ultra responsive ultrabook. a whole new class of computers powered by intel. good morning from new york. i'm chris hayes. mitt romney denies playing a role despite documents that named him chairman and chief executive until 2020. president obama is expected to hammer away. we'll have political analyst james carville to discuss the bain capital allegations later in the program. right now i'm joined by food columnist mark bittman. debby palacios, a volunteer for

the food stamp outreach in new jersey, a past food stamp recipient herself who's applied again. joel berg, author of "all cow can eat:how hungry is america." great to have you guys all here. on thursday the house agriculture committee voted to cut $16.5 billion from the program. the congressional budget office estimate 2/to 3 million people will lose their benefits. this includes almost 300,000 children who would be ineligible for the free lunch program. democratic representative james scott from georgia laid out the stakes on wednesday. >> when you look at food stamps and you think of the recipient of food stamps, you need to thenk of that child out there that's going hungry.

87% of all of the stamp beneficiaries are either children, senior citizens on fixed incomes, or single parents trying to raise their children, and our veterans. >> the farm bill links the fats of nutritional assistance programs for subsidies. in the house version that 16 ppt 5 was cut from s.n.a.p. this while they've grown at a much faster rate over the past decade than the snap program has. the farm program is a smart thing that washington does. that's usually a recipe for terrible policy and this bill is no different. joel, could we begin on the terrain here.

what would the program do for people on snap? >> the house bill has two provisions that would take food away from hungry families. we know how the school program works. making sure everyone gets school breakfast or lunch. even kids would loose school lunch because by losing their family's food eligibility, they'd lose it. it would, a, take flexibility away from governors. it would take flexibility away from governors to help people have a little more money in the bank so they can save to be nonpoor and still get food stamps. all in all, it would take $16 billion out of the budges of real people. it's not waste, fraud, and

abuse. it's working parents who will go hungry. >> debbie, you've been a beneficiary of s.n.a.p. at various moments and have just applied again and worked with folks who have tried to get it. tell me what it has meant with you in terms of getting by and going about trying to raise kids. >> when i used to receive the food stamps, my kids were younger. and to put nutritious food on the table, i needed that supplement and the help. again, my husband is out of work because he hurt himself, not because he doesn't want to work. we need that to help us, again. i have a 13-year-old that's handicapped. she needs nutritious food. i have a grandson who's 16 -- 18 months old and he lives with us with my daughter who's a single mom. and to put nutritious food on the table, we need that supplement. we need that help. >> how much of a difference does it make? how large in your family budget or income is the s.n.a.p. -- >> it makes a huge difference. it gives me the opportunity to

buy the fresh fruits and vegetables and meats that i wouldn't be able to. do i'd have to do a lot more cheaper meals and not nutritious, you know, if i didn't have that supplement. >> i want to -- there's the policy here is clear and there's these cuts. but i want to lay out this conservative argument that's been gathering steam around this program. it's grown quite a bit. the congressional budget office estimates that essentially 100% of the growth is due to the effects of the recession. states have also gotten more efficient of enrolling people. there's ways of doing automatic enrollment so people qualify for the benefit get the benefit. but there is a growing chorus on the right that this is creating a culture of dependency. it's similar to what we saw in the conversation on welfare. here's charles crouthammer making this point.

>> obama administration is going to say bad economic times, people need food. but going from $17 billion to $76 billion, come on, something's in play. what is it. >> we what we have is an ideal policy in washington which is liberal liberalism which means the success of government is how many people -- how many people it makes dependent on its administrations. they want to see this american aversion to handing out. people are too proud, i guess that's the word you would use, to take aid. >> there's an obscenity i have to say sitting here. you have someone who has lived a life where she has put food on her table for her children because of this and you have charles krauthammer mouthing off about a program which i doubt he's participated in. but there's a radical extremist

individual yicism we have seen. i remember the welfare reforms. a right wing congressman in florida referring to poor people as crocodiles and they had to be done away with. there's an an randian swift policy here. i think we're at a moment where one could see an expansion of possibility for low income people with the health care bill, with the expansion of medicaid. and if one supported through anti-hunger advocates, food advocates, a robust food policy or we're on the cusp of a rollback where we see a repeal of health care, saying no to medicaid, funds which help low income people in their states, cuts to food stamps, cuts to pell grants, cuts, cuts, cuts, for the sake of what? the additional $10.64 million

subsidy for the corporate jet? these are priorities which the country has promised at different times to fulfill a promise to those who need help in bad times. >> i've just got to say, the very conservatives that sunk or economic ship now want to take away the life preservers from the drowning. >> right. >> food starps are a life preserver. the only reason we don't have massive starvation today like they do in north korea or somalia or haiti is because the food starps program works. by the way, most of numbers they cited happened under president bush. let's not forget the race bat baiting. for the last 40 years people who have opposed struggling low income families getting help from the government, a doll lup. today the majority of people poor, the majority of people

hungry, the majority of people on food stamps, s.n.a.p., the majority of people on welfare have been and are always going to be in the future white. >> i do. i see wall street executives that have gotten laid off coming to apply. their pride, you know, it's hard for them to walk in. i celek trishians -- >> you're talking about people applying for s.n.a.p. >> yes, they're applying for the s.n.a.p. they come in -- you know, they have -- all their pride is gone because they don't want to ask for assistance, but they need it to feed their children. they have four or five children, three children, two children, they have a new baby. they need the help. and if it's not there, i can't even imagine what would happen. >> how hard is it to apply? you help them. don't they have to take a pile of paperwork that's bigger than paying their income taxes? >> yes, absolutely. >> and they pay their income taxes. and they have to show you. >> if they're self-employed that

i do. >> funny thing. >> it's a long process. they say it's four to six months to actually get it. i see families that need help now. not four to six months later. they need it now. >> i think it's worth noting that we're not talking about a couple million people here. we're talking about 45 million people, which is one in six, one in seven americans. really a big, big minority of people. and to say that, you know, that chunk of america is looking for handouts or bums not looking for works is really cynical and insulting. >> but it also -- >> a lot of children. >> a lot of kids. the other thing about this that drives me crazy, yeah, you know, we have seen a massive increase in poverty because we've seen a massive decline in income and huge growth in unemployment. i mean i would be perfectly happy if we all got together for policy that put people back to work. but if we're not going do, that right -- >> it's the same people who were scorning food stamps who think that unemployment isn't a problem. >> right, right.

that's part of the problem, you know. it's this -- if someone said to me here's the deal on the table, you know, with oar going to cut food starps but we're really going to juice up direct hiring -- >> where's the full employment idea? >> that's the point. they're not using this money saved to pay for deficit reduction. they're using it to pay for more corporate aggregate business welfare. >> we're going to talk about the crops subsidies. we're going to take a quick break before that. [ female announcer ] with swiffer wet

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i want to bring in seth bixby daugherty. he's also been a food stamp recipient to feed a family after a serious skiing accident left him unable to work in 1997. seth, it's great to have you on.

