now. is that how you read it? that overlooks one important point. and this is something that the president talked about on friday. and that s that his democrats really resist this notion of changing benefits at all. you ve got as you mentioned, the change cpi which wouldn t cut social security. just sort of slow the growth of benefits over time to more accurately reflect inflation. democrats say that s a nonstarter. you have the notion of changing medicare so the wealthiest retirees who are the wealthiest group of americans as a whole would maybe pay a little bit more in their retirement funds. a lot of democrats resist that idea, too. republicans are being pretty when it comes to tax increases and closing loopholes. the democrats are digging in their heels on this other side. and this is a shame because everybody s known for years these are the two things we need to do to get our finances on a sustainable course. so what do you think is happening, elise? is the gop holding out
consistently. but isn t their calling card that they grow the economy it turns out that they actually grow the deficits. deficits get higher under republican presidents. gdp gets higher under democratic presidents. relative equality under democrat presidents. let me show you this to help support your argument to the american jury watching. under george bush, the economy, 2002 to 2007, 65% of economic gains went to the rich. and that s why. so the reason this is to the top 1%. that s right. the reason business leaders prefer republicans isn t because they re better for the economy. it s because they re better at growing the individual wealth of the wealthiest group. so the one indicator that goes way up under republican presidents is that the very top percentage actually accumulates a higher percentage of the wealth.