Guest Host: Judge Andrew Napolitano (All Week)
Current Events
- Gas prices are up due to the unrest in Libya and the Middle East. They are at a half-year high.
- The growing government debt…
- Today, more than $14T.
- By the end of next year it will be greater than $15.6T.
- You and your children will have to pay it back.
- Oil
- The federal government is sitting on huge oil reserves, but places restrictions on drilling.
- Between 1981 and 2008 the federal, state and local governments collected one half a trillion dollars more in taxes than the oil companies made in profits. So who is really gouging you?
Guests
- Senator Rand Paul (R) Kentucky
- Senator Mike Lee (R) Utah
Judge: The federal government charges 18 cents per gallon. Should we be paying it?
Paul:
- What he hears is that most legislators want to raise that tax.
- We’ll be lucky to keep the tax where it is.
- What we need is a government that is friendly to business.
- What we have is an administration that is the most anti-business in my lifetime.
Judge: In the Gulf of Mexico, there were more than 30 producing wells. One had a problem, so they shut them all down. Then, they let one drill and are appealing that decision. Are they crazy?
Paul:
- It is a crazy system.
- We talk about being dependent on oil from overseas but we don’t allow drilling here at home.
- We worry about sending troops overseas to guard the oil but we don’t drill for oil in our own country.
- Half our electricity comes from coal, but they won’t give any permits. They have not issued any permits in seven years.
Judge: You introduced a balanced budget amendment and it almost passed. Are you going to introduce a balanced budget amendment bill again?
Lee:
- Absolutely.
- The Congress, left to its own won’t balance the budget on its own, so we have to make it a requirement.
Judge: Will you vote against raising the debt ceiling?
Paul
- Yes.
- I’ve told people I would vote for it under once condition – that we pass a balanced budget amendment and we have significant spending reductions.
- Hopefully, Senator Lee will bring up his amendment again before the vote on the debt ceiling.
Judge: Senator Lee, can you filibuster or somehow keep the debt ceiling from being voted upon?
Lee
- I hope to see the federal government living within its means, spending no more than it takes in.
- I will not vote to raise the debt ceiling.
Judge: NATO is talking about intervening in Libya. Do we have any business doing that?
Paul
- Going to war should be thoroughly discussed in the House and the Senate.
- Also, we should be really reluctant to be involved in 3 wars simultaneously.
Judge: Under the War Powers Act, the President can commit us into a land or air war for 90 days without Congressional approval and extend that for an additional 90 days. Is he planning on doing something like that?
Lee: I certainly hope not.
Judge: Earlier today, the President signed an Executive Order calling for indefinite detention at Guantanamo, even if they are tried and found not guilty. That is something that, as a candidate, he was against.
Paul:
- Let’s have trials.
- Let’s have justice.
Lee
- Indefinite detention sounds problematic to me.
The Judge held up Senator Paul’s new book, The Tea Party Goes to Washington, D.C.
- http://www.amazon.com/Tea-Party-Goes-Washington/dp/1455503118/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1299559056&sr=8-1
Guest: Professor David Buckner, Columbia University
Judge: The Wall Street Journal reported that the federal government spent $263 billion in February more than it took in.
Buckner:
- For a family or a business, that would be called a bankruptcy.
- For the government, it is called a deficit.
Judge: The two senators who were here as guests have said that they will not vote to increase the debt ceiling.
Buckner:
- We are already bankrupt.
- The lenders will simply raise the interest rate.
- When we really have to worry is when they want to get paid and not just accept the interest payments.
- The government doesn’t invest, they can only transfer.
- They can only raise taxes or reduce spending. Both slow the economy.
Judge: - Wisconsin Democrat Senators who fled the state offered to meet with the governor if he traveled to the state line. He declined. Video clips were shown of union demonstrators across the country.
Guest: Mark Mix, National Right to Work League Defense Fund
Mix:
- The good news is we are having a conversation about this issue.
- They discussed unions and collective bargaining and President Roosevelt was against collective bargaining for government workers.
Guests
- Charles Gasparino, Fox News Contributor
- Nancy Skinner, radio talk show host.
Judge: Oil and restrictions on drilling.
Charlie:
- The price of oil is set on the futures exchange.
- Investors there feel that there will be more violence, which will lead to a drop in oil production.
Nancy
- Regarding the 30 oil wells in the Gulf that were shut down after the rig exploded, the U.S. has only 3% of the world’s oil reserves.
- Any impact would be felt only in the far future.
Charlie
- What is sad is that we are being held hostage by an unsettled part of the world.
- We are rolling the dice that green energy will work when it has not succeeded anywhere.
Guest: Michael Scheuer, Author, Osama Bin Laden,
Judge: How much of a threat to the U.S. is Qaddafi at this time?
Scheuer
- He is a zero threat at this time.
- When Obama speaks, it sounds like arrogance and racism.
- He’s a tragedy for America.
- He wants to be a good guy.
- If he goes to war in Libya, it will start a religious war across the region.
- If we went in there, we would be the infidels, we would be the occupiers.
- The best situation here would be for Congress to pass legislation that there would be no military action without a declaration of war.
- They don’t want to drill for oil in the U.S., so Qaddafi became a good guy.
- We were about to sell him several hundred armored personnel carriers until this thing blew up.
- He was our boy.
- What the President is concerned about is the human rights mafia ganging up on him to rescue these poor Libyan rebels.
- There is no impact on the U.S. with respect to Libya.
Guest Steve Motley, President of Less Government
The Judge showed a video clip of Secretary of State Clinton praising the Arabic television network, Al Jezeera.
Steve
- If you watch Al Jezeera in Arabic, you get a whole different view on what is happening.
- I think it is a propaganda arm.
- It operates out of Qatar and Kuwait.
- Secretary Clinton praises Al Jezeera because it agrees with Clinton’s agenda.
Judge – Closing Remarks
- One of the original reasons for the federal government was that it would assume the debts of the states for the Revolutionary War.
- From that point forward, the federal government was never out of debt.
- The Federal Reserve came into existence in 1913.
- After that, the debt got utterly out of control.
- Presidents use the Federal Reserve as a source of cash to wage wars and hand out wealth.
- Inflation followed when the Fed had to be repaid.
- Today, 25% of all taxes paid goes to pay for the interest on the debt, now at more than $14trillion.
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