and that's why i'm so anxious for him to give us the names of the people who have put this forward. i wouldn't be at all surprised to hear the names are people from the white house or the obama campaign or who knows where they're coming from. >> come on now. why don't you give us your tax returns and we'll put that oto bed. "the ed show" reached out to him for a response to the fact he always paid taxes. if that's true, why doesn't romney just release his tax returns? what's he hiding? this is bare knuckle politics. the pugilistic senator knows how to hit hard and has the republican candidate for presidential reeling. some might call his tactics unfair, but one might hope they call the many outlanding attacks on obama unfair. the republican party and its media representatives spent the better part of 2008 obsessing over obama's place of birth. they created exaggerated ties between the president and figures like tony resco and bill ayers. they have created an american bashing caricature of obama. >> he apologized for america. it's time for us to be strong as a nation. >> stop the dog whistles, we get the putrid stereotypes. it was mitt romney who spent the last several weeks distorting a comment made by president obama and turning it into the central argument of his campaign. republicans are no strangers to hard hitting politics. mitt romney enjoyed lecturing his republican opponents in the primaries about developing a thicker skin. >> if you can't stand the heat in this little kitchen, wait until you get into obama's hell kitchen. >> this ain't the bean bag. we're going to come into the campaign, describe the differences between us. >> you have to brush up on your vernacular. with all of that tough talk, it's surprising mitt romney's top adviser is having such a hard time with harry reid's comments. >> his charges are baseless and they're untrue. and i would ask him one simple question, have you decency, sir? is there nothing that you won't do to debase yourself and the office you hold in the name of dirty politics? >> oh, my goodness. i'm rubber, you're glu. everything you say baunss off me and sticks to you. it's only dirty politics when someone does it to the romney campaign. bullies don't like it when they get punched back. i'm remunded from a scene from a classic movie many people have enjoyed over the years. >> hey. >> something had happened. a fuse blew. and i had gone out of my skull. >> hey. hey kid. >> it will shoot you eye out. but senator reid isn't just hitting back with his fists. he's hitting back with information the romney campaign obviously doesn't want to address. this past week, abc news asked mitt romney a direct yes or no question that he did his best to avoid. >> we know that there was one year where you paid about a 13.9% tax rate. can we clear this up by asking you a simple yes or no question? was there ever any year when you paid lower than the 13.9%? >> i haven't calculated that. i'm happy to go back and look. >> i ain't got no calculator big enough to do that. he was happy enough to go back and take a look, but when abc contacting the romney campaign, they got the same old story. >> a spokes person would only reiterate, he's paid his taxes in full compliance with u.s. law and he's paid 100% of what he has owed. >> the tax issue is going to dog mitt romney throughout the campaign, both by serious journalists and by hard nosed paul tioliticians who knew howet a fight from bell to bell. >> get your cell phone out. which man needs to put up or shut up? mitt romney or harry reid? a for romney, b for harry reid or go to our blog at ed.msnbc.com. i'll bring you the results later in the show. >> i'm joined by george miller of california who has his own questions about mitt romney's finances. welcome to the show, congressman. >> thank you. thank you, michael. >> sir, are we going to, you know, get your latest inquiry regarding mitt romney's individual retirement account? we're going to do that in a moment, but do you think senator reid has done anything wrong here? >> no, senator reid hasn't done anything wrong. mitt romney has been dancing around the ring the whole time and finally harry reid cold cocked him with a simple question, make your tax returns public. if you what you say is true, then there can't be any problem in releasing these tax returns over the last many years, but he's refused to do it. >> there's no doubt that pugilistic metaphor does it, the rabbit punches, the clenches. let's throw it to the referee and say you decide if we're punching beneath the belt or not. is it troubling to you that romney won't just release the tax returns to disprove senator reid's claims? >> romney has the answers to the questions that have been asked of him now for many, many, many months. they started asking him this question in the republican primaries. he refused to answer it then. he's refused to answer it now. the fact of the matter is he has the information. he can let the truth come out. and it appears that the truth may be more costly to him than continuing this battle of denial, denial, denial, that politically is a killer for him. >> yeah, it's like he keeps saying that old reggae song, it wasn't me. financial disclosures shows his ira holds more than $100 million. you and two of your colleagues in the house have sent an inquiry to the treasury and labor departments wondering if the contribution process for the ira is legal. this is what you wrote. we hope that you will evaluate this issue carefully to insure that a select few are not being provided with a loophole that allows for wrongful tax evasion. what concerns do you have about romney's ira? >> i know first-hand experience, and talking to my constituents, how hard middle income families work to try to scrimp and save and set aside some money at the end of the month for their retirement. we know that families aren't doing very well because they don't have enough disposal income to make those contributions to their 401(k)s, to their iras. and most middle income families have tens of thousands of dollars in it. when i read that he had amassed somewhere between $20 million and $100 million inside of an ira, i want to know how. what appears is he gets to manipulate, he gets to manipulate the tax code. he gets to pick the value of the stock and the contribution he makes to his ira. knowing he has the inside information about what the prospects and the future of the company will be that he put the stock in. if a middle income family wants to put the