times are tough space wise. brian: if aid choice, i would take private jet. steve: me, too! brian: i would much rather have that. steve: can you afford that? brian: no. steve: me neither. gretchen: but you could use your jet pack. and eventually you re going to be able to go brian: and go 1,000 feet. gretchen: you ll be able to go down from here to florida in no time. brian: i just couldn t believe in california they bought all those jet packs and yet they re in financial gretchen: no, no, they didn t. brian: you sure they didn t? gretchen: positively. steve: 17 minutes before the top of the hour on this monday, would you believe this? high school students graduating with a fifth grade education? high school students. some schools just let it happen. our next guest explains why. gretchen: then this isn t photo shopped. it was a monkey doing the ikea? more importantly, what does he have on?
and from her fifth grade education and her $3 an hour put me through some of the best schools here in washington, d.c. and johns hopkins ultimately. and i recognize what he s saying, be ut you cannot paint with a broad brush, because people find a way to make it through and do for themselves. sure, you have some who don t. but that is not the vast majority of what s going on with the poor. the poor are struggling to get out of poverty and they re using education. and this is the break down with our system as a whole. we fail them when we have our kids stuck in a poor, underperforming school, which is why, you know, so many like in this town are pushing for charter schools. so there are pathways. i think that speech should be less about, you know, sort of looking at folks and going, you know, we ll do it this way. thomas friedman, that s the leader of the republican party right now. i ve been a columnist since
the year. that s the point. kick the can down the road. do it smartly. do it smartly? a guy with a fifth grade education can understand flat tax. do it in january. that could be the first and only thing on their agenda. here is the thing. bring in tara. here is the thing, let me go back to what is happening in the country. tea party people support and bring this up. this is why it s getting more traction. voters seem to be from the primary are heading toward the tea party candidates who think this works. here is the interesting thing. here is my problem with the tea party. fair tax is a sound bite that sounds good and people are glomming on to. but there is a respectable bill in congress right now a bipartisan bill, the widen-greg bill to works to simplify the tax code to overhaul the tax structure in
hate understanding what the planet looks like, and that s what has to change in my opinion, and and school is one element. family is another element, and in the parts of the world where we are, which are desperately poor. we re in afghanistan. we re in ethiopia. we re in places where they are spending not even $100 per child. in afghanistan, 25% of the teachers are illiterate. the next 25% are one year ahead of the child, so if it s a fourth grade teacher, the teacher has had a fifth grade education. and you re getting these computers in afghanistan? we are determined to. we re determined to do every child in afghanistan in the next two years, and it s a very simple formula. the united states today is spending $2 billion a week on war. it s a little less than that, but rounded up to 2 billion. the united states spends less than $2 million a week on
the planet who believes the key to thriving in a high tech economy is importing millions of poor people with fifth grade education who don t speak english? is that good for your country? of course not. but democrats don t see immigration as a way typically prove the united states. but, instead, as a way to transform the country to their political advantage. there is no precedent for this attitude in american politics. it never happened. traditionally politicians try win votes by improving the lives of voters. it s pretty simple. it s been going on a long time. herbert hoover, a chicken in every pot, a car in every garage that was his promise during the 1928 campaign, he whop. voters appreciate it. they always do appreciate it if they think you are trying to help them. bill clinton got elected twice because he campaigned on actual tangible concerns of middle class people. that all seems like ancient history. democrats don t do that anymore. moderate democrats understand changing the min