can you tell us how you came to know the s.n.a.p. program then called food stamps personally and how that kind of changed your perspective on this? >> well, in 1997 i was in a horrendous skiing accident and broke both of my legs and both of my ankles and was in a wheelchair almost for about eight months, and, you know, at that point i couldn't work. my daughter was 1 year old. basically put my wife and my family in a position where we needed federal assistance. >> and how did that change your perspective? did you have prekon received ideas before and afterward obviously you committed yours to dealing with hunger. >> up to that point i never had any issues. it never affected me. truthfully i never thought about it because i wasn't impacted by it. what it does is speaks volumes of the fact you can go from a normal human being to being so close to bankruptcy and needing that help from federal

assistance in the blink of an eye. and if it can happen to me, it really can happen to anybody. >> one of the other arguments, there's this independency argument and the other is there's a lot of fraud in it. it's reminiscent of welfare, welfare queen of ronald reagan. the strapping young buck who bought a t-bone steak. here's rand paul. >> recently a woman faked the birth of triplets to receive $21,000 in food stamps. we need to remember that millionaires including larry fix who won $2 million are receiving food stamps because he says he's got no income. so we're paying millionaires. >> of the 45 million people on food stamps, how many would you say are millionaires, joel? >> one. look. according to usda -- and this

has not been contradicted by even their inspector general who was appointed by president bush. 1%, 1% of food stamp benefits are illegally trafficked. 2% of members of the u.s. house of representatives have been found guilty of crime. so twice as much crime in the house of representatives as there is in the food stamps. >> it's a double standard. those who truly feel entitled and have gained the system are sort of let off the hook, but it is the case that in this, though, it reminds me of the voting fraud fraud where they pick, you know, this massive phenomenon when, in fact, the bush justice department found 87 over ten years of voter incidences of fraud. what's also been lost is the degradation of our horticulturing. i went back to 1974. he talk about i want to help the poor and the hungry and not

sacrifice them to coca-cola. lyndon johnson giving a war on poverty speech to 80,000 sharing people. underlying this is the cumulative impact on the tax of government as an affirmative force providing security for those who in bad times can not provide security for themselves and their families. and i think these are ongoing debates and disputes that people like rand paul don't really, you know, provide much high fodder for or cheapness. >> you've been around the program and you've gotten people enrolled in it. you've used it yourself. have you seen -- what is your anecdotal experience of neend fraud? >> i don't see fraud. i see people that really need it. i mean there's people out there that they have to put the food on the table. and it's the only way they can do it sometimes because they have such high bills. rent is expensive, you know. all utilities are expensive. that's what they count. rent, you know, utilities. it's just -- it's just crazy.

they're not making money. it's not coming in. and they just need the help. >> i must say the republicans are taking the lead in slashing these benefits, but the democratic party too often has been soulless and spineless of late. the democratic-controlled senate did cut $4.5 billion out of the program. they implied sort of that it was fraud or waste. it's taking real food away from real people. we have a member of what we call our food action board where we organize low income people to fight for their own future. miss sanchez, she's going to lose $100 a month, a third of her food benefits to feed her and her children because the senate and the house have agreed that more corporate welfare is more important than the economic development of the anti-help and hunger that food starps provide. >> chef seth, i think there's a certain seth over the population that hears about this debate and watches it and thinks it's hard-pressed to figure that

people in america hunger in 2012, that it's a real problem for millions of americans. how -- you work with folks who are both -- you do outreach to folks that are maybe not hungry and work with folks who are hungry, and how do you explain the fact that this is happening in america in 2012? >> well, it is because, you know, first of all, we have to remember that, you know, half of all these participants are children. it's surely not the children that are working the system, you know? i mean the 1% that is taking advantage of the situation, they're not the kids. we really have to remember that half of these participants are children, so i'm working with the -- with others running these cooking matters classes in inner cities, really teaching children's and family how to work, shop, cook, and eat on a budget. you know, i -- the last class i taught was at a homeless teen

shelter. they're surely not the ones taking advantage of the situation. for people out there to say it's not happening, they're just detached from what's really going on in our country. >> i think -- excuse me. >> it's great stuff, by the way, from seth. >> you're referring to his tie dye chef outfit. >> i tie dyed it myself. >> i believe that. nice work. >> this is the jacket i wear when i teach the cook matters classes because i think it really bridges the gap, lets them understand i am a real human being. i had been where i didn't know where my next meal was coming from and it really helps to make me a linch k to them. >> you must -- doing this show twice a week, it so often comes down to the same thing. it's a discussion of whether you believe the government's role is to actually help society do well, do better, help people do better, help people who need

help or to pretend that you want government to back off and do nothing while really in the back door helping your friends and buddies. you see these things like this rand paul thing. your mind just wants to explode. >> i'm glad you made that point. this is about the role of government. the great thing about the farm bill, it exposes that a lot. the farm bill is not, oh, should the market -- the government is not -- it's who are we going to help and where's that money going to go. i want to talk about that. i also want to talk about a proposal that a number of states have been offering about restricting what you can purchase through the stamp program. thing that's a really interesting issue. i'd like to get your take on it right after this we take this break. ♪

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essentially they use a debit card and it's credited on the account and folks can use it to purchase things at the greasery stores and there's been efforts in a number of states to restregt whr restrict what can be purchase and what kinds of foods can be purchased. the latest comes from the latest rhonda storms. this is her proposing it on the floor of the senate. >> i really don't think that it's fair that if you're poor, your kid can't have a birthday cake, he can't have a cupcake with a candle on it, he can't have a candy cane for christmas. >> you can buy flour, eggs, sugar, milk, voila, you mix it all together, and, boom, you have, guess what, a cake. >> they would actually use the guidelines that are already in place for the wyc program.

what do you think about the government restricting what you can or cannot purchase? >> i think it's a good idea. it should be good nutritious food. the problem is a lot of people don't know how to make these meals or they don't have the capabilities some of them even because they don't have the electric on, you know, to use a stove. so -- but i do believe that it would benefit people to be restricted on what they could buy and should buy. >> you don't think -- that's interesting. you say you don't feel like that that's big brother or that's restricting your freedom and your choice. >> no. because it's supposed to be there to supplement. it's like the wyc program. they give you -- they tell you exactly what you're allowed to buy, you know. i think even they're trying to ban sodas from schools. so if the government is trying

to help us with the food supplements, i believe that it should be used for the right foods for your children because that's what you're there for. you want to put nutritious meals on the table. >> do you think that's a widely held view among those who receive -- >> no. i think -- >> i know it's not. look, people receive food stamps. they're very diverse. but i think your job -- your job of trying to convince people that it's okay to get this program is going to be harder. if you send the message it's okay for us to eat this food on this table, which may not -- by the way, this is supported by our tax dollars. farm subsidies went into this. these were transported over government roads. >> right. >> the truth of the matter is they're to eat healthily. 8 80% of low income people cook at home at least four time as week. the top food purchased on the program is a banana.