stock into their ira, they'll have to wait until it's on the stock market, it's a public number. everybody buy s it at the same price. this is an outright manipulation of the tax code and the loopholes that are there. but the manipulation, and if he can put $100 million in tax free, you have to start asking, what does this mean to middle income families. the tax loopholes that the wealthy are using, people like mitt romney are using to exploit the tax code are killing the middle class because that means their taxes have to be higher or the deficit has to go higher. and neither one of these are good news for the american public or for the american taxpayer. >> yeah, i know some brothers who think the ira might stand for individual reparations accounts when you get that kind of dough. congressman george miller, thank you so much. >> thank you. remember to answer tonight's question there at the bottom of the screen, and share your thoughts on twitter at ed show and on facebook. we want to know what you think. coming up, today's job numbers are out and they were much better than expected. president obama and mitt romney disagree on how to qualify the jobs numbers, so we have steve joining us next. building pass, corporate card, verizon 4g lte phone. the global ready one ? 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( laughter ) why's the new guy sending me emails from paris ? paris, france ? verizon's 4g lte devices are global-ready. plus, global data for just $25. only from verizon. coming up, july's jobs report were above expectations. and republicans are working overtime to spin them in their favor. mitt romney's plan to end tax credits for wind energy puts him at odds with his own party. van jones joining me to talk about the potential impact on jobs wroorb. later, nas will join me to discuss everything from the state of politics to the state of hip-hop. share your thoughts with us using the hash tag "ed show." we'll be right back. that's good morning, veggie style. hmmm. for half the calories plus veggie nutrition. could've had a v8. the calcium they take because they don't take it with food. switch to citracal maximum plus d. it's the only calcium supplement that can be taken with or without food. that's why my doctor recommends citracal maximum. it's all about absorption. that's why my doctor recommends citracal maximum. it's something you're born with. and inspires the things you choose to do. you do what you do... because it matters. at hp we don't just believe in the power of technology. we believe in the power of people when technology works for you. to dream. to create. to work. if you're going to do something. make it matter. good for the american people and also happens to be good for president obama. the economy picks up steam in the mukt of july with jobs numbers nearly double what had been predicted. 163,000 jobs were added in july, according to today's report. that includes government job loss of 9,000. therefore, private sector job growth was higher, 172,000 jobs added. the unemployment rate ticked up but it was literally a tax, from 8.217% to 8.54%. >> we learned our businesses created 172,000 new jobs in the month of july. that means that we have now created 4.5 million new jobs over the last 29 months. and 1.1 million new jobs so far this year. but let's acknowledge, we have still got too many folks out there who are looking for work. we've got more work to do on their behalf. >> here's a shocker. governor mitt romney took a different view. >> of course, today, we got a new number from the unemployment report. it's another hammer blow for the struggling middle class families of america because the president has not had policies that put american families back to work. i do. i'll put them in place and get america working again. >> the fact remains governor romney, under president obama, we have now seen 29 straight months of private sector job growth. let's bring in steve benham, msnbc political contributor and producer for the rachel maddow show. thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> the numbers from july aren't astounding, and president obama acknowledged that, but steve, they're better than expected and double the numbers from the previous three months. why don't you help us flesh that out a bit. >> well, sure. it's clear that this is a step in the right direction. that the numbers for april, may, and june were deeply disappointing and suggested maybe we were headed to a danger place in terms of the state of the economy. with this morning's report kind of was a breath of fresh air and brought relief to people. a much better than expected report and numbers were double what we had seen in late spring and early summer. where we're not where we need to be, and everyone accepts the importance of that, it's important to realize this is encouraging. this is a step in the right direction and that kind of puts us on a better path going forward. >> sure, and to help clarify that, you put up another job comparing job creation over the bush years and obama years. explain some of the highlights from such a comparison. >> i think it's interesting that people look back at the bush years as being not so bad, especially the first seven years of the bush presidency when it comes to job creation. just this year, this calendar year, january through july of 2012, we have added about 1.1 million jobs. that's not a great year and the year is want over, but just that year is better than the first three years of the bush presidency combined and better than five of eight year s bush was in office. they got pretty much every economic policy they wanted out of congress. they got two massive tax breaks, the regulatory policies they wanted, yet the economy never took off. we never saw the boon that republicans predicted. now we're seeing the obama presidency working through the tough times, gettis us back on track, here we are with 1.1 million jobs in 2012 so far. when you compare this year versus the bush presidency, it looks pretty good. >> what is it about the american populous that tends to not understand the comparison you just drew so brilliantly? because the fact is that obama has done a far better job than bush did. and yet he doesn't get credit for that. is it this janet jackson, what have you done for me lately attitude? that prevents that? >> it's the shock of the recession. this was not a normal recession at all. we have these cyclical recessions, but i think this was obviously the crisis and