r takes on politics. >>science and republicans do not mix. >>now it's your turn at the only online forum with a direct line to eliot spitzer. >>join the debate now. >> eliot: with friends like these, as they say, less than a week after president obama's most high-profile surrogate former president clinton called romney's record at bain capital "sterling," clinton has veered off message again--or did he. under cutting a core part of president obama's re-election pitch, ending tax cuts for the wealthy. >> the republicans don't want to do that unless they agree to extended packets that is

permanently for upper income people. i don't have any problem extending all of it now, including the current spending levels, which are still pretty low, the government spending levels, but i think they look high because there is a recession, so the taxes look lower than they really would be if we had 2.5% or 3% growth. and spending looks higher than it would be if we had 2.5% to 3% growth because we have so many people on food stamps, unemployment medicaid. the real issue is whether or not it should be extended for another few months, the real issue is the price the republican house will put on that extension as the permanent extension of the tax cuts. which i think is an error. >> though to be clear, clinton was not endorsing the republicans' efforts to make perpetrator tax cuts for the

wealthy. nevertheless, a spokesperson for the former president was forced to issue an statement clarifying clinton's comments but it was already too late to stop republicans from pouncing. >> even bill clinton came out for it before he was against it. >> even folks on the other side of the aisle and part of the president's team, if you will are now actually comeing to the realization we got to do everything we can to start growing this economy. >> obviously president bill clinton gets it. you should not be raising taxes on anybody. >> i would make the same argument. the same argument that former president bill clinton made. >> his view that we should do a complete 180 and race away this clip and the tax relief extended by president bush. >> thanks for your time, you're

an expert for on this. make sense out of this mayhem. i don't know who is saying what. did bill clinton disagree with the white house or not? >> bill clinton took a long time to say what a lot of people on capitol hill including republicans and democrats, have been saying for some of time. it might--there is a deadline coming up january 1st. that's when the taxes go up. that's when the spending cuts kick in. there is a fairly widely sense that the smart thing to do would be to extend that deadline so congress does not have to use the six weeks between election and the end of the year to make dozens of very difficult decision abouts fiscal policy choices. so what clinton was saying is that that is a good idea. extend to march or april and buy some time but not permanently oregon a very long time extend the bush tax cuts.

he was not talking about permanent policy changes on which he agrees with the republicans. he was buying into the consensus consensus. >> eliot: on one level he was not saying let's extend these-- these--god for bid we ask congress to make a few decisions in the course of a six weeks on issues that have been discussed parsed and analyzed, but congress can't do something between november and january 1st so kick the can further down the road is the notion. >> that's correct. >> eliot: having said that the white house does not yet buy in that. the extent that bill clinton was speaking to an emerging consensus on capitol hill the white house has not conceded to this. he was a little bit under cutting the negotiating posture by saying we can buy this

intermediate position. >> there may have a been a strategic difference between what clinton was saying to what obama was saying. it's not a white house policy. if you have a real negotiating partner in republicans and you thought you could achieve a consensus deficit package with them over the course of four or five months would you be willing to extend the deadline into march or april, they would probably say yes under those circumstances we would. but they know as bill clinton said, the price that republicans are going to pay for that--or after that extension is a permanent extension of the bush tax cuts or two two-, three-, five-year extension of the tax cuts and clinton said that's correct. obama should do that. >> eliot: he did take ma statement, but he is known as someone who goes off script off

cue, they should view him as a wedge and say even clinton disagrees, and there was a cartoon who is displayed as a drone chasing down barack obama, and someone saying, please help us control this guy, what do we do. does the desirability and wisdom of cutting a deal and pushing it off in january depend to a certain extent who wins in november? somebody's negotiating position will be better after november and later. >> the parties are trying their best to position themselves to have as much leverage as they can no matter what the election outcome is. i think you're going to hear an entirely different tune from republicans if they sweep in november, as you're hearing now. the same for the democrats. the obama campaign is right to expect a lot from their high-level surrogates as clinton. he should know. he should be careful when he

talks just like any surrogate should be careful when speaking for their party. but what happened with clinton he said something that political reporters doing their jobs right should have realized was not controversial or out of step or majorly out of step with the white house or the obama campaign at all. and they sort of allowed it to get turned into this fake outrage story of the day. it never really should have turned into that. and the republicans were only able to successfully glom on to it because the media bought into it on their own. >> eliot: you understood it for what it was. you have a degree of sophistication in the way you have pars the words but on a superficial level you could create the divide between former president clinton and president obama, and that's what they took advantage of. most folks look at the white house and get frustrated with their ability to lose every negotiation they go into including congress, they have a

sense once again, there are fissures, breaks, lack of latitude and there they go. brian beutler, thank you for coming tonight, and sharing your column. >> there is a zombie apock clips. few vinedder next.