you had great recipe recently for a coconut cake. i think soda should be a sometime food like your coconut cake with lots of cream and sugar should be a sometime food and think low income people should have more food stamp allotments so they can afford to buy healthier food, not have their diets micromanaged by uncle sam. >> wait. you wrote about ronda storms -- >> joel and i largely agree on this. >> oh, come on. that's disappointing. >> we largely agree that the food stamp program should be supported. of course, we do disagree on whether food stamps should be limited in what they can buy. you know, i see -- i think so it is really the prime example, and i do see it -- in a way, if you're -- if you're allowing people with food stamps to buy soda and, you know as well as i do that the food stamp spending is not transparent. we don't know exactly where this money is going, we don't know what kind of food is being

bought in general, every time you're buying soda, you're subsidizing big food with food stamps and you're increasing our health care issues. so you're increasing our health care problems. >> right. >> so, yes, it's limiting, but there are already limits to food starps. >> aren't there also serious issues in communities where you don't have access to low cheese or low cost healthy foods. i mean the zoning of -- >> please. then i want to get chef seth to wait on it. >> the thing that we probably all agree on is there are ways in which food stamps are being expanded right now, and that includes things like healthy dollars or whatever it's called, these things where -- >> health bucks. >> health bucks, right, where cities and states are increasing value of food stamps that are used at farmers' markets. so it's expanding the ability of food stamps.

if you spend a dollar or get $2 or a dollar or whaer. you're expanding it. >> so the credit is -- so there's more credit. you can get a bigger bang for your buck. chef seth, i want you to give us your thought on these efforts to restrict what folks are buying with the stamp program right after we take a quick break. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 let's talk about fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 there are atm fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 account service fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and the most dreaded fees of all, hidden fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 at charles schwab, you won't pay fees on top of fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 no monthly account service fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 no hidden fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and we rebate every atm fee. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 so talk to chuck

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chef seth, i asked you before the break what you thought on the interesting purchases with people of s.n.a.p. >> i struggle with that. people who try to make these decisions and tell people who are struggling with hunger what they should do, they probably have never felt that force of hunger themselves, you know, and they might be having lobster and steak for dinner and they're telling someone who's struggling what to buy. think any food is better than no food and obviously i want people to eat healthy food. and so the key component to this

issue is education. you know, so if you have money and you don't know how to cook/shop, then it really makes it difficult to make good decisions based around hunger. that's why i think these cooking matters classes that i help teach that share strength help started, the s.n.a.p. program funds these programs is so important because it really gives these people the knowledge of food and cooking, and it's something that -- it's a life skill that in our culture has been taken away, and it's a shame. >> and your program is funded by s.n.a.p. and would be cut under the house bill if i'm not mistaken. >> yes, yes. i personally feel i have this tremendous great gift of cooking, the most urging persistent question i ask myself every day is how do i take this gift to help other people. it would be a real shame to have that gift taken away from me by taking away these funds. >> how grossly unproductive. here's a program on so many levels that's doing good.

>> e with all have a certain gift in our life to help and given back to people. mine happens to be cooking and i do everything in my power to try to use that gift. >> also tie dyeing. >> it's almost a back-door stimulus effect. >> that's all stimulus of money. >> almost all government spending. >> particularly food stamps because food is still grown, processed, shipped, warehoused, manufactured in america creating american jobs. one other point. the same things we do to fight hunger are exactly what we do to beat obesity. they have a program where we bring fresh produce from regional farms into low income neighborhoods. we subcy died it. we have waving lists at both sites. if you make it affordable, visible and available, low

income will keep it. we need to increase their purchasing power for increasing food. >> chef. >> the hunger and obesity issue is one in the same. it's a great point. it's the education piece. it ties right back to what i was saying. you know, we have to be able to give the people of america the gift of knowing how to shop and cook. >> but i mean people are working hard. i mean i -- you know, i'm an incredibly privileged lucky person right now in my life and i find myself like taking a lot of shortcuts in that respect and i have it better than a lot of, a lot of, a lot of folks who have are working their butts off and have three or four kids. if that's what they need to do, that's a tough uphill battle. >> i think the cooking -- cooking, too, i think it's really important. it answers, addresses a lot of issues. i do want to say one thing about what seth said to get back to

this -- to how food stamps can and should be used. i agree that any food is better than no food, but soda is not food and that's why it should be restricted from food stamps being used to buy it. it isn't food. it's bad. i hate to be black and white. >> and in new york state applied for a waiver that -- >> sugar soda, not diet soda, which could be worse for you. >> this is kind of a prelit call conversation in a sense because we're not taking into account the enormous lobbies behind the soda industry and we're going to talk about the agro business. if you had a lock lobby, anti-hunger lobby, you'd see something different. they're not treated with respect on capitol hill as you describe. they don't have a pact.

>> ronda storms said she had coca-cola in her office the next day. they have fought strenuously and lobbied against any attempt to restrict food purchases. we're going to talk about big food and big agriculture. chef seth bixby daugherty of share our strength, thanks for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> debbie palacios, thank you for coming. >> thank you for having me. >> on the other side of the farm bill, bic subsidies for big agriculture. axing vacation. ♪ agriculture. subsidies for big agriculture. maybe do a little sightseeing. or, get some fresh air. but this summer, we used our thank youpoints to just hang out with a few friends in london. [ male announcer ] the citi thankyou visa card. redeem the points you've earned to travel with no restrictions. rewarding you, every step of the way.

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direct cash payments could have prevented the food stamp cuts that we have talked about. instead, however, the house committee agreed to funnel 70% of those savings from directing them to food cash payments. they pay farms. agricultures chairman frank lucas author of the house farm bill defended using the savings to subsidize farms. >> it is to make a living as a farmer. i usually check the weather every day, usually multiple times a day because i know at a moment's notice a dream crop can turn into a disaster. >> joining us now at the table is l. joy williams, founder of ljw political counseling firm and co-host of the political radio show. glad to have you here. >> thank you. >> the farm bill to me exposes this fundamental misperception

about our politics. when we're in an election season, what happens is this. it's particularly true from conservatives. they want to make the election and every employ call conversation about first principles, about ideology, about vision. we believe in freedom, less government. you want more government. and i think sometimes liberals get suckered into having this very ideological battle, right? we have to defend. if you look at what congress does, if you look at government under george bush and republican congress, congress as a gdp grew. there is no evidence that republicans under the government will shrink. it's a question of what they will do and who will benefit. the farm bill is a perfect example. here you have the house republicans on the same day, on the same day that they vote to repeal the affordable care act are coming up with new price support programs which sounds, frankly, soviet and subcy dieded crop insurance for farmers that are -- when we say farmers, largely massive agricultural

