but a job is a job, nonetheless. let me present the flip side. supporters of extending the benefits say, wait a minute, this really does help the economy in is some ways, if eye withdraw the $25 billion a year it could hurt the economy. let me quote the wall street journal, the story they did. without the money of unemploy benefits in consumers hands about 0.2 percentage points could be shaved off. the 2.5% gdp growth shaved off by iht global insight. that s a statement by their chief economist. what do you think about that? well, it might be true, but it s only looking at one side of the ledger. yes, you re taking xue disposable income. but on the other hand, 15 states have had to raise their unemployment tax. in minnesota, $3,000 per worker is the tax you pay into the
richard? this argument, how does it play out for the president, the way he s handling it? he s almost mixing in comedy and jabbing along the way with this. it s a very serious ixue. we have to fix the treasury, and it is about the tax cuts. look, successful candidates can jab and punch and do it with a sense of humor. president clinton did it. president bush did it, too. it s a skill, a skill mitt romney hasn t shown yet. maybe he ll pick it up along the way. one thing to understand about this phase, the next big thing that mitt romney is doing this homework for are the presidential debates. what president obama did last night and is doing on the trail is setting up the debates. he s knocking down their arguments systematically so when he gets to the debates, people are already primed. that s why he s taking down their arguments one by one. especially this framing. yes, tax cuts, the same old ideas, tax cuts for everything, but also what you heard in that clip right at the top of the
for. but this is the battle front we ll deal with. who is to blame? there was going to be a prescription drug plan in 2000, whoever won. truech the recession, the big spending that went on xue to stimulus package, recession explains a lot of the deficit we re going through now. i don t know if you want to blame president bush for that but it took place before he was man. stimulus was not an act of god. it was an act of man. the recession drove tax revenues down in this country and caused so-called out mattic stabilizers like inemployment benefit to go up. it did not require near $1 trillion stimulus sprinkled on the economy a left not a trace. bret: response? might as well keep going.