>> that was president obama making his case to extend the bush tax cuts for the middle class and let those for top earners expire. david chalian, let's talk about what the president just said. i was struck by some of the semantics of this, repeatedly invoking the idea of certainty, give the middle class the certainty they need, we can worry about top earners later, this is nothing radical, i was saying this before, i will say it again. house republican leadership echoed that in an e-mail saying the president said this 25 times before. what did you make of it?
>> it did feel like we were in a bit of a time warp from the 2010 campaign, where he made a very similar argument. politically, i think you talk to any democrats on the hill, i talked to a senior house democratic aide this morning, they're happy the president's on offense on this. politically this works for him. this policy is not going anywhere now. we know we're about to have an election. there is not actually going to be a bill getting out of congress --
>> he even said i'll sign it next week, next month, you get the idea.
>> that's not going to happen. this is as purely a political messaging thing as the health care vote will be in the house later this week. i do want to touch on one thing kristen welker touched on which is democrats have been divided on this. we have seen chuck schumer , nancy pelosi and others call for the line at a million. they are eager to get on board with the president. he has set where this line is, at this $250,000 line and they will be fine with it and go out and sell that. the message still works. in their most honest assessment, at least one senior democratic aide told me this morning this would be a lot easier and cleaner if the line was at a million.
>> you hear about the division there with schumer and pelosi, their ideas versus that of the president's. why is it democrats can never get on the same page? this is a strategic bid, yet the ducks are not in a row. we know there is not a lot of cross-talk between the white house and congress depending on who you talk to, frigid relations or lukewarm. but that to me seems like not the best coordination, if you will.
>> well, the simple answer is wall street , that wall street has representatives in both parties. chuck schumer is the senator of wall street . so where that number goes is very much driven by the incomes of his constituents. it's just really that simple.
>> i completely agree with that. i think that's something that's been hard for the president to back pedal from, the tight ties with wall street . going to your point about this being smart politically but maybe not having such an economic impact, i actually think there was an important economic message there and that's that gridlock is the main problem. there actually are economic solutions to the problems that we're facing, the structural problems we're facing that we can't get by in. it was important to stress that.
>> the other thing that struck me was the president reiterating something that i think nobody really knows or talks about certainly in the broader national dialogue, which is that the president has cut taxes for the middle class multiple times, $3600 a family. he talked about cutting taxes for small business owners 18 times. why is there not sort of like the obama administration tour teeshirt with dates of the tax cuts and people from the administration, from the re- election campaign can be wearing it.
>> i'm sure if we look at each of those instances we'll find funny money counting on how many times things happened. but yeah, granted, he has done those things and it's not clear why he hasn't talked more about it. i spoke to a donor once who asked the president this very question at a fund-raiser, how come nobody knows this, and the president said it's true, we should talk more about it. he's talking more about it now.
>> i would expect you will hear a lot more about that.
>> also on a very fundamental level, i'm not sure democrats have ever figured out how to advocate their position on taxation and fiscal policy . fundamentally ever. they just don't know how to do it in a simple way and maybe that's because the conservative message is inherently stronger and clearer, cut them, we hate them, and everybody agrees with that.
>> i also think it's hard to get that tax message through when you have 8.2% unemployment.
>> that's true, but small business always tends to side with conservatives. i think that that's historically been an issue. small business people are starting to realize a lot of their interests are aligned with the president. i think on health care you will start to see that once people say oh, i'm actually going to get some help here to provide health care to my employees. i think the tax issue is getting through, too. i think you see that in the juxtaposition between consumer confidence which is still really low. historically when it's this low an incumbent has no chance but the fact people still think he's doing a better job with the economy than romney would.
>> i want to pivot a little bit and talk about how the white house has been using this tax question for campaign purposes beyond just the simple message of fairness, and discuss robert gibbs ' comments about mitt romney and his own tax records. let's hear what he had to say this morning on " morning joe ."
>> the next four years, we're going to have to undergo comprehensive tax reform , and you know, as somebody who has sheltered their income taxes in switzerland and the caymans and bermuda, really somebody who is going to get under the hood and get us to a place of tax fairness, we need to know why he's got that money there.
>> gibbs suggesting almost that mitt romney might be doing something illegal. there is no evidence that he's done anything illegal, of course, with his money, and putting it in offshore accounts, but david, i wonder, i see this as sort of the battle plan, as the president goes out and talks broadly about the american tax code , the bush tax cuts , his surrogates, robert gibbs , the folks in the trenches, are out there sort of icing that with this narrative that mitt romney doesn't play fair, he's never played fair and there's something dastardly going on in the cayman islands .
>> the romney campaign calls this a character attack. it's correct to call it that. this is part of the campaign, this is not about the tax policy debate or about what mitt romney actually did with his money. this is trying to build a frame around mitt romney as somebody who is out touch. the obama campaign claims we are not attacking him for being wealthy but the whole narrative that they're trying to build around him is using his wealth to make it clear that he's out of touch with middle class america and he doesn't understand their lives because they don't have offshore accounts.