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>> this is crazy. to introduce bowling as a great summer support. >> i think a lot of people all they hear is conservative talk radio and maybe watch fox news they assume all of america is getting what i would call at least a balanced approach to understanding that there are a lot of real problems going on that obama could do better on. >> i think people are more informed from rash other talk radio, fox news, the internet blog, i think we're more informed than we've ever been. >> there are no such thing as zombies. these are sick, gruesome crimes but they did issue a state which makes one wonder. >> people, they come in all shapes and sizes, tall short fat, thin, young, and old. but it's important to remember whatever they look like, you shouldn't eat them.

[horns] >> i don't know if you can hear me. but there are still a lot of people milling around the capitol. [bullhorns] >> i'm smiling here and i'm not smiling to make you you uncomfortable, but that is democracy in action. >> i would say he's rhode scholar who knows exactly what he's doing. >> the gay green lanterns dc character. >> we would like to solve the puzzle. superman and spider woman. >> what the-- >> wonder woman, even i could read that one. where is our equal opportunity nobel prize economist joseph stiglitz comes by to say it may have disappeared. that's "viewpoint" after the break.

>> david: the american dreams seems more and more like the american pipe dream. there is less equality of opportunity in the united states than there is in europe or, indeed, any advanced industrial country for which there are data. with political power being derived more than ever by money the cycle doesn't show any sign of stopping. this is stark reality described by now guest nobel prize economist joseph stiglitz. i just like saying that. it is a pleasure to have you hear. you know, was it always like this? was there always this stark divide? this gap between those at the top and those at the bottom. >> there have been periods in our history where we've had a lot of inequality the gilded age, right before the great depression. but the years after world war ii our country grew together, and

interestingly we grew very rapidly. the dividing point is basically 1980. >> eliot: which coincides with the new president? new ideology, ronald reagan. >> exactly. since then inequality has been soaring. just to give you one number the fraction of incomes garnered by the upper 1% has doubled. it's gone from 10% to basically 20%. >> eliot: and am i right i think the data is in your book as well as the articles you've written. in the 2009-2010 recovery period, 93% of the recovery went to the top 1%. >> that's right. that shows the extremes that our economy has been moving. >> eliot: it has not been always this way. it does not have to be this way but it's a matter of choice. the specific policies that we pursue that has taken us to this place. >> market forces are global, yet those market forces have been

tamed, shaped by politics, by government that's part of the explanation why the u.s. has the most inequality of all the advanced countries and the least equality of opportunity. >> eliot: you described, and it's fascinating, three specific causal factors that lead to this yawning inequality. one you call the monopoly power. two, the broken system, and three, political connections that permit people access to a particular market and control it. we could address each of these three problems. >> very much so. we could have more competition authority. and that would dissipate our monopoly. we could have more efficient

corporate governing. one of the deficiencies in counter governing are managers are seizing a larger and larger share. >> eliot: and taking from shareholders who own the company revenues and profits, that should go back to owners but management is holding it themselves. an issue that we talk about on this show and something you've written about yourself. >> precisely. the shareholders own the company. if you have someone working for you, you would think, it's only right and proper that you decide what they got to get paid. but management has been fighting the idea that there ought to be a say of pay. not determining the pay but even having a say in pay. >> eliot: it is crazy. i want to come to one of the defenses that is raised very often, which is that a rising tide lifts all ships. therefore, this book, " "unintended consequences," in an