interests and industrial farms. all those ideology somehow just disappears into the either when the actually government is working. i think it's important for people to look, stair into the gape i gapi gaping mall. it is not a battle between some ideology of less government and some ideology of more government. end of rant it's a prime example of pay attention to what i'm doing here, this magic trick here, and not what i'm doing, you know, over here, you know. and so it's the -- the -- they're trying to get the american people to follow what i'm saying, what, you know, i want you to believe as opposed to what i'm doing. and most americans aren't going to read the text of a farm bill. they're not going to read the text of the affordable care. they're believing the sound bites and what happens on news and what they read as opposed to looking and they don't have time, you know, to look through a farm bill and see this is contradictory to what they are telling you. >> and the farm bill is a

perfect example of the kind of legislation that a small group of people pay very intensely -- >> if you stair -- >> you can't understand. you can't possibly parse it. >> if you stare into the gaping mau of the farm bill, even those who attack it have accepted it. it wasn't the case with roosevelt. that was -- the big debate about the role of government was still to come, even with johnson. but this is an intensely fought over battle partly not be reductionist because you've got a lot of money going on. the campaign spending and the money the bo made and the agrow business. i want to bring in george naylor. i gave a paid speech to them back in 2010 prior to coming on

full time here at msnbc. george, it's wonderful to have you. what do you think of this farm bill. >> i tell you this farm bill is one in a long series since the early '50s that were aim at destroying the new deal. if it's discussed as welfare, nobody will understand what the original farm bills in the new deal were really all about. >> explain the difference and explain why the current way that we conceive of farm support doesn't work. >> well, you see, as you were talking about food stamps, we're not going to eliminate poverty with food stamps. if people were given a minimum wage that was a living wage and people were guaranteed a decent job, you wouldn't have to have -- you wouldn't have to have food stamps, and the same way with farm programs. if farmers were guaranteed an actual price in the marketplace, minimum price, a good price, and

were given the tools to control supply so that the big corporations that buy our products would have to pay at that kind of price, you wouldn't have to have subsidy payments. >> but isn't -- but don't we -- don't we have price -- i mean my understanding is there are price supports for a variety of the big five commodities. >> no, there have not -- you're confusing the term "price support" with "income support." >> right. >> income support is like a welfare payment, a subsidy payment, where, in fact, what the new original -- the new deal farm programs did was guarantee farmers a fair price just like a minimum or a living wage would guarantee a fair wage. >> right. so that's a key distinction here, right? >> right. >> as opposed to saying you could sell a bushel of wheat for "x" price and guaranteeing that price. our support system says if it's less than $4, if it's selling

for $3 in the open market, we, the government pay you the dollar different, right? that's the way income support works, right? >> that's an income support when the government pays me from the treasury. this is not about -- it should not be an issue about the federal government. it has nothing do with the federal budget. what we have is another program in a long line of programs since the early '50s. it produces cheap processed food, cheap meat, milk, and eggs, and so that there is no actual wise use of our land. >> so let's talk about that and talk about what is in the bill and who's backing it and who is benefiting right after we take a break. [ female announcer ] with swiffer dusters,

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george naylor, farmer in iowa, on the line with us here. george, one of the really preverse aspects of the way that these subsidies are structured

is that they -- the bigger the enterprise, the more money it gets from the federal government. so here's an example of how this works. we have a graphic here that shows under the last subsidy regime. if you're -- if the household income is above $200,000, your average in subsidies is $30,000. the people who get the least amount of help are those making least amount of money. is there anything in what's being done now with the end of direct payments switching to this crop insurance model that's going to change the way the distribution of benefits works such that big interests get the biggest payments. >> well, i'm not sure there are going to be any big benefits from this farm program. i think this basically farmers are going to be on the free market. this farm bill's not going to let the whole farm economy crash even if it's a crazying a gri business farm economy, so

whatever you're projelkting there is intended to make sure the system works. it isn't intended to make big farmers or small farmers or any other kind of farmer stay in business. it's just intended to make the system perpetuate cheap food, cheap corn, cheap soybeans so they can keep feeding animals in inhumane feed lots, corporate feed lots and bring our food from allover the world and thousands of miles away and have everybody keep looking at this issue of welfare when, in fact, we should be asking what's happening to the commons, what's happening to the farmland. you come out here to iowa, you will see nothing but mono crop, corn, soybeans, soil erosion that you wouldability believe and more and more use of pesticides because if you're only going to raise two crops over and over again, you're going to have incredible problems with pests some of this program doesn't -- this farm bill nor any of the farm bills

since 1953 have addressed any of these issues. and we have -- you have to understand we have a congress of the 1%. so don't expect anything to address any of these issues. this is a bipartisan policy on behalf of corporate agribusiness. >> mark, this is something you've written about a lot. >> hear, hear. i spent a week in iowa last year. and the mono culture is the thing that's killing us and the thing that's being most heavily subsidized. >> could i interject there? >> please, please. >> that's an error to think that farmers raise corn and soybeans to subsidize. there's no other crop i can think of that i can think of to raise to compete with corn and soybeans just because if i was to raise fruits and vegetables, i would have to have a big labor force of immigrant labor. i couldn't raise enough fruits

and vegetables by myself, no way. and the market is geared to getting fruits and vegetables from giant farms in california, texas, florida, and now mexico and china. >> so wait. you're saying -- i want to be clear here. the reliance on monocultures and raising vast tracks of what can be sold in commodity markets, you're saying that's going to happen bufs the farm bill or not. that's not just because of the behavior being distorted by whatever subsidies are there. >> yes. the real sound alternative to raising corn and soybeans would be to have hay, pasture, and small grains in a crop rotation where the livestock are being raised on family farms instead of great big inhumane giant factory farms, big feedlots, now owned and controlled by the very big packing companies that are putting lousy meet and unsafe

meat on the market. >> george naylor, corn and soybean farmer from iowa. we're going to have you back and follow it all the way through its trajectory in its florida vote. thanks so much. we'll have you bake. >> thank you very much. the one and only james carville will be with us when we come back. ♪ ♪ i want to go ♪ i want to win [ breathes deeply ] ♪ this is where the dream begins ♪ ♪ i want to grow ♪ i want to try ♪ i can almost touch the sky [ male announcer ] even the planet has an olympic dream. dow is proud to support that dream by helping provide greener, more sustainable solutions from the olympic village to the stadium. solutionism. the new optimism.™ ♪ this dream

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good morning from new york. i'm chris hayes. here with "food matters" katrina vanden heuvel. and joining us is james carville. co-author of "it's the middle class stupid!" if you want to know how bad things got for mitt romney, last night he decided to give interviews to abc, cbs, nbc, and fox news. it came from news about his

departure from bain capital. in previous days we saw document after document emerge where it showed mitt romney remained at bain capital beyond 2002 rather than february. plus, democrats hammered romney all week over his failure to lease more atlanta just two years of tax returns. and despite even some republican leaders suggesting that he needs to release more, including a "wall street journal" editorial page editor on that program last week, romney last night announced he has decided that unlike previous presidential candidates of the last few decades, he will release only the two years of returns. >> i've already put out one year of tax returns. we'll put out the next year of tax returns as soon as the accountants have that ready, and that's what we're going to put out. i know there will always be calls for more. people always want to get more, and, you know, we're putting out what is required plus more that is not required. those are the two years that people are going to have.

