John Nichols, Washington correspondent for “The Nation.” All right. John, at this point, are the Republicans feeling the heat of those polls? Are they seeing those polls in a slight panic like hey, you know what? We might have gone the wrong way here.
JOHN NICHOLS, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: There‘s simply no question they‘re feeling the heat. And I can tell you these both from what their actions publicly, there‘s a desperation to the way that the Republicans have tried to force this bills forward trying to do it rapidly, often making serious mistakes that have opened up a host of legal problems for them. They‘re in the courts all over the place, and there are going to be constitutional challenges. But additionally, you‘re seeing that behind the scenes desperation.
Frank Luntz, the republican messaging guy who actually came up with the contract with America back in the 1990s has been flying around of these states needed secretly with the governors. Of course, the secret has come out now. We know that the day after Governor Scott Walker took a fake call from somebody he thought was David Koch. That next morning, he was sitting huddling with Frank Luntz trying to figure out what to do. And so, what we know is that they‘re very, very concerned, they recognize they‘ve got a problem. Unfortunately, they push themselves into a corner that‘s going to be very hard for these republican governors to get out.
UYGUR: All right. Let‘s play a fun game here, John. I know it‘s a, you know, little political. But look, we‘ve got six republican state senators in Wisconsin that are up for recall. There‘s more, but they‘re really targeting those six. And then you‘ve got Walker in Wisconsin, who‘ve got Snyder in Michigan, and you‘ve got Kasich in Ohio. Those, they could also be up for recall. Those three governors. So, out of those nine, how many of them do you think actually get recall?
.NICHOLS: Well, here‘s the big deal. And I think we need to look at it. And the many steps that you would go up in this process. The first recalls would be those state senators in Wisconsin. If three of those six states senators who are targeted, if three of them are defeated, and replaced by Democrats, then control of one house of the Wisconsin legislature flips to the Democrats. That creates the situation where Walker‘s agenda become stalled. That‘s a very, very significant development, something that almost never happens, but it is likely to happen, in fact, I think quite likely. Then you start to look at those gubernatorial recalls. Those are big deals. We‘ve had only two gubernatorial recalls in the history of the United States, one in North Dakota and one more recently in California.
UYGUR: I remember that.
NICHOLS: Now, we have the prospect of as many as three, yes, of course. And now, we have the prospect of as many as three in a region that is the key presidential battleground. Think about that instability for the Republican Party, that as they go into the 2012 election, you‘ve got three of the governors who were supposed to be in place to help carry a republican nominee to victory battling for their own political survival.
UYGUR: All right. President Obama‘s got to be loving this. He needs those states that big swing in Ohio is amazing. Now, I‘ll tell you what, if they get two out of the three republican governors, that‘s a huge, huge win for the Democrats, and in my opinion the middle class and the Republicans, well, they probably won‘t change their ways anyway. Because they get funded to do this stuff. But it‘s an important development. John Nichols, thanks so much for covering this or joining us tonight on this.
UYGUR: If our involvement in Libya has taught us anything, it‘s that there‘s a major disconnect between people who approve of President Obama‘s policies and those who approve of the president himself.
Now, look. Take a look at this CBS News poll.
A majority, 68 percent, think that the use of military air strikes in Libya was the right decision. OK. If you‘re the administration, that‘s fantastic. They agree with the administration‘s position.
But look what happens when people are asked how the president is handling Libya. Now, keep in mind, this is the same guy who approved those air strikes that Americans overwhelmingly support. Only 50 percent think that he‘s handling the Libyan crisis properly. That‘s an 18-point drop.
That‘s crazy. It‘s the same exact policy. But there‘s 18 percent of the country who refuse to agree with Obama even if he has the same exact position of them.
Oh, I love that position. That position? Oh, Obama has it? Well, hell, no, he‘s doing a terrible job.
That doesn‘t make any kind of sense.
So what‘s causing the disconnect? Some can be explained by the poor messaging of the Democrats, which is perpetual. All the time, poor messaging. And part can be attributed to the GOP propaganda machine.
