afraid to take it on. politicians are afraid to take it on because like talking about entitlements, people think you should do something about it but nobody does because it actually might lose some votes along the way. that s what i mean by not taking it on. as far as simplistic, this might work for president obama, this argument because it s a populist message and not only is it populist but to talk about ronald reagan in the same message, come on! a democratic group called the third wave did a study and they asked independents, what do you think about this fairness on tax? 15% say tax equality matters. 80% say they prefer their candidate to focus on job creation. it is clearly another brick in the wall as the president tries to build up the class warfare argument that he s going to make through election day. you want to know what reagan really meant regarding tax reform? here he is a little later back in 1985. this is what ronald reagan wanted. lower, flatter tax rates will
so little in taxes will symbolize some of that, absolutely, and probably add even more momentum to the argument. but you know, chris, this is a year where we have the upper land. last year was cut, cut, cut. that had the republicans with the upper hand. but when it s tax equality, it s jobs, we do. the president s speech will hit it out of the park on those issues. the senate finance committee run by democrats, yourself included, do you think you can get rid of carried interest, that provision in the tax code allows people like romney to have income that is really earned income declared as capital gains? i think there is going to be a careful look at the whole tax code, carried interest among them and i do think we will be making a big push to see that those at the highest income pay their fair share. the issue that caught the popular attention is the tax on incomes over a million across the board. i think that will stay as the
thanks. could the growing popularity of herman cain s 999 tax plan be behind the surging poll numbers in the race for the republican presidential nomination? his tax equality calls for 9% income tax, national sales tax and corporate income tax across the board. the plan has been criticized, but cain defends that plan. some people attack it saying it won t do this and won t do that. they don t know what the assumptions are. if they know what the assumptions are and how we arrived at it, they wouldn t have the erroneous claims. we don t want to attack. jackie fitzsimmons joins me. you wrote about this this morning. what would cain s plan mean for low income americans and what would it mean for the wealthiest as well? it is hard to think it