that's all that's necessary for people to understand something about my finances. >> mitt romney playing defense on taxes, bain capital outsourcing, and his bank accounts. republicans are urging him to fight back and please his supporters. in old romney quotation, if you're responding, you're losing. while he plans to spend the weekend in new hampshire with his family, president obama will continue to hammer romney on exactly on when he left bain capital. james, not at a good week for the romney campaign. >> no, it wasn't, but let me tell you something. john mccain saw 23 years of those tax returns and it forced him to pick sarah palin so, maybe we don't want to look at it. >> he was quoted in 2008. the arizona republic asked for it and he said because i'm a pack rat, i happen to have them. we know they're sitting somewhere. is he going to get away with it?

that's my big question. >> the other point is the single most disingenuous ad was run by mitt romney at the beginning of the campaign. you'll remember this. he said if this election is about the economy, we lose. what he actually said in 2008 -- john mccain -- he said john mccain said if this is about the economy, we lose. take that out. then the romney people bragged that it showed how tough they were that they were willing to tell a lie, we're willing to get away with it and there's nothing you can do about it. >> i liked it. i think it was kevin phillips, the political strategist who said the republicans go for the jugular, the democrats go for the cap lairs. we're seeing the democrats go for the jugular and ferociously early to find. >> speaking of the jugular, can i play this? this is definitely -- i think this counts as a jugular. this was an ad that just was released today by the obama campaign. check it out.

♪ o beautiful for spatial skies "first look" for ever waves of grain snoetsz for purple mountains majesty above the fruited plain ♪ ♪ america america god shed his grace on thee ♪ ♪ and crown thy good with brotherhood ♪ >> so there's that. what do you think of that? you like it? >> yeah, i love it. i do. the thing is finally we're getting in early, you know, and letting, you know, setting this sort of thing. ai i agree. the reason it's working is it's by and large true. >> by and large is great modifier in politics. >> you could argue -- he was some part of bain between '99 and 2002, all right?

i'm just saying. >> why does it matter? if i have that question, others do. >> no. it's great question. >> we talked about this before. it doesn't matter by itself that he won't lease tax returns. it matters to us. it doesn't matter to voters. that combined with was he -- did he have a hand or not in bane when they were outsourcing, it goes to his credibility on if he's lying or if he can be trusted, you know, all of those things. when you put that with the ad today where he's lying to you or cheating or doing something, that's what matters to voters. >> if i could be an annoying buzz kill liberal, i'm not citing this to lead with. this is why i don't run campaigns, but -- >> let's do something first. let's put the united states first.

>>, no, i don't think it's a good idea. >> but wait. let me answer mark's question because i thing this is actually what's bizarre about the core of this. okay. bain capital runs a -- purchases a called gst steel. that's in kansas, okay? >> right. >> they end up closing down that factory and shipping most of the jobs, i believe, to china around 2001, 2002, okay? >> ah. >> the obama campaign releases an ad hitting mitt romney for that and the romney response is i had nothing -- you can't hit me for gst steel because i left bain in 1999. so then we get the disclosure forms that he signed with the s.e.c. saying he was the sole shareholder and executive officer of bain capital in 2000 and 2001. these are filed with the government. he said, yes, i was, but in name only. but the whole point -- what's bizarre about this is they seem to be going through a lot of work and bending overbackward to avoid being associated with this one instance, which is gst steel, which was the subject of

one ad, which the thicks that bain was doing before 199 -- >> the whole nature of bain was about investing in companies that offshored jobs, and i think that -- let me be even more of an -- i don't know, a gadfly. let's be honest. over the last 30, 40 years, the wages of the middle class workers in this country have stagnated. structural reasons. >> i'm surprised i'm not wearing a t-shirt. >> this is a moment where we can reset the priorities of the bipartisan class that has witness trade agreements that have contributed to moving jobs offshore. now, private equity is the ugliest embodiyn't of that and mitt romney is the emblem of that. but let's take a moment to reset the priorities of this country. not america first necessarily, but let's build a secure middle class and workers and workers' rights and living wages. >> no, no.

it's worse than that. romney put bain at issue. he said the rationale -- the entire ration yail. >> he couldn't talk about being the governor of massachusetts. he never speaks of that. that never happened. >> it's like some terrible dream. >> he deleted it from his facebook page. >> the reason he wants to be president is he was this successful ceo that created these hundred thousand jobs. people said, wait a minute. you want to talk about the job use created, let's talk about the whole picture. mitt romney who doesn't gamble wants to play the slot machine but he doesn't want to count. then he says it is unfair to question me on the very centrality of my ration ale for president and then he wines about it. that's the fact. it's no that we went out and picked up some ancillary thing.

>> it's the heart of who he is. >> the in fact he's demanding an apology is really pathetic, right? >> chef, this is the whole root, the whole thing. you burn your issue, you're done. >> here's the romney campaign ad defending the bane record, basically hitting the obama campaign for not telling the truth and then he had this apology request he had in his interviews last night. take a look. >> when a president doesn't tell the truth, how can we trust him to lead? the obama outsourcing attacks, misleading, unfair, and untrue. there's no evidence that mitt romney shipped jobs overseas. candidate robama lied about hillary clinton. obama's dishonest campaign, another reason america has lost confidence in barack obama sneer's what i saw, some conservatives on twitter that were saying this is so lame. that's what democrats do. democrats whiep and ask for

apologies. what the heck is going on. do you think the sort of apology gambit is worth anything? >> well, it's not worth very much because everybody believes that mitt romney shipped jobs overseas for the simple reason, that, well, mitt romney shipped jobs overseas. culturally the obama campaign is coming across the republicans' eye and they don't like that. they're used to like going around and kicking people and getting a u way with it. now they're getting kick. now i've got go back to what i said. the single most injennous fraudulent ad -- >> that's really saying a lot. >> well, look at it. look at it. i mean the ad was -- >> can i ask you a question? are there any boundaries? as someone who has made ads, been a strategist for a number of years and a very successful one, is it all is fair in politics? when you say it's disingenuous, does it matter at all? >> i think it does, but you have to be immediate in your response and you have to be brutal in your response. i mean as soon as you're hit,

you have to hit right back and you have to hit very hard as to what they're doing. but if you let the thing go as they did for two or three weeks when all the republicans were saying, hey, you continue 'do this because the democrats would go, oh -- when dukakis ran, oh, no one would ever believe that. oh, yeah, they would. john kerry, what was wrong with the guy going out and saying -- >> could i just say i hate -- part of what's going to define this election in addition to voter impression and super pac money is the media and this false equivalence. you're seeing a little bit of obama's swift voting mitt romney. no, he's not. this idea of -- those were made up concocted lies. this is a fundamental part of mitt romney's life, bain capital. defined him. as you were saying, this is what he's running on. >> this is what he's running on. >> the other thing is the tax returns. the tax rushes, thing, if he doesn't leas