>> do you think, when we talk about the administration or the re- election campaign has been threading a needle on the private equity stuff. i do think, you say cayman islands , offshore accounts, swiss bank accounts , and that is something from a james bond movie . that's something that --
>> his finances are exotic compared to those of middle class people. my tax return which is vanilla, i don't have a mortgage, probably 30 pages long. i have seen mitt romney 's tax return . it is dozens and dozens of pages long.
>> can you tell us what's in it?
>> it has skchedules i have never even heard of. i'm sure his finances are similar to those of any other wealthy person who has made money the way he has. but when you just point these things out to your average person, they sound a little exotic.
>> i think there's more than optics at play. there's a real issue and the issue is transparency. if he were withholding his medical records , he wouldn't be allowed to get away with that. if you were worried he had heart disease . well, there's a concern he has financial heart disease and we have a right to know that and a right to confirm it for ourselves by looking at his financial records . the fact that he thinks we don't says something very significant about his approach to governance and his approach and his character.
>> paul krugman makes that point if we're talking about character, the way a man manages his money is a testament to his character, that we should be able to see several years' worth of tax returns , especially given the fact his father was the first person to sort of begin this practice.
>> and release a dozen years of returns, where his son has released only one. this is probably the richest man who has ever run for the presidency of the united states and for him to be saying that we should elect him with his finances totally in the dark is a remarkable position for him to be taking.
>> and also, part of the reason -- one of the things that qualifies me for being president of the united states is the fact that i have made so much money. i just don't actually want to show you how i have invested it. it is worth noting the romney campaign responded to gibbs' comments, saying the obama campaign 's latest unfounded character assault on mitt romney is unseemly and disgusting. romney had a successful career in the private sector , pays every dime of taxes he owes, has given generously to charitable organizations. certainly he has given up to 14%, 15% of his income. interesting wording, pays every dime of taxes he owes.
>> well, it brings back the point that tax rates on the rich are probably a lot lower than they should be which goes to the buffett rule. that's a whole other can of worms. i think the romney campaign is making a major miscalculation, betting on the fact that americans are aspirational compared to europeans, for example, we're willing to tolerate a lot more inequality if we think we can climb up the ladder but at a time when people feel that that's not the case, that's the wrong --
>> and is not the case. we have the least income mobility of any industrialized nation.
>> you guys have brilliantly teased things we will talk about later on in the hour, including whether wealth makes you mean. coming up, white house economic guru gene spurling joins us to talk about the president's latest economic push, next.
>> it did feel like we were in a bit of a time warp from the 2010 campaign, where he made a very similar argument. politically, i think you talk to any democrats on the hill, i talked to a senior house democratic aide this morning, they're happy the president's on offense on this. politically this works for him. this policy is not going anywhere now. we know we're about to have an election. there is not actually going to be a bill getting out of congress --
>> he even said i'll sign it next week, next month, you get the idea.
>> that's not going to happen. this is as purely a political messaging thing as the health care vote will be in the house later this week. i do want to touch on one thing kristen welker touched on which is democrats have been divided on this. we have seen chuck schumer , nancy pelosi and others call for the line at a million. they are eager to get on board with the president. he has set where this line is, at this $250,000 line and they will be fine with it and go out and sell that. the message still works. in their most honest assessment, at least one senior democratic aide told me this morning this would be a lot easier and cleaner if the line was at a million.
>> you hear about the division there with schumer and pelosi, their ideas versus that of the president's. why is it democrats can never get on the same page? this is a strategic bid, yet the ducks are not in a row. we know there is not a lot of cross-talk between the white house and congress depending on who you talk to, frigid relations or lukewarm. but that to me seems like not the best coordination, if you will.
>> well, the simple answer is wall street , that wall street has representatives in both parties. chuck schumer is the senator of wall street . so where that number goes is very much driven by the incomes of his constituents. it's just really that simple.
>> i completely agree with that. i think that's something that's been hard for the president to back pedal from, the tight ties with wall street . going to your point about this being smart politically but maybe not having such an economic impact, i actually think there was an important economic message there and that's that gridlock is the main problem. there actually are economic solutions to the problems that we're facing, the structural problems we're facing that we can't get by in. it was important to stress that.
>> the other thing that struck me was the president reiterating something that i think nobody really knows or talks about certainly in the broader national dialogue, which is that the president has cut taxes for the middle class multiple times, $3600 a family. he talked about cutting taxes for small business owners 18 times. why is there not sort of like the obama administration tour teeshirt with dates of the tax cuts and people from the administration, from the re- election campaign can be wearing it.
