that is definitely true. i think that in some ways you get a situation here where there s political hay to be made. there s a fairness argument being made by trump and it s the kind of argument that is pretty anathema. the money we re talking about is pretty small. it s not going to plug any huge deficits. it s not going to pay for a new social program on the government balance sheet it s pretty small. it s fundamental argument about fairness. and i do wonder whether from your perspective as a dyed in the wool conservative, someone who spends his time around conservatives, whether there s any traction there in the base or not. well, i ll answer the broader question which you were referring to earlier about sort of wall street. do they get special benefits that upsets conservatives? and the answer is yes. i don t know if the answer was yes before september or october of 2008 when you had george bush with the help of barack obama and nancy pelosi push through the bailouts, but nowada
with this message. not to the white house. he and president obama are battling the air war right now. this is all about rejoiner to รง what i call the president s tour of 2012. the president making an announcement at business round table, meeting with ceos who voted for romney, showing he s bipartisan. john boehner now making the fairness argument? it s a shocking turn of events but a testament to the fact that the republicans know optics are not in their favor. here s where it looks like it s heading. republicans float i think a face-saver in the new york times. quote, iff no deal can be struck to avert the bush era tax cuts and onset of deep across the board spending cuts gop leadership could foresee taking up and passing legislation this month to extend the tax cuts for the middle class and then resume the bitter fight over spending and taxes as the nation approaches the next hard
and my bet here is that he s only going to get better at refining and simplifying that point. yeah, they keep pushing on what turned out to be an open door, lawrence. a few months ago, a lot of analysts, including this one, me, wondered if pushing the fairness argument on taxes was risky for president obama. but it turns out, in a time of a bleak economy, when everybody s looking for a fair shake, that this argument really works. and it s not just that rich people are going to get more, what the president is saying now is middle class voters are going to get less. and on top of that, lawrence, he s now having secured that ground, he s now going to the deficit argument on this, too, which is very shrewd of him. in a speech in akron today, it was all about this topic. he didn t talk about anything else but this. it s clearly working. and the problem that mitt romney has is, once again, he s being pinioned on the fact that he s
here s the president. this is not an argument of taking from a to give to b. this is not a redistributionist argument that we re making. we re making an argument of how do we grow the economy so it s going to be prospering in this competitive 21st century environment? and the only way we re going to do this is if people like me who have been incredibly blessed are willing to give a little bit back so the next generation coming along can succeed as well. that appeal is working with the american public. there s a poll out, over 60% of the american public wants this buffet rule to happen. that s why the president comes back to the buzz words. it s working. people believe this fairness argument. you need to look down in the facts to see if raising this kind of money will do anything for the deficit. the president says this is the beginning of tax reform. what are you waiting for? why can one chairman of one
making last night, and i haven t read the text of the speech, perhaps he got to this point in the speech, but how do you make a fairness argument without referencing the tax code of the united states? well, look, i think that fairness is subjective. and it s really important politically if you re on the republican side not to cede of area of fairness to the president on this. and the area he was getting into yesterday is that the most compassionate government policy you can have is a pro growth economic policy, which doesn t mean growing the size of government, doesn t mean that government divides up a pie, decides who s you know, under the name of fairness gets what piece of that ever-shrinking, ever-diminishing pie. and i think he started to lay out that argument yesterday. look, the tax code is a mess. it should be fundamentally reformed. but, you know, i don t think the key to prosperity is necessarily in, you know, a debate over the top rate should be 39% or it ought to be 35%