Mike Lofgren, a former GOP congressional staff member with the powerful House and Senate Budget Committees, joins Bill to talk about what he calls the Deep State, a hybrid of corporate America and the national security state, which is “out of control” and “unconstrained.” In it, Lofgren says, elected and unelected figures collude to protect and serve powerful vested interests. “It is … the red thread that runs through the history of the last three decades. It is how we had deregulation, financialization of the economy, the Wall Street bust, the erosion or our civil liberties and perpetual war,” Lofgren tells Bill.
Unfortunately, I think this complex has been able to find a soft spot between the parties. They know that no one will try to regulate them, because certain members of each party actively benefit from them. The rest aren't going to band together to fight a common enemy, which is sad, because this is one issue where liberal democrats and conservative republicans should be able to find common ground. But can you imagine a conservative republican teaming up with a democrat on anything right now? There's a guy in Georgia right now who has a 99% conservative rating from whatever batshit agency passes out those ratings who is in real danger of losing his congressional seat to a Tea Partier who thinks he's too liberal. As long as that level of dysfunction continues to exist, the national security apparatus and corporate interests are going to have a field day.