doesn't release those, that's not going away. if he releases them, it's a field day never seen before before by opposition researchers. >> joy. >> let's fast forward this to october when you'll have mitt romney and president obama on the same room on the same stage in a debate, right? talk about the democrats sort offlipping it and being republicans. if president obama goes directly before mitt romney on these issues on the stage in front of people in a debate, that changes as well. usually ielt is the democrats who obviously don't go that strong in the debate. but obama going strong after mitt romney in a debate in october, a month before the elections, it will come up again. >> yeah. there's also the idea of a division of labor in terms of negative attacks. let's remember swift voters for truth, it was run independently. the willie horton was run independently. ed rendell said something pretty

provocative on our air yesterday about this possibly hurting the president's brand. i want to play that and get your reaction right after this. won't need... ♪ hajimemashite. hajimemashite. hajimemashite. you guys like football ? thank you so much. i'm stoked. you stoked ? totally. ... and he says, "under the mattress." souse le matelas. ( 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. mine hurt more! mine stopped hurting faster... [ female announcer ] neosporin® plus pain relief starts relieving pain faster and kills more types of infectious bacteria. neosporin® plus pain relief. for a two dollar coupon, visit neosporin.com. neosporin® plus pain relief. this is new york state. we built the first railway, the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state.

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>> i think he also made a very good point about all this attack may be hurting the president's brand a little bit too. like i think our supporters went a little bit too far with the felony business. >> former pennsylvania governor ed rendell on alex wagner's program yesterday talking about stephanie cutter who's a spokesperson for the obama campaign had implied or suggested that if, in fact, he was lying on forms that would be a felony. thank articulation is something i feel you see democrats do a lot. what do you think about that. >> look. i don't know. better if stephanie would have said if in a court of law, you know, after due process and protection of law and the o

appeals have run its course -- >> that would be a typical democratic -- >> no. maybe if she would have said it differently, it would have been better. who cares. in the steam of things, it isn't too much. >> i have more of a problem now. everyone has moved so i'm not sure what they said when they said it. president clinton and cory booker and one or two other, cory booker said the attacks on bain were nauseating and he compared it to the video. i think these attacks on bain are fully a part of the debate about what kind of country we're going to be, capitalism -- >> i completely agree but i was fascinated by the moment. it's very clear the bain attacks, they're seeing and polling and focus grouping that they're effective, that they're effective particularly in swing state states, in places that have gone through the industrialization and have been hit hard on the manufacturing side. at the same time, it's not like

a republican business private equity, let me tell you. private equity -- there's a ton of democrats. george stephanopoulos went -- >> peter orszag. >> tons of people. my question is would the democratic donor class tolerate this? you know those folks. what are they saying? you know, are they calling up the white house and saying i now feel i have to defend my industry? that some. but some understand that that happens. and, again, mitt romney never -- i go back to the central point. he put this whole thing at issue. he was the one that said the whole run he was running was over bain. when you run for president, thaerg you do gets questioned. when we ran in '92, remember, we were rubbing drugs out of the airport, for god's sake. >> i had forgotten that one. that was a big thing. >> "the wall street journal" for a year said we killed -- come

on, you can't be surprised that if you run for president and you put something at the center of the it, researchers are going to come in and say, wait a minute, there's another story to tell here. what are we talking about? this is the most legitimate thing that's going on in the campaign. >> but you think -- whether it's -- my point more is whether it's legitimate or not, they're going to hammer on this. at the same time, let's remember. they're going to hammer on this mr. 1% that's got offshore tax accounts, paid 13% uncarried interest, offshored jobs. at the same time the president is going to have to go to fundraiser after fund-raiser after fund-raiser with people who have offshore klts, mr. 1%. offshore jobs and worked in private equity and how is that sustainable? >> he's eehe's going to shake d say i hear you and go to the cell phone and say double or buy. they went to the hamptons party.

that was out of the onion. >> that was not out of the onion. that was like jonathan swift. here's a question. why in 2012 when a candidate who is the emblem of private equity, some of that is what you're talking about because, of course, the structural issues in this country but it is a fact in the 1970s, the democratic party became linked into this money-raising system where you got private equity givers and that's what this party needs to break through if they're going to be smart. >> i think the conversation is different. it's not just a talk about mitt romney being wealthy. everybody knows they're wealthy. most voters know even the elected official in their state is more wealthy than they are. they know that already. the question is the narrative that mitt romney brings in saying are you a cheat, you

know, are you using -- you know, are you paying your fair share of taxes. that's the conversation, not about them being wealthy per se but what benefits they say for not playing by the rules like i have to as a middle class or a working person. >> to me what's so fascinating about the tax returns we receive and what is in those tax returns, when you're operating at that level of income, that's a whole other universe. for america to look into what that mean, what a tax return on that kind of income looks like is just alienating. >> there's a lot of like really great americans in private equity. it's a thing. it is a legal entity. it does things. >> it does things sniet does things. it does good things. it does bad things. when you run for president and you put it at the centrality of what you are, then you're going to be questioned about it. that's -- >> and your book talks about the agency of change, the twilight

of the elites, the radicalized of the upper middle class. i would argue that you need those in the staemt like a pete peterson. i've sent him an e-mail a few weeks ago and say, hey, where do you stand on carried interest? you need people in private equity to start fighting for the loopholes, to be part of the 100%. >> quickly, carried interest is essentially investment income declared as investment rather than wages. so it's 15% rather than what you would pay at the top marginal rate. that's your tax nerdiness. more on this topic when we come back. [ female announcer ] when skin meets goddess... romance happens. confidence happens. ♪ when skin meets goddess, anything can happen. introducing venus & olay, a match made in skin heaven. olay moisture bars release skin conditioners to help lock in moisture and boost your shave. while five blades get venus close.