And that machine includes people like Newt Gingrich, of course, who won‘t back the president no matter what he does.
Now, here‘s Gingrich just a few weeks ago, hammering the president for not intervening in Libya.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS: What would you do about Libya?
NEWT GINGRICH ®, FMR. HOUSE SPEAKER: Exercise a no-fly zone this evening. The United States doesn‘t need anybody‘s permission. We don‘t need to have NATO, who frankly won‘t bring much to the fight. We don‘t need to have the United Nations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: So, Gingrich definitely on board for a no-fly zone. And he‘ll do it even without the support of the U.N. or NATO. Clearly, he thinks it‘s the right move now. Right?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GINGRICH: I would not have intervened. I think there were a lot of other ways to affect Gadhafi. I think there are a lot of allies in the region that we could have worked with. I would not have used American and European forces.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: Unreal! That‘s the same guy! He just totally flip-flopped on it.
Why? Because Obama was on the other side. That‘s Obama derangement syndrome, to borrow a phrase, where you‘ll even disagree with your own stated position if Obama agrees with you.
Oh, I‘ll tell you what, no-fly zone, that‘s the way—wait, Obama said that? Oh, no. Hell, no, no, no. I‘ve got to get out.
Come on. That‘s mental.
All right. You can see I‘m worked up about it.
Joining me now is Sam Seder. He‘s host of both “The Majority Report” and “Ring of Fire.”
Jesus. You‘re busy, Sam.
SAM SEDER, HOST, “THE MAJORITY REPORT”: I try to be.
UYGUR: All right.
So, Sam, which one is it, or is it all of the above? What is causing that 18-point enormous difference?
SEDER: Well, I think it‘s both. I mean, I think, to a certain extent, the country doesn‘t know exactly what our policy is.
I mean, it‘s one thing to say I agree with air strikes, I want to protect the people in Benghazi. It‘s another thing to say, where does this go? Where is the—what is the end game and where do we draw the line?
And then on the flip side—and I do mean flip—you look at what Newt Gingrich is doing. You look at guys like John McCain, who, a couple of years ago, was having dinner with Gadhafi, saying he‘s a great guy. He was even arguing that we should send weapons to Gadhafi, we found out through WikiLeaks.
So, I think it‘s a combination of the president hasn‘t gone out and really explained this policy to the American public.
UYGUR: Now, but you see this throughout. I don‘t think it‘s just about Libya. I mean, with the president, he‘s constantly getting hammered on things even when people agree with him. So, is he doing something wrong here in reaching the American people and explaining his position?
SEDER: I mean, look, I don‘t think he‘s been aggressive enough in coming out and, at the beginning of this, saying to the American public, this is where I draw the line, because I still don‘t know. I mean, you know, I think I tend to agree with you and your prior guests.
I mean, here‘s a guy, he‘s gone to the U.N., the U.N. has sanctioned this action, as opposed to Iraq, where you had an illegal war stated by the U.N. It was an illegal war. And in this situation, if there was no Iraq, if we didn‘t have this protracted mission in Afghanistan, I think most people would be completely on board with this.
You‘re protecting citizens. The question is, where do you draw the line? And we need reassurance from the president that we can draw the line at a certain point and we‘re not going to go in for something like regime change militarily.
UYGUR: Now, outside of Libya, look, I think the president has got to draw the line and say, look, they say I‘m divisive, right? That‘s exactly what they said with the Clintons, because they keep attacking me. If I was the president, I would almost play those Gingrich clips and go, you see these guys? You see, they‘re frauds.
But he seems to never fight back.
SEDER: Well, look, I mean, I think that the president shouldn‘t be commenting on Newt Gingrich‘s TV tour, frankly. But I do think he needs to come out and leave no oxygen for a guy like Gingrich to dance around like this, because we need to be able to sit here, and you and I would both have a tough time saying, where does this end?
