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Lots of goldmines. and lots of precious federal lands. if we put them up for auction, we could balance our debt. not tomorrow, but by the day after tomorrow. he didn't say that but art laffler joins us now. let's go through some of the things that you think that right away, you could start paying down debt with here what are we talking about? >> a tax amnesty program, federal, state and local, i think if a good tax plan were put in place you could collect as much as $350 billion federal on unpaid taxes for the last decade. $225 billion state and local. ongoing, you could probably get $35 billi...

Example, there's $288 billion in treasuries in accounts held there. oil exporting countries, and brazil is a big foreign debt holder. it's about a third of all of our $16 trillion in debt. the rest is held basically by u.s. investors. when i say investors i mean social security trust fund, big government holdings, mutual fund companies. so when you look, the social security trust fund is the largest government holder of u.s. treasuries, $2.7 trillion. you want to pay the interest on those, because, look, that's grandma's retirement, right? invested in u.s. treasuries. civil service retirement ...

longer the elephant in the room, governor rick perry announces he's joining the republican party for president. >> he may be the republican front-runner but he was not feeling the love at the iowa state fair. he got heckled and laughed at over three words he said, words he may come to regret on this "american morning." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com ing. >> oh, thank got it's friday. >> wait a minute. i've got to move my stuff. >> good morning. happy friday to you. it's august 12th. welcome to "american morning." up first, texas governor rick perry, the elephant in the room,...