hey! what is is this an old story, because we know the rich are getting richer and the rest of americans aren t isn t there something a little insidious when the people who are our elected officials keep growing in wealth while the people who are living under their policies are stagnant? well, absolutely. i mean, what s interesting, though, that that trend, what s happening in congress, mirrors the trend we re seeing in the country. that s not necessarily a good thing, because what it doesn t mirror is the reality of our country, meaning that we have, while this wealth gap is increasing, we don t have more people in congress who actually have had to live under that kind of gap and understand the real implications of the policies and the things that they are trying to do. but part of the problem has become running for congress, and running, really, in any election has become so expensive and cost prohibitive, a lot of times there s a real effort to be what we call self-funders
i m erin burnett and outfront tonight, rejection and dysfunction. the house today rejecting the senate s plan to extend the payroll tax cut. now, that means that your taxes are going to go up somewhere between $700 and $2,300 next year unless, oh, the big unless an all new congressional committee and it is an all new committee comes to the agreement by the year s end. president obama s approval ratings are up as congress falls on this, and he seized the moment today. but now, even though republicans and democrats in the senate were willing to compromise for the good of the country, a faction of republicans in the house are refusing to even vote on the senate bill. a bill that cuts taxes for 160 million americans. and because of their refusal to cooperate, all of those americans could face a tax hike in just 11 days. and millions of americans who are out there looking for work could find their unemployment insurance expired. and just for good measure the white house webs
dysfunction. dysfunction, dysfunction. let s go outfront. i m erin burnett and outfront tonight, rejection and dysfunction. the house today rejecting the senate s plan to extend the payroll tax cut. now, that means that your taxes are going to go up somewhere between $700 and $2,300 next year unless, oh, the big unless an all new congressional committee and it is an all new committee comes to the agreement by the year s end. president obama s approval ratings are up as congress falls on this, and he seized the moment today. but now, even though republicans and democrats in the senate were willing to compromise for the good of the country, a faction of republicans in the house are refusing to even vote on the senate bill. bill that cuts taxes for 160 million americans. and because of their refusal to cooperate, all of those americans could face a tax hike in just 11 days. and millions of americans who are out there looking for work could find their unemployment insuran
right. the important thing for the president right now, i think is to stay out of the way of the opposition. i think that the main media story and political story is the republicans trying to pick a candidate. there s nomar gin in it for the president to get into the political fray. i think what he s doing right now is making money and re-establishing support among the people who have to come out that he s going to need to volunteer and give money and work on his base and let the republicans fight out the politics. i want to talk more about this money issue. we saw it in 2008 the obama team really a fundraising machine. taking away the day-to-day politics of this race. let s talk about mitt romney. he had this magic monday. the ability to raise $10 million. is he the best choice for republicans to actually win this because it s going to come down to a money match up? well, republicans do like self-funders. as joy-ann was pointing out, if obama is running on his record, his experi
she has put in $22 million funding 99.something percent of her campaign. she s a former world wrestling mogul. the one to really end all of self-funders is meg whitman. she is the republican nominee for governor in california. and can you even imagine this. she has put in $139 million of her own money setting a record for any candidate for all time. recently eclipsing michael bloomberg for the amount of money he put into his last re-election bid. that s a lot of money. the question is does it work? for these folks, yeah, they are still in the race. they have a tight race. they have a shot. there s a whole lot of other self-funders where it just hasn t paid off. this might seem counterintuitive. a lot of them fare a whole lot worse than other candidates who are not wealthy like these