Where are we willing to go and where are we willing to stop? And I think that‘s a problem that Obama has got to communicate. And frankly, the media should not be taking—I don‘t know why Newt Gingrich is even on TV at this point. I mean, that‘s not even a pivot, that‘s like a teleportation. You know, he‘s teleporting into another position.
UYGUR: Right. I hear you on that.
Sam Seder, thanks for joining me tonight. I appreciate it.
UYGUR: Welcome back. I‘m glad you were still with us. In fact, we should all be glad we still around period. When President Obama signed the health care bill a year ago today, Republicans predicted it would be the end of the world.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN ®, MINNESOTA: Socialized medicine is the crown jewel of socialism, this will change our country forever.
REP. LOUIE GOHMERT ® TEXAS: You get it? One in five people have to die because they went to socialized medicine.
REP. PAUL BROUN ®, GEORGIA: This program of government option, this being touted as being in this panacea, the savior of allowing people to have quality health care at an affordable price is going to kill people.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER ®, OHIO: We‘re about 24 hours from Armageddon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: (LAUGHTER). Armageddon, it‘s a year later. Did we have Armageddon? Are 20 percent of the people dead as Louie Gohmert predicted? Oh, Gohmert, get out of town. Well, it turns out, no, were in fact, we‘re all still here. And not only was there no Armageddon, but a lot of people are already actually better off because of parts of the bill that are already in place. For example, plans now have to provide free preventive care. That sounds well. Kids can stay on their parent‘s insurance plan until they‘re 26-years-old, meaning more people are covered. Insurance plans can no longer deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.
In 2014, that policy will be extended to everyone. And insurance plans can no longer drop your coverage when you get sick. Now, I want you to think about that one for a second. What kind of a joke system do we have where insurance can drop you if you get sick? What‘s the hell is the point of insurance? I got insurance in case I get sick, right? But they‘re so obsessed with profits, that there‘s, well, look, if the guy is sick, he‘s going to cost us more money. Let‘s get him out of here. And look, the bill tried to address it, in my opinion, didn‘t go far enough.
We‘re still so many ways at the mercy of those private insurance companies. But what was the down side of the extra protections that we‘ve gained from the bill? Nothing. No downside so far. There was no Armageddon. All these people didn‘t drop dead. But of course, that didn‘t stop republican leaders from insisting that the law is a disaster, based on absolutely no facts. Both House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell released videos today, doubling down on their doomsday scenarios and their intention to get rid of health care reform entirely.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MITCH MCCONNELL, SENATE REPUBLICAN LEADER: One year ago today, over the objections to the American people, the disastrous health spending bill that Washington Democrats rammed through with a partisan vote became law.
BOEHNER: Instead of creating jobs, employers have been handed more uncertainty and more headaches. In the coming weeks you‘ll see more votes and more hearings in the House. And to take this law apart step by step. We‘ll do whatever we can to ensure that Obama-care is never fully implemented.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: I was amused by the ram through with partisan votes. How else do you get the bill through? You take a partisan vote and you win, and it becomes a bill. By the way, the Republicans in the House, they‘re not ramming anything through in a partisan way at all right now. But why are they doing this whole effort to kill health care reform now? Because the heart of the legislation gets implemented in 2014, and the Republicans believe that they will never be able to reverse it after that time because people will see that the reality rather than their propaganda. That‘s why they‘re rushing up the fear mongering now to kill it before it actually goes into full effect. Now, how one out of five people actually got of course not? They‘re so over the top, I can‘t believe anyone believes them anymore. But this is how they win. They substitute fear for facts and hope that you panic.
All right. Joining me now is Ed Rendell, former Pennsylvania governor and MSNBC political analyst. Governor Rendell, was it a mistake to wait until 2014 for these things to get implemented? Because you were going to get four years of republican fear mongering until then.
ED RENDELL, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, no, it isn‘t Cenk, because it‘s going to take that time to set up the exchanges and do it right. And I think the president was intent on doing it right. But I agree with you. People are starting to change. And you know, you see the health care bill get more and more supporters as time goes on. Two things you didn‘t mention is that every senior who had to lose prescription drug coverage because of doughnut hole, got a $250 check this year to help defray some of those cost.
