bank account to build an american bridge. >> he's disconnected. >> wealthy and out of touch. >> if the bain attacks were working, these attacks will work. >> mitt romney said he's worn a garbage bag as rain gear. he had to dump out the hundred dollar bills and throw the bag over his head. 176 days from now your income taxes are going up. it's already written into law. if congress does absolutely nothing, current income tax rates expire on new year's eve, and on january 1st income taxes will automatically go up. it will be a huge tax increase. on january 1st everyone except those currently in the 15% bracket will see their income taxes go up. the biggest income tax increase will actually hit the lowest bracket, the lowest income

earners, those in the 10% bracket will see their rates go up 50%. by comparison, all of those in the top income tax bracket will see their rates go up only 13%. and no one, no one in congress or the white house wants to see all of this happen. president obama does want to see this happen. he wants to see the top two brackets go up, but only the top two. he wants to prevent all the other brackets from going up. in order to stop all of this from happening, 176 days from now, congress has to pass a bill preventing it from happening. the republicans want to pass a bill preventing all of this from happening, and the democrats and the president want to pass a bill preventing most of this

from happening, but allowing the top two rates to go up. now, if any of you spent your fourth of july holiday doing your christmas shopping and your friending told you you're crazy, you should listen to your friends. you have plenty of time for christmas shopping. you have 169 shopping days left until christmas. if you're congress and you have 176 legislative shopping days left to pass the biggest tax legislation in years, then you better get to work on it right now. don't wait until the last minute as we approach this fiscal cliff. you're going to be hearing that phrase a lot, a fiscal cliff between now and january 1st because in addition to the tax increase scheduled for january 1st, there is also a large cut. 500 billion in defense spending scheduled to go into law on january 1st. the combination of big

government spending cuts and a big tax increase is the fiscal cliff that many economists fear would be such a negative jolt to the economy that would slow down our economic recovery. so neither party, democrat or republican, wants to go off the fiscal cliff on january 1st. to avoid the fiscal cliff, not only do they have to write a new tax bill and a new defense spending bill and pass them both before january 1st. they have only 176 legislative shopping days to do it. so if you want congress to do something before january 1 and you start talking about it right now, you would not be jumping the gun. you would not be doing your christmas shopping in july. if you need congress to do something by new year's eve, don't start talking to them in december. you start talking to them today, and that's what the president

did today in the east room of the white house. >> i'm not proposing anything radical here. i just believe that anybody making over $250,000 a year should go back to the income tax rates we were paying under bill clinton back when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest surplus in history, and plenty of millionaires to boot. >> the president urged congress to take action on what they can agree on, which is all of these tax rates except for the top tax rates, and leave what they disagree on to be dealt with after the election. >> in many ways the fate of the tax cut for the weltiest americans will be decided by the outcome of the next election. my opponent will fight to keep them in place. i will fight to end them. >> in other words, the president is saying, let's pass a bill preserving all of the tax rates

we agree on, and let's let the voters decide on what to do with the top tax rates, re-elect president obama and the rates go up slightly, only a few percentage points. elect mitt romney and do a day one tax cut for the high income earners. mitt romney hates that idea. he doesn't want to reach an agreement on everything they already agree on, which is most of the tax rates. he doesn't want to reach an agreement with the president on everything they agree on. he wants to keep fight over all the tax rates together, and republicans agree with him on this because they know if they pass a bill on the tax rates that they agree with the president on, which is most of them, then everyone will be able it to see that the real fight is over nothing but lowering the top tax rates a few points. that's all reps really care

about, but mitt romney knows he can't go out there and say, look, we shouldn't make a deal on doing what we agree on, because that would expose the fact we care about the top income tax rates. instead of saying that, his handlers gave him this to say. >> what the president is proposing is therefore a massive tax increase on job creators and on small business, small businesses are overwhelmingly being taxed not at a corporate rate but at the individual tax rate. so successful small businesses will see their taxes go up dramatically, and that will kill jobs. >> and with the obama campaign trying to turn this week into tax week in the campaign, it seems like the perfect time to remind american voters that no matter what congress does with income tax rates, mitt romney will still pay less than the lowest income tax rate. >> the next president in the next four years, somebody has to tackle comprehensive tax reform,

and they have to deal with sheltering income like it appears mitt romney is doing in bermuda, in the caymans, in switzerland. when i pick a bank, i pick one mere my house because there's an atm i can get cash out of it. i don't think you pick a bank in switzerland because there's an atm near the house. >> joining us is chris ball and steve cornaki. the idea that you get an anti-tax candidate running with a swiss bank account, with money in the cayman islands, it's never been this convenient for the democrats. it's always been a very awkward subject for the democratic candidate who is trying to be more responsible on taxation. romney makes this a sweet spot for the obama campaign. >> it's beautiful. when you add to that the hamptons fund-raisers this weekend and all of the wonderful quotes that came out of that and you ask the american people, okay, do you really want to finance a tax cut for these

