about how he would send the 11 million people home. if you re looking for immigration reform, comprehensive reform, mitt romney is never he s been clear, he s not going to be a solution. so, i think that the latinos, like every voter, very focused on the economy, who is going to be better on the middle class. that s a speech the president gave in ohio which is a choice in this election economically. that s what we need to focus on because rarely have we seen differences so profound on the economy. on the economy, we come back to that, basically the strategy is, if the president wins, taxes have to go up. and that you feel like you ll have the leverage, taxes on upper earners in the country will go up, and that s really take it or leave it deal that you ll present to republicans. fair? well, this president has cut taxes for the average middle-class family $3,600. he would sign a permanent extension of the bush tax cuts for the middle class, any time congress passes it. but this
test when he was the governor of massachusetts, a candidate back in 2000 it interpreted those results this way when he was governor they had the third or fourth worst economy of any state in america. the manufacturing jobs left this country at 7%. they left massachusetts at 14%. so, i think people just take a look at his record as governor, and again, as the head of his investment company, he presided over the acquisition of companies that immediately laid off thousands of workers. now again your campaign against mitt romney in two,000 eight is long over. but the substance of your critique is what the president is critiquing romney for today. you don t see any problem with that, do you? it s accurate? look, this is the height of a very tough primary campaign that mitt and i, were time after time after time i showed my respect and appreciation for the fact that he was a successful
my question, which is what you ll say is if the president wins, taxes for wealthy americans have to go up, that s going to be the basis of any grand bargain on the budget deficit, taxes have to go up. yeah. we think that here s the recipe for deficit reduction package. it s obviously revenue now tax reform means president corporate tax rate, interested in getting rid of a lot of loopholes, lowering rates if we can. yes, the wealthiest american also have to spend a little bit more, along with entitlement reform. whether it s simpson-bowles, any independent economist who says what s the recipe for long-term fiscal package, it s at its core balance and fairness. that s been the barrier. the reason we weren t able to get a big deal last year was the insistence on republicans at all costs, and by the way it s not just on the deficit, what is their single economic idea? it s to cut taxes for people like mitt romney, and somehow hope that trickles down to middle class. it didn t wor
with the economy and how it s behaved dernly and how markets would look differently if romney is elected. but he took control on the immigration issue. i think he has to take control on two or three other issues. he s got to take control on tax reform before the election is up to demonstrate to americans, particularly the market, that the fiscal cliff which obviously with europe is a terrible backdrop and obviously today we all hope that things go well there in greece, when i say well, that the austerity campaign wins out, but he s got to take control on tax reform. take control on entitlement reform. take control on innovation reform and demonstrate to the country here is where i will take us. otherwise i m not convinced the narrative we have now is a winning one. i say now, we being a democrat. david maraniss, you write in your book about how loathe the president is to take big risks. he may take them in the end but he s still a very cautious person. how does he approach this campa
well, harold talked about the inflection point we re at now. you saw that in david plouffe s presentation today. they re hoping that they can turn the three weeks of bad news into an opportunity to rev up their supporters. to have big donors start writing big checks. so say, here s a republican writing a $10 million check. where are our $10 million super pac checks. to have hispanics say if this is the type of immigration policy you want this is your time to get revved up. we ll see in the next few weeks. we ve not had much national polling since the president s bad three weeks ended. let s see where they are. there s a real argument to be made that the election can be decided not post-labor day but in the next few weeks. i have another question, harold, about the reach out or the outreach, what about mitt romney from his point of view? he s still straddling the line on the dream act, he s not quite there. he s worried about shifting positions on immigration after he had to run so