And in the next three weeks, small businesses with 25 employees are less are going to file their income tax returns, the federal income tax returns and they‘re going to get a substantial tax credit for offering their employees health care insurance. So the facts are belying all of the B.S. rhetoric, I‘m sorry, I almost said a bad word, but all of the B.S. rhetoric, and the rhetoric that you played was unbelievable. Socialism? This bill kept the private insurance health care delivery system intact. It‘s not socialism. It kept business and private sector in the bill. It‘s not single payer at all. Government option? Didn‘t those guys realize the president, and a lot of critics say, he did the wrong thing, took the government option out of the bill.
But these guys continue to lie, even though they know what they‘re saying is untrue. It‘s not socialism. There is no government option. The private insurance system is still intact and best of all, the insurance reforms, the things that you and I just named are starting to come into effect, and they‘re coming into effect now, and even better than that, Cenk, the president challenged all of these republican governors who kept saying it‘s a disaster for the states. He said OK, we‘ll give you a waiver. If you can design your own system that covers as many people and costs the same or less than our bill, we‘ll give you the waiver. It‘s put up or shut up time. And guess what? No one is going to put up.
UYGUR: All right. Now, Governor Rendell, I want to ask you about something you just mentioned. You mentioned, the government option, otherwise known as a public option, and they‘re saying he did it when he didn‘t do it, right? We knew they were going to lie like that. They do it all the time. They call him a socialist and a Maoist no matter what he does. Given that, shouldn‘t the president have actually done the public option? Should they say, you know, if they‘re going call him all this stuff, actually be progressive and actually challenge the monopoly of the insurance companies.
RENDELL: Well, sure, he did that or drop the Medicaid age down to 55 which as you know, Joe Lieberman supported and then—it was his idea, partially his idea and then for some reason he changed his mind. One of either of those things should have been included in this bill. It would have made it better, it would have made it stronger, it would have put competition in. But with the exchanges, Cenk, we‘re going to have competitions, you‘re going to see these private insurance companies, many of whom have had monopolies in many areas in the country, you‘re going to see them starting to have to compete and lower their prices because of the exchanges.
UYGUR: All right. Governor Ed Rendell, thank you so much for your time tonight.
OK. You have been living outside of the United States for nearly a year, and are going to claim the exclusion of foreign earned income. You have read on the internet or heard from co-workers or that tax preparer from Cleveland that you do not have to file an extension by April 18, 2011 because of your foreign residency. Not always true!
If you have met the physical presence test or the bona fide residence test by April 18th, then you are eligible for the automatic two-month extension to file your tax return as well as pay your taxes; however, you will be charged interest on any taxes due. If you take this automatic extension, you must attach a statement to your tax return explaining that on the due date of your tax return you did live outside of the United States and that your tax home is outside of the United States and Puerto Rico.
However, a problem occurs typically in the first year of taking the foreign earned income exclusion. If by April 18, 2011, you have not yet fulfilled the physical presence test or the bona fide residence test, then you would either need to file for an extension of time to file your tax return or file your return and amend it later.
If you choose to file an extension of time, you would need to file Form 2350, Application for Extension of Time To File U.S. Income Tax Return. If you are given an extension, it will generally be to a date 30 days after the date on which you expect to meet either the bona fide residence test or the physical presence test. But if you must allocate moving expenses, you may be given an extension to 90 days after the end of the year following the year you moved to the foreign country.
Form 2350, however, does not extend the time to pay taxes. If you do not pay the amount due by the regular due date, you will owe interest. You may also be charged penalties.
Of course, you can always file your return by the 18th without taking the foreign earned income exclusion and then amend your return later after you have met the physical presence test or the bona fide resident test. But taxpayers are customarily unwilling or unable to afford to pay Uncle Sam taxes unnecessarily, requesting their refund later and waiting months for their receipt. But who knows, you may be the exception!
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