>> i'm sure if we look at each of those instances we'll find funny money counting on how many times things happened. but yeah, granted, he has done those things and it's not clear why he hasn't talked more about it. i spoke to a donor once who asked the president this very question at a fund-raiser, how come nobody knows this, and the president said it's true, we should talk more about it. he's talking more about it now.
>> i would expect you will hear a lot more about that.
>> also on a very fundamental level, i'm not sure democrats have ever figured out how to advocate their position on taxation and fiscal policy . fundamentally ever. they just don't know how to do it in a simple way and maybe that's because the conservative message is inherently stronger and clearer, cut them, we hate them, and everybody agrees with that.
>> i also think it's hard to get that tax message through when you have 8.2% unemployment.
>> that's true, but small business always tends to side with conservatives. i think that that's historically been an issue. small business people are starting to realize a lot of their interests are aligned with the president. i think on health care you will start to see that once people say oh, i'm actually going to get some help here to provide health care to my employees. i think the tax issue is getting through, too. i think you see that in the juxtaposition between consumer confidence which is still really low. historically when it's this low an incumbent has no chance but the fact people still think he's doing a better job with the economy than romney would.
>> i want to pivot a little bit and talk about how the white house has been using this tax question for campaign purposes beyond just the simple message of fairness, and discuss robert gibbs ' comments about mitt romney and his own tax records. let's hear what he had to say this morning on " morning joe ."
>> the next four years, we're going to have to undergo comprehensive tax reform , and you know, as somebody who has sheltered their income taxes in switzerland and the caymans and bermuda, really somebody who is going to get under the hood and get us to a place of tax fairness, we need to know why he's got that money there.
>> gibbs suggesting almost that mitt romney might be doing something illegal. there is no evidence that he's done anything illegal, of course, with his money, and putting it in offshore accounts, but david, i wonder, i see this as sort of the battle plan, as the president goes out and talks broadly about the american tax code , the bush tax cuts , his surrogates, robert gibbs , the folks in the trenches, are out there sort of icing that with this narrative that mitt romney doesn't play fair, he's never played fair and there's something dastardly going on in the cayman islands .
>> the romney campaign calls this a character attack. it's correct to call it that. this is part of the campaign, this is not about the tax policy debate or about what mitt romney actually did with his money. this is trying to build a frame around mitt romney as somebody who is out touch. the obama campaign claims we are not attacking him for being wealthy but the whole narrative that they're trying to build around him is using his wealth to make it clear that he's out of touch with middle class america and he doesn't understand their lives because they don't have offshore accounts.
>> do you think, when we talk about the administration or the re- election campaign has been threading a needle on the private equity stuff. i do think, you say cayman islands , offshore accounts, swiss bank accounts , and that is something from a james bond movie . that's something that --
>> his finances are exotic compared to those of middle class people. my tax return which is vanilla, i don't have a mortgage, probably 30 pages long. i have seen mitt romney 's tax return . it is dozens and dozens of pages long.
>> can you tell us what's in it?
>> it has skchedules i have never even heard of. i'm sure his finances are similar to those of any other wealthy person who has made money the way he has. but when you just point these things out to your average person, they sound a little exotic.
>> i think there's more than optics at play. there's a real issue and the issue is transparency. if he were withholding his medical records , he wouldn't be allowed to get away with that. if you were worried he had heart disease . well, there's a concern he has financial heart disease and we have a right to know that and a right to confirm it for ourselves by looking at his financial records . the fact that he thinks we don't says something very significant about his approach to governance and his approach and his character.
>> paul krugman makes that point if we're talking about character, the way a man manages his money is a testament to his character, that we should be able to see several years' worth of tax returns , especially given the fact his father was the first person to sort of begin this practice.
>> and release a dozen years of returns, where his son has released only one. this is probably the richest man who has ever run for the presidency of the united states and for him to be saying that we should elect him with his finances totally in the dark is a remarkable position for him to be taking.
>> and also, part of the reason -- one of the things that qualifies me for being president of the united states is the fact that i have made so much money. i just don't actually want to show you how i have invested it. it is worth noting the romney campaign responded to gibbs' comments, saying the obama campaign 's latest unfounded character assault on mitt romney is unseemly and disgusting. romney had a successful career in the private sector , pays every dime of taxes he owes, has given generously to charitable organizations. certainly he has given up to 14%, 15% of his income. interesting wording, pays every dime of taxes he owes.
>> well, it brings back the point that tax rates on the rich are probably a lot lower than they should be which goes to the buffett rule. that's a whole other can of worms. i think the romney campaign is making a major miscalculation, betting on the fact that americans are aspirational compared to europeans, for example, we're willing to tolerate a lot more inequality if we think we can climb up the ladder but at a time when people feel that that's not the case, that's the wrong --
>> and is not the case. we have the least income mobility of any industrialized nation.
>> you guys have brilliantly teased things we will talk about later on in the hour, including whether wealth makes you mean. coming up, white house economic guru gene spurling joins us to talk about the president's latest economic push, next.