democrats. our guest is fawn johnson. followed by a look of the role of money in the 2012 election. we are joined by kathy kiely. later, a discussion about tax rates and which tax cuts are expected to expire at the end of the year. lindy paul is our guest. "washington journal" host: [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> our guest is grover norquist. president of americans for tax reform. plans. our panel of journalists, steven sloan from "politico" and russell berman from "the hill." >> thank you for being here. i want to talk about your interpretation of the election and what it means for the direction of tax policy.

>> we had a split decision appeared the president won by two points. he won by 7.2 years ago against a war hero. he had 9 million fewer votes. he is a lame duck now. he said he was interested in raising taxes a year from now on anyone. his physician from four years -- position from four years ago was that they would not raise taxes on anyone. he was very clear and no taxes if you made less than $250,000. this year august 8, he started with a new framework. my plan is that i will not raise taxes on anyone who earns less than $250,000 a year.

he is only promising not to raise income taxes. this does not include energy taxes. also, heis only promising to protect income taxes for one year. nothing. raise taxes on the rich people to get you ready for everybody else picking up. the republican majority in the house was elected not for four years before the next 10. the democrats thought the republicans the party victory in -- tea party victory in they are amateurs.

they will all disappear. republicans were reelected with house majority. how would you expect? you have a much stronger house equally committed to not raising taxes. you have those two. the senate is in the middle. >> the exit polls after the election showed support for tax increases on tax earners. proposition 30.

-- in california, voters approved proposition 30. the political climate for tax increases seems different. >> another poll is today said 63% said no to higher taxes. if you look at the collection of polls, you can sometimes get a plurality of americans say why somebody else. do you believe they raise it on somebody else and they use it to pay down the debt? we think they will spend it. the same californians setup do you want to raise cigarette taxes so we can spend it on cool stuff? they said no. cigarette taxes. 8% of the population, why don't we jump them? they voted no. washington state voted to not

have a tax on millionaires. people finally look at the amount of money that jerry brown had to spend to get that initiative across the finish line. it is not a strong argument that is a popular thing. i am all in favor of california experimenting on itself. i think it is a fair to do a more of a petri dish in california, but they are having an experiment. most americans have been leaving california. people from california leave. states like maryland experimented with the millionaires' tax the other day. people were leaving. it is helpful to have the

states to give you a lesson on what happens when you decide to raise taxes on the rich. they move a. >> moving ahead to the fiscal cliff. john boehner has reiterated that the newly elected house republican majority is opposed to raising tax rates. they're willing to accept new revenue under certain conditions. what is your reaction to that? them have signed? -- could that violate the pledge that most of them assigned to? >> if we had a recovery the strength of reagan's recovery, there would be 10 million more americans at work today. if we take reagan's path of less spending and regulation, he has a million more americans at work today than obama does.

i would rather have his recovery and all the revenue that flows from that. if you grew 4% a year instead of 2%. the difference between growing from 4% instead of 2% is $5 trillion in additional revenue to the federal government. nobody is talking but raising taxes $5 trillion. why not focus to reduce rates, have lower taxes, it to get more growth. you actually net more additional revenue. >> it seems like john boehner is now willing to get that

revenue not just from the economic growth that is not scored by the congressional budget office but through eliminating loopholes and deductions in a way that is revenue positive, not neutral which is what the pledge and has to be. >> they took his willingness to have revenues from growth. they said now he has agreed to tax increases. they blow up the negotiations. they did not hear very well. what happens now? i think that obama is very focused on his reelection. i do not think he looks around the country and notices that 30 states have republican governors. he has been a tremendous asset set to the modern republican party. the guys in the senate say the

democrats say we did not lose our majority. 13 republicans survive the republican landslide. -- obama landslide and mccain collapsed in 2008. they're all in red states except for the politicians. police half of them are unlikely to come back in a good year. they cannot be as filibuster as -- full of bluster harry reid likes to think their troops are. obama will have to ask for a debt ceiling increase every month. >> i want to understand. both the gop leaders have put on the table possibility for closing loopholes.

