room. maybe that s why the american people think they re responsible. they didn t say anything. look at their face. hand them a napkin. melissa harris-perry and richard wolffe thank you for your time. thank you, reverend. ahead, newt wants poor 9-year-olds to work as janitors, and the gop loves it. folks meet your gop. and meet mitt romney, speaking out about buying computers and obliterating e-mails. you won t believe what he s saying. plus the smear plan uncovered. we ve got the secret plan showing you how the right wing is distorting the occupy movement. and it s the video shocking the nation. peaceful students getting pepper spray sprayed. close your eyes! we re live with one of the
not willing to put serious revenue on the table as part of a balanced plan. this is something very straightforward and you understand it, al. we ve got to get our budget under control. and there are basically two ways of doing it. one, which the republicans are proposing, is you just cut, education, you cut science, you cut medicare. you put more of a burden on people who can least afford it, or alternatively, you make some prudent cuts, selective cuts in some programs that don t work anymore, you make some modifications in things that can work better, but then you also ask people like you and me, who can afford it, to pay a little bit more in our taxes. you get rid of the bush tax cuts. you make sure the millionaires and billionaires are paying their fair share, and if you do it that way, then everybody benefits. the economy is stronger. markets have more confidence.
ironically, businesses and the wealthy would do better if the economy was stronger. so the position they re taking is short-sighted, but you know, it must be my religious faith, reverend, because hope springs eternal and i continue to believe that at some point common sense will prevail and we ll be able to work something out. but in the meantime, this isn t like august where we ve got a major crisis on our hands. we re just going to have to keep on pushing to see if we can get republicans to accept the common sense of the vast majority of the american people, have already accepted, which is we ve got to have a balanced plan that s fair, which everybody is sacrificing a little bit for the greater good. republicans are stuck by their pledge never to raise taxes. they re willing to cut defense, cut medicare, cut medicaid and cut social security, cut anything to avoid raising taxes on the rich. joining me now is msnbc
politics for the president but he also holds the important cards in his hand which is to say at the end of the election year, the bush tax cuts expired, the sequesters, automatic cuts kick in and unless they come up with a better plan that s all going to go through, so if congress wants to step up and do something, they can avert this and if they don t want to do anything, all of this is going to go through and the deficit will come down. if they re serious about the deficit coming down, they ll take that plan or come up with a better one. professor perry, the fact that he now has taken their term, no, and emphasized that, and has put it back at them and said they have to live by a deal they made, these triggers are something they agreed to, this is not imposed by the democrats or the president, go by what you pledge, and the fact that he has a wind to his back rather than his front, if you look at the polls, americans blame the
republicans 39% for the super committee s failure as opposed to only 27% the democrats. 77% of democrats, 62% of independents, 43% of republicans want to see taxes raised on the rich. has the republicans overplayed their hand, overshot the runway? well, i mean look, sure the american public blames the republicans for a couple of reasons. one, the president offered a deficit reduction plan which was reje rejected. it s not as though he hasn t offered a plan. he tended up in the debt ceiling drama in the first place. for all of their pledge not to raise taxes, there is a tax raise that is part of this, a tax raise on the most vulnerable working class and middle class families, that is the end of that payroll deduction excuse me that payroll tax freeze so they re certainly willing to raise taxes on some citizens, and the third reason is, they re now trying to say this president isn t leading. he s not strong, and so part of