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just an extended audition to get one of those shows like "the voice." i do a really good chair turn. >> nice. >> so this is what's happening.

we receive this play out before. a candidate has a bad week, okay? and you see -- start to see the panic button, the freakout from the folks on that candidate's side. so here's "the new york times'" conservatives push for romney to deliver a counterpunch which is the classic "people are freaking out "articles. team ab is doing just what we did in 2004, which is to define the opposition furiously and early -- most voters don't have a deep sense of romney other than he's not obama. and in this cycle, that may be enoughing but it's a very risky approach. that's mark mckinnon, former. this is james offering some thoughts on what the president should be doing. >> we lost all the seats in 1994. a lot of us got fired. i got -- i didn't have a consulting contract with the dnc. people -- he made changes. that's what happens. that's what president reagan did

in 1980 when he didn't start out while. he fired ores. he tossed out lincoln. eechlk rumsfeld lost his job. the republicans fired newt gingrich. when things are not going well, the coach, the manager, we're sports fans. you've got to try to do something, change direction here. >> i'm not going to try to take it as a personal offense that you wore a suit and tie for that -- you know, it's saturday morning. >> i don't see him in a suit and tie. i don't see her, i dome see him. >> the large coverage of politics is like monday morning quarterbacking and backseat driving and like someone who has been in both roles, had to run an actual campaign where you had access to a certain amount of data, and being on the outside commenting, is that like all b.s.? is that cheap, tall advice you get, the histrionics of people

saying do this, do that, does it matter at all? >> first of all, the people running the campaign can't stand people like me, and i couldn't stand them. >> i want to play this very quick. just to establish, this is you in 1992 talking about that. >> right. >> they don't know about strategy? >> what -- >> you're asking me -- again, i'm saying tv mcommentators do the best they can. you'll have to ask the commentators. >> bristling with contempt for the tv commentators. >> that's a fact of life. as stalin said, if you're afraid of bears, don't go in the woods. if you're afraid to be a political consultant, don't run a campaign. people like me now, they're people in the peanut gallery, throwing stuff, whatever. >> then, again, like you mentioned, you don't have the tv pundits.

we're not in the campaign, we don't have access to the daling campaign, the dally polls, the internal things and don't know the full out strategy in terms of what's next, right? so part of this is not only don't you have the tv pundits but you don't have access -- >> if you ever worked on a campaign and you're a field organizer, everyone at the door has advice for you. every volunteer know as what the campaign should be doing. >> katrina asked something before. i'm a complete amateur. i'm going to be like you. >> that's fine. >> the balls are in a dead heat so you're fighting over 6% of the electorate or something like that. now what's clear is you have obama trying to identify romney as a creep, which -- fair. when does he start talking about program, when does he start talking about what the -- what's going to happen if he's re-elected? when do we start to see this change stuff again?

when do we start to see an explanation of why things have not gone as we hoped in the last four years. >> let me take that in a couple -- >> offer some advice. >> offer some advice for the campaign. >> what they're going to hit romney on as sure as i'm sitting here, romney won't release his tax returns. >> right. >> romney says he's a guy with a $7 trillion tax cut but he says, i'm not going to tell you how i'm going to pay for it. he says i'm going to cut government programs but i won't tell you which one i'm going to cut because if i did, it would be very hard on people. romney says i have a position on immigration, but i'm not going to tell you what it is. >> right. >> so phase two of this is going to be mitt romney. he plays by one set of rules. the rest of us play by a different set. that's mitt romney all of his life. sure as we're sitting aet this table, you know this is coming. >> yeah. >> now, what the president -- what we know from the public polls and i know this from

private polls, your question goes to the heart of the matter. they want know what the second term is about. all that romney talks about is the last four years. people know where they are. i think you're going to see the president not now because right now he's down there, you know, and their opponent is drowning. please, throw him an anvil. my god, don't switch. at a point i promise you they're going to say this is how my second -- this is my second term. i think it's going to be -- you know, i can feel it coming. i see the speeches and everything where the middle class is going to be front and center the second term. we going to start the process of building the right middle class. your question is germane, it's right, but now is not the time to do it. >> but, you know, campaigns don't necessarily push the limits of the conversation of the debate. it takes movements outside, and i just want to put in a word for occupy wall street. it's in -- you know, it's going to be a year this september since it's erupted.

movement time may not be how we measure time, but it certainly drove issues and ideas into this campaign, which we're seeing flourish around the bain debate, which is about inequality, which is about the 99%. and also, you know, i think in terms of the elections are choices, that's what this campaign of president obama wants. he wants to make it a choice. i do think he's going to speak out. there was an article the other day criticizing the campaigns for relitigating the past. i think the president should relitigate the past because the past involves a failure of right wing ideas about what kind of economy, you know, the lower taxes on the rich, deregulating markets, all the things that drove the economy off a cliff, so i think there is a role to relitigate the past and then move forward. >> i think also in terms of timing is that over the summer, it's not the time to sort of release. and as your opponent as james says is drowning, now's not the time to release your plan.

i think the time in term of the campaign time sort of will be september, you know, sort of when people are paying more attention as we get closer to the election? >> the other thing we should say is speech after speech after speech every day he lays out what jobs -- it's not like he hasn't -- hasn't talked about it. it's what the -- >> let me -- i've been critical in the past. let me say that they have been very aggressive and their speeches have been very focused. i think that from the standpoint of message is that obama has done very much better in the campaign for a month or so. this is somebody you point out -- >> there's been a lot about the middle class. we'll take a look at speech making after this. stay in the moment sanya focus lolo, focus let's do this

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so your book which i want to give another plug, "it's the middle class stupid!"

it's ta term that invokes politics. democrats invoke it the most. here's the president touting the prosperity for the middle class. >> i believe our prosperity has always come from an economy that's bill from a strong and growing middle class. what we need is somebody who's going to fight every single day to grow the middle class. i believe the heart and soul of this country is to make sure the working people can feel some security in the middle class. >> is this a cause of the president reading your book or you auring advice he had already taken? >> i think he kind of knew about it before i wrote the book. our point here is this. the middle class in the country has been deteriorating for 30 years an people tend to think of, you know -- elites tend to think of the financial crisis as the sort of dividing point. they had been deteriorating before that. what i say this the book is they had pneumonia and the financial crisis, it was like a truck

hitting them. it wasn't any fun and it really set them back. that i know this has happened to them. they're completely aware of it. they've had to adjust their lives. and what they're looking for is for somebody to say let's put us at center and how are we going to dig ourselves out of this. >> but here -- >> we were just talking -- it's interesting -- in the beginning of the show about the poor and low income. >> well, a lot of folks -- >> thing there's politics here now because a lot of the middle class are slipping into poverty. so there's -- you know, there's more awareness. it's not reflected in our politics. >> i would make -- the only time by the way factually -- the only time middle income actually grew since the '70s was during the '90s. people have asked me, you've slowed the middle class. what about the poor? nobody in poverty want to stay there. things like earned income tax credit, thank god the health care thing, and when the economy

comes back, the thing that pulls people out of the economy is part of the middle class. >> not only that but reading this book, paying attention to jen ragtss later. sort of my generation, we're going to be the first generation that won't do better than our parents and won't be, you know, in the middle class, right? and so it's slipping, and so the numbers are shrinking in terms of people being in there. i think my parents and my 2k3wr57b8d parents, you know, raised me and they were able to do that with a home -- you know, with a job and peng and all those sorts of things. >> with an education. >> with an education. and are we going have that and, you know, most people in my generation are still in that struggling standpoint, they tear not safe where my parents and nigh grandparents, they felt safe andcy cure in their job and their pension and their health care and all of those things to be able to provide. >> the irony is everything gets cheaper except for the pillars

of middle class live. dvds get cheaper but education and housing doan get cheap sneer when obama gets attacked for class warfare it's the biggest joke in the world. it is the middle class and they've been attacked for 30 or 40 years and sweerch this standard of living actually erode, get worse. i mean this is almost -- for those of us who grew up in the '50s and '60s is unheard of. >> the idea that class warfare is actually bandied about, i think the left progressive liberals need to do a better job in terms of words. the living wage is one of the few two-word terms. if my husband goes around the house one more time and talks about death taxes, i'm going to kick him out. these are terms that are not real. >> i'm going to ask you this. given how much it matters versus the fundamental. political scientists say one thing. folks in the industry say