they both described it that way. is that going to be acceptable? >> our model is the reagan model of reducing marginal rates across the board for all people and eliminating this. if he did right, you could have a lot of economic growth. president obama things you get $400 billion by raising taxes on the top 1% or 2%. he could get $48 billion by doing the buffett role. his solution is $400 billion. he is running up deficits up $6.70 trillion. the size of his solution compared to the problems are not

even in the same ballpark. that is why he is in there. he jumped to that promise. he sounds like he was not going to but when he got specific he made it clear in a year from now the middle class might target this. so no whining, all you peasants out there. >> if sometime in the next few weeks there is an agreement here that closes loopholes but does not yet lower those rates, is that violation? >> republicans would not support it. it would violate the pledge that most republicans have made to their constituents. not to me, as harry reid and mr.

biden say. there are three things that people campaign that obama made more confusing. all the people behind him and no press questions, covered as if it were a press conference. one is all the bush tax cut laps that predate bush that they let lapse every two or four years. if that happens on january 5, it did raise taxes $500 billion a year. i guess this is the $5 trillion tax cut that obama used to attack romney for supporting. obama just sit there and does not agree to anything. or we can do all we did two

years ago. again i get too worked up because the play this game of chess with the exact same people around the table with the chess board exactly the same as two years earlier. oh no. we're all going to die. we have been through this. if you do not really want to spend the rest of your administration with an economy as lousy as the one you brought us to now with no sign of making it better. this does not make the economy better. does the tax increase go up? what about the sequester?

how is delighted to see an interview with direct quotes from mitch mcconnell. he said we're not raising taxes to avoid sequester. i would rather have the sequester than lose the savings. i would rather have a differently structured sequester. we're not giving up savings. we either have the sequester or reconstruct it differently. what i think you're going to do, at the one thing he could have a compromise on, maybe the

only thing you have a real compromise is republicans like the savings for the sequestered but they do not want to come out. the democrats theoretically would like the sequesters savings but they do not want to have domestic discretionary. they would both like to in the sequestered but republicans will not do it in a way that allows spending to go higher rather than lower. you can take that all out of entitlements. you could delay certain entitlements in the future. republicans would rather take it out of a confused entitlement thing the next year's defense budget. i could see this being made to

cut discretionary in half. that would be a real compromise. both would actually get something they preferred to the status quo. we did not raise taxes. we did not not cut spending. the projected deficits were not affected. the third thing is what obama brought into the room. he did this in a way that may have destroyed his ability to negotiate on everything else. he said we agree to $1 trillion of reduced spending. no we did not. we agreed to 2.5 million. what he did in his budget he takes $2 trillion in law and

cast that as deficit reduction. he counts that as his contribution to this effort. yesterday he announced that he had taken it back off the table. he cannot legally do that, but ok. let's fix the tax question. let's fix the sequestered. i am for something big. it is called the ryan budget. >> is that in any way of life right now after the election? >> it will not pass this year. what the election really did was solidified the modern republican party as the party as the solution to the crisis at in deficits and entitlement

spending and taxes, the rise in budget. -- ryan budget. twice they could have passed this. it has been voted on twice. everyone coming back to offices either run as a supporter of ryan or vote for it. republicans swept old people. you doesn't happen until

get a different president. it is the future. >> we have about six minutes left. >> you're making the case that the republican party did not lose as badly as people are saying and the president does not have as much leverage as people are saying. what is your thought on this? it seems like you're saying the republican party is fine as it is. >> no. had we won maryland, which is what i thought was going to happen, we needed to sit down and deal differently with immigration. the whole series of projects lines is on this. the united states republican party has nominated the most pro-immigrant candid since ronald reagan. the republican party's the anti-integration party. pat buchanan ran as the anti- democrat candidates. -- anti-immigrant candidate.

they have been saying this since the germans were sneaking in in the 1700's into pennsylvania. the new guys, i do not know about these new guys. they do not get it. then one generation later they are best friends. then get together and whine about the new guys. that is understandable. what is great about the united states is more immigration, high end, every person should be brought in here with a ph.d. farm workers and unskilled workers, most of our relatives came as unskilled workers, not ph.d.s. china gets old before it gets rich. china declined in population. they're not having kids. they do not do immigration.

