priority on slashing those things. and so he s a reformer. but you know, there are plenty of cases, you re absolutely right, when he was given a choice, the deficit was not his first choice. i don t think the deficit is his overriding priority. he s a supply cider and he s cast a bunch of votes that kind of made sense for a congressional republican making his way through the system, but it s not the case that the deficit has been his first priority throughout his career. seems like he only started worrying about paying for things under obama. let me ask you about this thing, i think he represents the conflict in american government. people hate the word socialism, but here he is running for things like the bailout, the bank bailout, the auto bailout, all these wars we spend money on. creating a medicare prescription bill. they do all this because it s what people want. they want to fight these wars, what they see as our enemies and
started worrying about paying for things since obama s been elected president. under w., he never worried about the price tag. what do we make of that, michael? just a simple hypocrisy of a guy who will spend any nickel as long as it s designated as good spending by w., of all people, the minute obama shows up, no deal? i think the second piece of this, there s a supply side philosophy then a conservative reform. he s really interested in cutting back what he sees is not the core of government functions, safety and security, so anything that s welfare, state, that might be seen as a handout or creating dependency, he puts a higher priority on slashing those things. and so he s a reformer. but you know, there are plenty of cases, you re absolutely right, when he was given a choice, the deficit was not his first choice. i don t think the deficit is his overriding priority. he s a supply cider and he s he is a supply sider and he s
really really hard on size and political government. if that were the character of the ryan plan, i mean the reason that the ryan plan, i think is more ripe for attack than it is for appeal to a broad section of the country it doesn t have very many numbers. the ryan plan says on top of the bush tax cuts we re going to do more than $4 trillion more in tax cuts mostly affecting the wealthy. but he says that s going to be receive knew neutral. how can that be revenue neutral? there will be loopholes that will be closed. but he won t say what any of those are. these not a fiscal conservative he s a supply cider that says cut taxes for the richest people and sit back and watch the magic happen. that surprise side magic used to be called voodoo economics. people are still suspicious that it will work especially if we re feeling like we need to get our debt and deficit under control. democrats always refer to it as a tax cut. but it s not a tax cut. it s designed to be revenue neutral. i
these not a fiscal conservative he s a supply cider that says cut taxes for the richest people and sit back and watch the magic happen. that supply side magic used to be called voodoo economics. people are still suspicious that it will work especially if we re feeling like we need to get our debt and deficit under control. democrats always refer to it as a tax cut. but it s not a tax cut. it s designed to be revenue neutral. it s based on the template of the bowles-simpson plan which has been subject to bipartisan acclaim and the 1986 tax reform which was one of the great bipartisan accomplishments in this town over the last 30 years. and if you study the effects of that 86 tax reform which lowered rates and closed loopholes, it actually increased the share that the rich were paying. so this is not some fantasy. but it s supposed to raise revenue. right because if you depending on how you fool around with the rate and how many deductions and loop holes you actually close you can
romney s tax plan would raise taxes on 95% of americans. now, mitt has promised a 20% tax cut to everyone. so whose math adds up mitt s or the tax policy center s? it s sort of like an olympic boxing match. today, the romney camp threw a punch fast and early, pointing out that one of the authors was a former aide to president obama. as the romney campaign wrote to us, that is, quote, hardly objective. true, one round to mitt. but for the romney campaign, we checked the other two names on the report, and one author was a former aide to george h.w. bush, the final one worked for both bush and obama. round two to barack. let s lay out the substantive charge f. report says if mitt romney s plan becomes reality, tax revenue, because he s going to be cutting marginal tax rates, will drop by $360 billion in the first year alone. that means if it s revenue-neutral, someone must pay $360 billion more. again, that s if it s revenue-neutral, which is something mitt romney specifically