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the you talk to political scientists, which i don't know how much of that you do, they say basically look, if you leak at the metrics, income, is personal -- average personal disposable income rising, fall, you can make pretty good model predictions. in the world of punditry and political strategists, every little thing is looked over, this gaffe, that statement, that ad, how much control does a campaign really have over the outcome? 10%? 90%? 40%? >> most elections that you go into, it doesn't matter. we kind of know who's going to win. hate to say this -- >> it's amazing to say this. >> i'm right. and thing if james carville never existed bill clinton

wouldn't have gotten elected in 1992. however, there are some fundamental matters. 2004, i think the campaign made a difference. '76 was a big one. about four won that election. it was down by a ga still john. this was one of those elections where it's going to matter that the campaign -- the candidate performance is going to matter. we do not know right now who's going to win this election. i can't sit here and say, you know, obama's going to win. >> right. just because it's so close. >> so close and you have the competing dynamic of -- the political scientists -- one thing i know, if you talk to five political scientists, you will get six opinions. >> another cut at that, there's a kind of shrinking democracy process at worst here. there are 12 states at best, swing states. last go-around there were 8. within those state use're dealing with 3% or 4%, the persuadables.

i wonder how we bust open a system so people feel every vote counts. >> also -- we're also -- >> by my definition -- five swing states. my definition of a swing state is it's a state you have a chance to win but if you lost, you could still win. therefore, pennsylvania is not. if the democratics lose pennsylvania, dhiejt have a chance to win. >> that's where another -- the voters' impression stuff is really serious. >> 760,000 voters estimated to not have the i.d. necessary to vote under the new law. >> and a few weeks ago he said he had really pulled it together for mitt romney to win that state. >> we're also missing in the conversation is voter turnout and sort of being able to predict how many people are going to, you know, turn out for this election. you can't use 2008 as a barometer. james would probably tell you in terms of looking aet the number, you can't put 2008 numbers in an equation to try and predict. >> and it's going to be hard for them -- those turnout numbers were a key part.

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. in just a moment now what we didn't know now that we knew last week. first my book "twilights of the retailers. this wednesday i'll be appearing at the common good here in new york to diss it. check out the twilights of the elites facebook page or "up" on msnbc.com for upcoming appearances. and to my wife, happy anniversary. i love you, babe. in 2009 the same year the tea party began their anti-tax protests. the americans paid the lowest tax rate in 30 years. we know the average tax rate was 17.4% down from 2007. we know the rate declined in part because average household income of americans slid from 101,000 in 2007 to 88,400.

the ceo expects to see historically low tax rates in 2010 and 2011 as well. we now know the fallout from historically low tax revenue and austerity measures is spreading across the state of florida in the form of an outbreak of tuberculosis. rick scott's massive health and human services budget cuts, was know florida shut down the only tb hospital three months after receiving a report from the centers of disease control and prevention that one of the largest tb outbreaks was uncontained. 3,000 floridians may have already been exposed. we know the mcs hate the affordable act so much they have spent more than 80 hours on the house floor, two weeks, at a cost of $50 million trying to repeal the law. we know on wednesday they followed up the 33rd attempt to repeal the legislation of the house by a golf tournament at a country club. >> i wanted to report to the house that this year's winner of the congressional cup is the

republican team. >> like it was ever in doubt. we know who republicans like to put our tax dollars to work. we know the investigation by the justice department reveals independent brokers for wells fargo discriminated to blacks during the housing crisis charging them higher fees and rates than to white borrowers with the same credit risk. we know wells fargo which denies wrongdoing agreed to pay a settlement of at least $175 million, which if approved by a federal judge, would be the second largest settlement in justice department history. finally, thanks to a study published in the journal of computishes computers and human behavior, 85% of undergrads felt phantom cell phone vibrations. the more you use the phone and the more you receive your text messages, the more likely you are to feel a buzzing for something that isn't there. that's a metaphor for something.

let's begin with you, mr. mark. >> well, what we know that we didn't know before was that we'll change the subject here a little bit. 3,000 heat records were broken in the united states in june, that is 100 a day. heat records are being broken all the time. climate change is for real and just another part of the denial of climate change is exactly the same as denial of the needs of the people of the united states. and that the denial of the support of the 1% by republican congress. it's all the same picture. >> we talked a lot about the record heat last week on "up." since then, there's new data out from one of the national centers for the first six months of the year being the sixth months warmest on record. joy williams. >> we talked about voter suppression but something that i know now that i didn't know was

the project that just came out with a report that in addition to the people that would be disenfranchised because of id and other things like that, that there will be about 5.85 million people across the country that will not have the right to vote because they were previously incarcerated. so that's a whole norther population who have their voting rights stripped from them. that's 5.85 million people that will not be able to cast a ballot in this coming election. >> florida had a bad record on this. they barred anyone of any felony from voting forever. it was repealed by charlie chris and reinstated by rick scott in florida. we have seen that repeated in a number of states. katrina vanderheuvel. >> i bring this up, mark you wrote a great column about him last year, but we were talking about food. little known is the food for peace program he ran and also in

a bipartisan move he did a lot of work with dole for women, children, nutrition programs. but he's a man of great integrity, decency. and i think, you know, you don't have to be a winner to be a winner. he certainly didn't -- that campaigning -- he was quoted as saying, 2012, send in the close ups. i couldn't believe that this country was -- you had people talking about a rollback of social security and medicare. >> i have an opportunity to be a punkster and i'm not going to let it pass me up. this book has gotten very good reviews. it's called "it's the middle class stupid!" this is deep in my bones, that's all i can tell you. >> a great pleasure to have you here. you're on short leave selling your book. we are happy to have you. joy williams, co-host of the

radio show this week in blackness, katrina vander heuvel, and james carhill, co-author of "it's the middle class stupid." thank you for joining us today. join us tomorrow at 8:00. we have a great guest. we'll talk to ed conard. he's a partner at bain capital, which means he was there during 1999 and 2002 when apparently no one was running the company. and mitt romney was simultaneously both at and not at bain at the same time. we are confused and will ask him to sort it out for us. coming up next, melissa harris-perry. melissa is talking big bird, mitt romney and the middle class. the middle class is keeping the election. how can big bird be mitt romney's greatest undoing? that's melissa harris-perry coming up next. we'll see you tomorrow as always at 8:00. thank you so much for getting up.

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