america that has actually lived in a socialist society. it absolutely doesn t work. i left england in the 1970s when we just about shut down the economy because of socialism. we should stress that. you don t want this. this is america. you don t want that nonsense. steve: it s interesting. it s very powerful. you missed out on the revolution but you enjoy the reagan revolution. it is interesting, that word is no longer toxic it seems within the democratic party. they are embracing it. yet to go as far as it venezuela, just go to florida with the primary victory there last week. it s interesting. to some people, steve, the message the far left is putting out would be attracted. we will give you healthcare, we ll give you food, we will give you a housing subsidy, we will give you everything you need to live. even if you are an illegal immigrant. that, to some people, that is an attractive message. especially young folks who don t
campaigns aimed at young professionals in their 20s and 30s to get them to settle down in their cities and some are answering the call. joining me is teresaing senior staff writer at pugh. wrote about this topic this month. with a welcome to you, we re seeing a number of smaller cities across the country targeting the millennials, have colorful billboards and catchy tag lines and promise of a better life. how successful have these efforts been some. you know there s really no data tracking them right now. this is a firmly new phenomenon. cities have always tried to move people with some form of housing subsidy or whatever, but this is a fairly new effort and there really isn t any new data. philadelphia has had some success with campus philly where they try to match college students with internship and volunteer opportunities and try to sell the city while kids are still in school so when it comes down to time to find a job and pick a city they ll think of philadelphia because they v
well, there are 2 million workers who work for federal contractors. the progressive caucus is asking the president to examine issuing an executive contractors to pay a liveable wage. if you go to the smithsonian, union station, important iconic federal buildings, the people who will be cleaning up there, securing you, guarding you, cooking are all making a wage that forces them to have to rely on food stamps and medicaid, housing subsidy, things like that. they ought to be getting paid a whole lot better. i think the federal government should be leading by example and not leading the race to the bottom. i want to ask you about the influence as a young man growing up here of nelson mandela and his fight for freedom, his ability to come out of prison and reach out to his cap tors.
housing subsidy for the mortgage interest deduction. the more you make, the bigger your subsidy. but what s not in the tax expenditure budget is just as important. if you are wealthy enough that your annual increase in wealth exceeds your consumption, you just borrow against your assets and live tax tree. $17,000 a year if you can afford it. i m older. i can save an extra $6,000. but if you re an executive, a large business owner, a movie star, you can save unlimited amounts of money under a little-known section of the tax code, and there are people with multiple billion-dollar untaxed fortunes and some are done in the way they can borrow against them. that s something seriously wrong with the system. that s why we need to talk act fundamental tax reform and lowering rates would make all these things worse and put the burden on the people down the income ladder. fundamental tax reform, comprehensive tax reform.
and i thought romney was on ryan s program. his spending is equally fuzzy. he promised to cut defense spending, more spending on medicare, social security. how can you make the numbers work? according to ezra klein, smart guy, if romney is elected by third year in office, every federal program that s not medicare, social security or defense will be cut, on average by 40%. that means medicaid, infrastructure, education, food safety, road safety, postal service, basic research, foreign aid, housing subsidy, census, pell grant, trademark office, fda, all has to be cut on average 40%. not even remotely plausible. the consequences would be catastrophic. a lot of republicans when they vote say there s nothing in the federal government for me, i don t care how much they cut it. that s not true. cuts that are significant to me, i am trying to give your politician a break. must be some reason why.