the crash, the catastrophic conditions that happened in late september 2008 and then of course kind of early through 2009, before the recovery began, i think this was such a shock to the american people that it kind of devastated a lot of us. just economically, psychologically, i don't think we're nearly through with that. i don't think we have really recovered in any sense from that crisis. and so i think that people may have had unreasonable expectations. maybe people thought the president would take office and things would get better, instantly, immediately, this robust recovery, and that didn't happen. that was unrealistic. that was unlikely. recoveries from that kind of crash don't happen ever. the combination of just the severity of the recession, the expectations were probably a little unrealistic, leave this lingering sense that obama hasn't succeeded when he's really helped get the economy back on track. >> steve, thank you for your insight. >> thank you. wind creates energy and creates jobs. mitt romney wants to end tax credits for it, and he has a whole lot of republicans lined up against it. van jones joins me next. and jenna jameson says if you're rich, mitt is your man. our panel will weigh in. stay tuned. 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[ female announcer ] olay regenerist. mitt romney has managed to get a whole bunch of republicans annoyed with him because mitt romney wants to end the wind energy tax credit. but many republicans do not. governor romney made his position clear through a spokesman. he will allow the wind credit to expire and the stimulus boondoggles and create a level playing field on which all sources of energy can compete on their merits. bear in mind when mitt romney says level playing field, he means a completely non-level playing field in which the wildly profitable oil companies continue to get government subsidies. government welfare. charles grassley of iowa doesn't want to end wind production tax credits. i don't think that's the real position of the party, because they said they were going to consult me on this stuff, and they haven't gotten my view. other republicans disagreeing with mitt romney include iowa congressman tom lathem, governor terry bran stad, senator scott brown of massachusetts and arkansas senator john boozman. the american wind energy association said the number of jobs in the industry stands at 75,000 and drives up to $20 billion in private investment. here's an obama campaign video on wind energy. >> the policies that president obama has put forward has been a great benefit to a small business like mine. air and wind recent ly receiveda loan that was supported by president obama. the loan we got is directly going to help us produce two to three turbines. the loan we got has helped us sustain eight to ten people plus probably half a dozen subsuppliers. >> let's turn to a man who can counter some of the hot air coming out of the romney side. van jones, president and cofounder of rebuild the dream and the author of the book by the same name "rebuild the dream." van, welcome to the show. is mitt romney on the very wrong side of this? >> you know, it's almost an extension of his magical mystery tour overseas. every country he went to, he made mistakes and made people angry, and he comes to the united states and makes everybody in iowa angry. that's what he wants to do this month, make as many people as mad as possible. this is a serious matter, 75,000 jobs, is that a lot of jobs? well, there's about 75,000 coal miners in the entire country and 75,000 folks working in the wind industry. critical industry in america growing, growing against gravity in this awful economy. he's willing to have 10,000 to 20,000 people thrown out of work, but he won't take on the oil companies, won't take on the coal. if he wants a level playing field, we're all for that. winld would be competitive. the reason wind is not compesative, many reasons, is because we do so many subsidies on the other side. we're talking about somebody who is willing to deal a devastating body blow to a key energy sector for americans and throw americans out of work for no reason, and even republicans won't go with him. >> how much push back will he get from his own party? we gave you a sense, but give us a deeper sense. >> good luck in iowa. that's what the republicans are saying right now. good luck in iowa. you got family farms that are tanking right now. and some of them, the only thing keeping them going is not only are they growing home-grown today but also home-grown fuel. a wind turbine can produce $10,000 to $30,000 perwind turbine. when you throw them out of circulation, you're dumper farmers overboard. but here is mitt romney. he's so interested in currying favor with the most extreme element in his party, he will do things to hurt the american economy and hurt other republicans. this is a very troubling sign. >> this is a win-win situation on the energy and jobs front, right? because when you talk about creating new sources of not only energy but of employment, it seems they go hand in hand. >> we just saw these jobs numbers, and you know, thankfully, we're moving forward. 4.5 million private sector jobs, obama has done better in four years, on private sector job growth, than george bush did with eight with a much better economy, but we have a long way to go. one of the areas we can get more job growth is to diversify our energy sector, compete with china and the rest of the world and build jobs here. we have a saudi arabia of wind energy in america in the plain states, off the coast, up near the great lakes area. we need to tap that, and every energy sector in our country, and in the world, it's a public private partnership. the government always plays some role in the energy sector. the question is, are you supporting the problem solvers in the energy sector, clean energy, or supporting the problem makers. he's not against subsidies, he wants to subsidize the problem makers and abandon the problem solvers. >> let's change subjects a bit here. the job numbers came out today, much better than expected, stronger than expected. do you think that indicates a better fall? you have some ideas that might help the president out. >> one thing the president can do is part of the reason we have this drag on the economy is because the housing market is still terrible. you have one third of americans who are underwater in their mortgage. it used to be, you buy a house, you build wealth. one thi