effort to justify the skewed income, how do you respond to that? >> i wish it were true but what is happening in the united states is that it's vivid evidence that it is not true. the front of the boat, the upper 1% has been doing very well, and that rising tides lifted all the boats people in the middle and bottom would be doing very well. but if you look at what has been happening, most americans, let me repeat, most americans today are worse over than they were a decade and a half ago. >> eliot: which explains the political anger. >> exactly. >> eliot: you play in the world of political economy. one of the reasons for the divisiveness is that those in the middle class and lowers, we're actually worse off. >> exactly. i talked about the person in the middle. if you look at more defined groups like working men what is

happening to the income of a full-time male worker? the income that he gets today is comparable, lower than it was more than 40 years ago. >> eliot: which is a shock. >> which is shocking. our economy has not been delivering for a very large fraction of our society. >> eliot: if you extend out in 30 years the trend lines of income distribution right now, what does our society begin to look like? >> we begin an increasingly divided society. some societies that you see in developing countries, emerging markets, the middle east, where you have a few people at the top liveing in gated communities isolated, living lives that are totally different from the lives of most of the other citizens. >> eliot: almost a feudal society where you have stratification that just creates

totally different civilizations that people are living. >> they don't talk to each other and living lights apart. >> eliot: the politics of the moment are troubling to me in a sense that those who are getting the shortened of the stick to use the street vernacular, they're not to their interest. how do we educate and inform? >> that's one of the things that i try to address in my book. i think one of the things that happens is that the corporate sector has learned how to sell products. they sold cigarettes. they said that there is was no evidence that--no scientific evidence that it was bad for your health. >> eliot: well, there wasn't come on. >> they were holding in their files that evidence. they knew it was gooded a excelling that idea. they knew it wasn't true but they sold it. if you can sell products like cigarettes, then you can sell

other ideas. >> eliot: this being idea, those are kernels of wisdom. joseph stiglitz, thanks so much for your time tonight. mitt romney champion of the individual mandate, really? it's in writing. my view is ahead.

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>> eliot: let's head out west to jennifer granholm. what have you got for us, governor. >> last night's election is a wake-up call to democrats and unions. we'll dive deep into the challenging dynamics of this public sector-private sector union issue. we've got the great larry cohan to pars out the issues, and then there is a question about how much difference the money made in the election in wisconsin. and a bunch more. that's at the top of the hour. >> eliot: sound great. that issue of private sector unions versus public sector unions. that's huge.

private sector unionses have been shrinking for years now. and the public sector--people are saying they don't seem to like it. it will be a great show. i'll be watching. more "viewpoint" coming up next. don't miss this week's "the gavin newsom show" with special guest: hollywood icon oliver stone. >> i'm not an activist, i'm outspoken. i'm a dramatist. >> eliot: either the individual pays or the taxpayers pays. a free ride on government is not libertarian. and there is more. an uninsured libertarian might counter that he could refuse the free care, but under the law

that is impossible and inhumane. thus spoke romney 1.0 pre- pre-etch-a-sketch. pre-desperate to appease the far-right fringe of an already far-right party. and of course, romney 1.0 was correct. for universal coverage to work individual mandate is essential. that's exactly why president obama then senator hillary clinton, the congress, newt gringrich, the heritage foundation, all agreed with then governor mitt romney's logic and supported the individual mandate mandate. romney now tries to pretend that this irrefutable logic might apply to a state but not to the federal government. that is pure rubbish. but there is something more fundamental. something that goes beyond mere flip flopping on one issue. there is a central lack of a core integrity to mitt romney. he has flopped on every issue of significance, moving at each moment wherever the political

wind might take him. this lack of constancy on every social, economic, and foreign policy issue should be an immediate disqualifier for somebody who wants to be president. above all, that job requires the fortitude to stand up and make and then explain unpopular decisions. the willingness to educate the public when tough decision is required. but think about this. mitt was keynsian before he wasn't. he was pro-choice before he was ain't choice. he was pro-same-sex marriage before he was not. he was for the individual mandate before he was against it. when someone has no core, he can't be trusted. when somebody can't be trusted he should not be president. that's my view.

>> eliot: it was just four years ago that california voters passed proposition eight, a state constitutional amendment prohibiting marriage between two people of the same sex. oh, how much can change in four years. not only do we now have a president who publicly supports same-s