>> harry reid led to talk about this. something like 50-55 house republicans that signed the pledge lost this election cycle. what do you see is your influence in this town going forward? >> harry reid is not like to talk about the tax issue. even the president keeps talking about revenues, not tax increases when he clearly means rate increases. people want something they're not willing to talked-about outloud. it is easier to say that some guy in kansas wants to raise taxes but the republicans will not let us. that is not a very good campaign. i do not like grover norquist, i will debate impurities just

trying to avoid the problem he has. he is trying to raise taxes which slows economic growth. the tax issue is a very powerful issue going back to the revolution and civil war. the tax issue is important. >> the number of people who lost their bids for either election or reelection that signed the pledge,, what does it say about the political potency of the pledge and whether it will matters? >> the majority of the sitting members have taken the pledge. our republican candidates ran on the pledge and lost by two points by an incumbent. incumbents are supposed to raise their votes. reagan doubled his.

clinton doubled his. bush increased his. i was very happy with the number. not every republican not to win, but most took the pledge. to people who took the pledge and broke it either cannot run again or were defeated in the last election. we played a role in focusing on that. we do want to argue if you promise you we're not going to raise taxes and you do, i am sure people in your district is aware that he made the commitment and that you broke it. >> as taxes play a key role, if people break the pledge in the next two years, what does that mean? >> we saw what happened when people break the pledge with the senator from nebraska who

cannot even run for reelection because he cannot get his numbers up enough to run. ben chandler ran, saying he would be conservative and government as a tax increase and was defeated by a district that was made more democratic. then you have george herbert walker bush is the example of the guy that was elected and made a commitment not to raise taxes. he defeated the soviet union. he defeated iraq. and did not get stuck occupying the place for 10 years. a very successful president except for one small problem. he raised taxes and hurt the economy.

he lost the next election. i did not have to send a press release saying did you notice the president would not raise taxes and he did, people notice that. it ain't a secret. in utah they ran across the city government that raised taxes. tax increases are like certain social diseases. they stay with you forever. you cannot run for congress or senate having raised taxes. i would really encouraging people to be made and -- to behave and politicians to also be a and not pick up and s t d, tax transmits a political error that will haunt you in the future even when you have reform and are better. >> thank you very much for being here. >> we are back with an russell

berman steven sloan after talking with grover norquist. the author of the pledge that many know as the anti-tax pledge, we just heard a recipe from mr. norquist for a stalemate that is coming up. they are all putting their markers down. what are you hearing about what is going to happen over the next couple of weeks? >> it seems like there is a little bit of room on the middle on taxes. we just are talking about tax policy. the president has said he wants the wealthy to pay more. john boehner has said they will not increase tax rates on anyone. they will put revenue on the table. maybe there is a middle ground for they cannot have their rates go up.

>> you're seeing that shift in town right now of republicans talking about this in terms of the loophole closings and that kind of thing. the question is when you do that, do you do that at the end of the year as part of this fiscal cliff package? two-part to do it next year as part of the tax reform deal? that is where the rub is going to be right now. i do not think anybody has figured out when you do these revenue increases. >> we have only heard from the leaders. speaker john boehner had mixed success on getting the rank and file republicans. do we know what they're reading of the election is? same cast of characters making

these decisions. >> we will find out next week when members of both the house and senate come back to washington. it is already clear the most conservative members of the house do not see a need to move on taxes and maybe do not see a need to move on this bigger issue of revenue. if they're able to strike a deal, john boehner and the president and democratic leaders know they do not need everybody to vote for it. they just need that 218 in the house. they need 60 in the senate. there may be a lot of huffing and puffing from the most conservative and liberal members but it might not matter in the end. >> the senate minority leader was echoing some of the things we just heard about the possibility of a two year extension of the status quo to work on more fundamental tax reform. that is an outcome that i know they are kicking the can down the road with a commitment to make changes to the tax code.

is that something that may be an outcome of what is happening? >> the difference, people are looking back to 2010, the lesson we did a kick the can down the road. is that going to happen again? it is possible. it is important to figure out whether there will be instructions on tax reforms. that is the key question that will be different this time, whether you actually have instructions to move forward, that we will not just kick the can down the road but use this time to do something. >> when you talk to congressional scholars, how do they feel about the decisions of this import being made by lame-duck members? >> there is a range of opinion. the deals can get done. the deals can get done.