Lou Dobbs Tonight
Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Join Lou for an hour of news, debate and opinion. A new resolution on Capitol Hill opposing Bush’s troop surge in Iraq. Will Congress influence the president’s strategy?

Some states are now looking to privatize their lottery assets as a quick solution to the need for public funding. Illinois may make as much as $10 billion dollars from private investors on the sale of its state lottery system. And in Texas, Governor Rick Perry is considering a similar plan, looking to make as much as $14 billion dollars on the sale of the Texas lottery. Critics say selling state lotteries would forfeit billions of dollars in revenues in the long term. We’ll have a full report tonight.

In 2005 there were 22 million drug abusers in the United States. And of those, just over 2 million were in treatment. The CDC recently reported that fatal drug overdoses doubled from 1999 to 2004, even as government drug usage statistics indicate that drug use by teens and adults declined. Join us tonight for a full investigation on the state of America’s drug problem.

And The Bank of America’s new plan to expand its customer base includes appealing to illegal aliens. The company’s new program waives social security requirements for people applying for credit cards as long as they have held a checking account for at least 3 months and can provide a $99 security deposit. We’ll have a special report on why Bank of America is turning a blind eye to customers who are breaking the law.

Tennessee Senator Tim Burchett wrote a letter to the state’s Governor expressing his opposition to putting National Guard troops on the U.S. border with Mexico. While Senator Burchett argues that U.S. troops should be authorized to defend themselves, Major General Gus Hargett disagrees. He says that the National Guard should not be allowed to engage in armed confrontation on the border. Join us tonight for a full report.

The trial in the case of former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean ended nearly four months ago and the courts are finally releasing the long awaited court transcripts allowing the agents to move forward with their appeal. We’ll take a look at whether the transcripts shed new light on the case.

A controversial new report says middle-class Americans are wealthier and more economically stable than Americans have been led to believe. The president of Third Way, Jonathan Cowan, will join us to explain his group's report.

Then, radio hosts Doug Basham of KLAV in Las Vegas, John Gambling of WABC in New York and Steve Cochran of WGN in Chicago, join us to discuss what they are hearing from middle-class listeners.