top 1%, seeing the income gains. it feeds into what her strategic message is. i will say over the past eight years we ve seen many republicans in many different ways all suggest that barack obama, michelle obama by extension, don t understand america, don t get america. are not really americans, you know, even people like john sununu doing the mitt romney campaign, surrogate for him, says he doesn t really understand america so it s true that there is somewhat of a double standard that republicans often slam democrats, particularly barack obama for not being a real american or really getting america or understanding american exceptionalism. i don t see any democrats saying that about republicans. there were other reasons to attack or critique. president owe pa ma compared republicans to iranian ayatol h ayatollahs. are you kidding me? president obama often talks about that we have to subscribe to his values as americans, this is what america is about.
lives of the the middle and lower income of americans. the average american ho e household consumes 12 million gallons a year. that s serious money. yeah, that s a hundred bucks a month. that s no joke. yes, and people go out and spend that money and it s leading to self-sustaining economic growth. new car sales are finally back. we re finally building more than a million new homes a year. we ve got over 500,000 in jobs. every time you walk in the bidding, there s always a big problem which is all of these topline numbers look great, but then there s this chart which is the key to understanding the politics to this, the key to understanding the president s approval. the light blue there is the income gains are the bottom 90%.
workers below the poverty line. it s the intention to help them. they say 29% of the income gains would go to households that make three times the poverty level. so raising the minimum wage is a blunt tool. it helps some working poor but also helps others and, thus, is inefficient. meanwhile, the earned income tax credit ensures that money almost entirely gets to the poorest workers, to those who need it the most. it is by far the most effective way to fight poverty and reward hard work. here s the problem. it s less palatable to politicians because they can t pass off the costs to employers. they have to pay for it themselves directly through the federal government. that shouldn t matter because it s a much more effective measure. in march they proposed an expansion to cover more substantially more americans. some republicans have gotten on board.
it s the intention to help those people. but get this, the cbo says that 29% of the income gains would go to households that make three times the poverty level. so raising the minimum wage is a blunt tool. it helps some working poor but also helps others and thus is inefficient. meanwhile, the earned income tax credit ensures that money almost entirely gets to the poorest workers, to those that needed the most. it is by far the most effective way to fight poverty and reward hard work. here s the problem. it s less palatable to politicians because they can t pass off the costs to employers. they have to pay for it themselves directly through the federal government. that shouldn t matter because it s a much more effective, efficient mechanism. in march, the white house did propose an expansion of the earned income tax credit to cover substantially more americans. some republicans have gotten on board. it would be funded by closing corporate tax loopholes, which
it s because she s hitting on this issue area of income inequality and the supposed rigged nature of our capitalist system. it s fascinating because it s a post-clinton kind of politics and in some ways a post-obama kind of politics. inequality and crony capitalism are resonating with the republican conservative base as well. i think that that s an issue that you re going to see on the conservative side. it does resonate there, too, and i think elizabeth warren is actually resonating with a lot of people based on this income inequality, particularly when she talks about crony capitalism. quick comment. 95% of the income gains in the last two years have gone to the top 1%. that s a fact in the country. so i agree with you. i think it s going ton an issue that both the right and the left and i actually think that president clinton, putting people first, talked about fairness in the economy. i think it s a live issue. we re going to take a break. we ll come back with more from our