“Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (And Stick You with the Bill)”
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston joins us to talk about his new book, “Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (And Stick You with the Bill).” Johnston reveals how government subsidies and new regulations have quietly funneled money from the poor and the middle class to the rich and politically connected. [includes rush transcript]
Duration : 0:6:55
October 6th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Yeah! and money for …
Yeah! and money for the war mongers. Look at the results of it all now, the coming of another war created by lies like all the other wars. We’ve been played like this for quit sometime now and the endgame is in session.
October 6th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
like holes – …
like holes – everyone has an opinion, doesn’t make it right.
October 6th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Bin Laden to repel …
Bin Laden to repel the Russians, and Saddam to repel the Iranians
October 6th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Time to get a new …
Time to get a new backdrop!
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Not a big fan of …
Not a big fan of welfare, but the fact is that most people on welfare are white. But I have a feeling that you never let facts get in the way.
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
yeah. Making …
yeah. Making friends with Bin Laden and Saadam. Great idea.
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Reagan was the best …
Reagan was the best, hands down!
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Its sad. This guy …
Its sad. This guy has very little understanding of economics. What is more sad is that people believe him because our public schools have avoided teaching economics for the last 30 years.
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
ronald reagan put …
ronald reagan put america on a course to disaster.
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Wow! You’ve got a …
Wow! You’ve got a lot of hate going on right now. Is there anyone that you dont accuse of ruining your life? Bush (white) has failed (I agree), Clinton (white) made you lose your job, and the (black) took your welfare.
That empty false hate and anger isnt gonna do you any good and the word “Nigger” is becoming numbing. I realize that’s probably your most powerful word against a blk person because you dont know anything else to say.
Sad. I pray for you.
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
I just can’t seem …
I just can’t seem to understand why anyone would drop that asshole’s name! What good can come out of that? I just do’nt get it .OH I know… he’s throwing it … it’s an inside thing.The Demacrats are’nt supposed to win. god help us all!
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
that’s Mr and Mrs. …
that’s Mr and Mrs. to you…..
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
I don’t understand …
I don’t understand the Reagan phenom. He was a puppet to set us all up for future failure in the Bush regim.Thanks to Clinton I had a great job and plenty to chose from and the weren’t able to suck the welfare system dry. America sucks now. All the other countries know it. America is the land of sell out who not only hate the guy next door but do everything in their power to defeat THY neighbor. And you enlist other countries to make it suk worse. I would leave now$
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
You are absolutely …
You are absolutely correct about R. Reagan. His regime was the BEGINNING of the end of America. Now Bush is finishing the work begun by Reagan. CLUE: for the Reagan heads posting here. Visit the Bureau of Labor Stats, Census Bureau and the BEA. Reagan TRAILED Jimmy Carter in EVERY economic barometer –jobs, GDP growth rate, and income equality. A trend was begun that continues to this date: the rich get filthy rich everyone else gets very, very poor.
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Lest you think your …
Lest you think your beliefs are your own, study a little of the development by Edward Bernays of strategies to mold public opinion and how these fundamentals are still practiced 80 years later by all manner of institutions and organizations… you begin to sense that much of what is conducted as “public discourse” is actually orchestrated by a relatively small number of individuals in various positions of influence.
Joseph Goebbels certainly found Bernays’ principles useful -
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Lot’s of things …
Lot’s of things were missing! America had just come out of a Democrat disaster that was Jimmy Carter! Life sucked by the numbers in 1979! It took a real conservative to fix that! Ronaldus Maximus Reagan!
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Well, there were …
Well, there were some excesses of the 60’s that were bad to many people, And since Reagan was overwhelmingly voted in, he obviously catered to a majority of the people in this nation. Obama is being VERY careful to not go where he does not yet have to go. He’s being strategic like every good politician who wants the presidency. But Obama’s very existence is antithetical to Reagan’s policies as evidenced by Obama’s stated aims and the frothing of “Reagan conservatives” torwards Obama.
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Indeed, while in …
Indeed, while in office the Reagan administration was tremendously unpopular. What is important is that Reagan pushed an agenda far to the right of the general public and Obama simply says he gave them “what they were ready for”. He simply doesn’t know what he is talking about.
He has swallowed the bullshit New Right fairytale. I don’t hate Obama specifically, but he’s just wrong on this.
Secondly, why didn’t Obama make note of the murderousness of Reagan’s foreign policy when asked about him?
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Hold on. Obama said …
Hold on. Obama said two rather questionable things: that there were “excesses of the 60s” which were implicitly bad, and that Reagan gave what the nation wanted with his type of change. Obama says nothing about the effect of Reagan on working people, only Johnston, but we’re not talking about Johnston. Reagan did not give the US what it was “ready for”, as Obama submits. Reagan and his clique forced unto America a brand of reactionary socio-economic policies. Obama doesn’t recognise this fact.
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
you were not …
you were not listening. Obama did not say this change was at all beneficial to America and its middle class: only that he created change – which he did. Johnston then agrees with him – but clarifies this change as extremely damaging to working people! This holds true despite Reagan supporting death-squads in Central America. And i ABHOR Reagan.
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Every time I hear ” …
Every time I hear “reagan” I think about “death squads” and landless farmers being raped, dismembered and gutted alive in front of their families. So I don’t have much tolerance for feel-good revisionism when it comes to Reagan and those surrounding him.
I.e, looking back on Reagan favourably has the same implications as looking back on Hitler favourably – it weakens our moral fibre, and heightens the possibility that the torture, murder and dispossesion will occur again.
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
just watch the vid. …
just watch the vid. he blathered about how Reagan brought “change” to America. It just shows how hollow and meaningless this “change” and “hope” bullshit is that Obama is talking about.
Reagan has a large myth surrounding him, but there’s no honest way to describe him other than a middle/lower-bashing reactionary at home and a peasant-liquidating murderer abroad.
So Obama is either ignorant, or believes that supporting peasant-murderers in Central America was a positive “change”. Both, likely.
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
What did he say …
What did he say about Reagan? I’m livin in Canada so we don’t really get much media coverage on the U.S. election.
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Everyone, please …
Everyone, please rate my videos, so that they will get more media attention, and i can get my subscribers back!!
October 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Obama is a fool, …
Obama is a fool, simple as that. Anyone who says like that about Reagan is massively deluded.