people? i think the answer bomes very clear. and the response that, oh, we need comprehensive tax reform, he just has in the republican party absolutely no credibility on seriously wanting comprehensive tax reform. do we really want to trust the guy who's got his money parked in the cayman islands to close tax loopholes for us? that doesn't make sense to me. >> let's listen to what mitch mcconnell said about the way he said this tax situation should be handled. >> we've got the fiscal cliff coming at the end of the year. what we ought to be doing is extend the current tax rates for another year with a hard requirement to get through comprehensive tax reform one more time. >> oddly enough, steve, he wants to do exactly what he's proposed doing in the past, which is why don't we extend the current tax rates, otherwise known as the bush tax cuts. >> right. when comprehensive tax reform drags out or hits a dead end, we say, oh, no, we can't let these

things expire. i think it's worth putting in perspective. you understand this. what obama is trying to pull off here, it's been 22 years, 1990 since a single republican in the house or senate signed off on aan income tax increase. the last time it happened was 1990 and it caused a rebellion in the republican party and it led to pat buchanan challenging george bush and newt gingrich's rise and all these things. we come to a moment here after the election. let's say obama gets re-elected, republicans have to choose. they still control the house no matter what in that lame duck session, and they have to decide. are we willing to kacave on 22 years of absolute rigidity on taxes in the interest of sparing 98% of the people a tax hike? if we can't have it it all, we'll allow a tax hike to take place. >> is the president ready to go to the mat over this? is he willing to let the bottom

income tax rates of the 98% go up in order to not raise rates on the top percents. that's the other people and he and robert gibbs have been very clear they're not held hostage this time. they're willing to go to the mat this time whereas the last negotiation, i don't think they were willing to and instead they used it as a bargaining chip to get other things they wanted. >> it's different from the last one. what i hear from some democratic senators and now even from some republican senators something they will not say publicly, they're willing and, in fact, some believe they need to go off the cliff on january 1st. they need to allow the tax rates to expire, have every rate go up including the bottom rate to go up in order to then on january 2nd put real pressure on congress including republicans in congress to pass some kind of adjustment to this without the power of actually having the rates increase. the democrats -- some democrats

believe they can't get anything. in other words, once all the rates have increased, everything you do after that is a tax cut. even if you reduce four out of the six rates. >> there's your way around that republican pledge. >> some republicans are secretly saying we need you to do that. that's the only way to vote responsibly in a tiny number of republicans. >> the democrats control the senate in the lame duck session. that means you have ben nelson and joe lieberman voting with the democrats still there. a guy like tester and he gets re-elected. does he vote for anything that could be perceived as a tax hike? you deal with these people in the senate on the democratic side so the logic works for them, too. >> there are democratic senators who learned this less son-in-ont time around, p if we let it go to the last minute and don't get a deal and we let them know it's

okay to not get a deal, the republicans see they're in an impossible position in january. >> it's a game of chicken. p if they show we're willing to go off the cliff. you have aa stronger bargaining position, but as you say you give a lot of conservative democrats in red or purple states and republicans who signed onto this grover norquist pledge, you give them an out. that makes sense. >> steve, the great thing politically and i dmefr thought i'd say this about a democratic candidate for president in talking about taxes is you get always to bring it back to mitt romney's tax returns, especially the ones we have not seen. >> right. i think right now in this campaign talking about the bush taxes and doing away with the commonwealth wealthy, this is a political winner for obama right now. bill clinton asked the top 2% to pay more. the people that got rich under reagan and bush, we ask them to

pay more. that's what clinton ran in '92. in ''93 he raised taxes in the 1.8%. the public attitude on things is funny. i think obama is on solid ground here, but i'm curious in december and into january how it's perceived by the voters. >> they bought into the aaffordable care act as the largest tax increase in the history the man kind. >> second biggest. >> it depends where you are on the calendar when it was the biggest. yeah, the romney liability on taxation seems to be politically unique. we've had wealthy republican presidents before george h.w. bush, wealthy family, but their personal wealth was never perceived to be part of their actual governing decisions. bush had republican philosophy about taxation. you saw very rich democrats who

actually had a nonself-interested tax policies. the fact that these policies are all to romney's only self-interest is the peculiar part of the politics. >> i think it's that. i don't think it's his wealth that's the problem. i think it's the fact that he's paying a lower income tax rate than the lowest marginal income tax rate. he has all these offshore accounts, swiss bank accounts, cayman islands and bahamas and there's a terrible contrast he has with his father who was exactly the opposite. who was the model of transparency releasing 12 years of income taxes saying that it would be -- it could be a fluke if you only released one year. paul krugman was writing today that at the time they were reporting george romney was going out of his way to not take advantage of the loopholes in the tax system. as a result he was paying 36% -- 37%. it's all the exact opposite of mitt romney, and i think

americans feel, okay, yes, you're following the lettering the law. there's a difference between a legalistic argument and moral argument. do you really believe in america? do you really believe the things you're saying when you're exploiting these loopholes to your own benefit? >> crystal and steve, thanks for joining me tonight. especially you steve coming in on dry-cle cleaner day. i so appreciate that. >> i'm sorry. i'm skard of the dak. >> thank you both very much for joining me tonight. coming up, what do tax rates mean for job creation? ezra kline joins me next. in the rewrite tonight remember when jon stewart went on a cnn show just to say how bad that show was? we have a perfect reply good excuse to show you that video again tonight. that's coming up. ♪ ♪

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opposed to letting the high-end tax cuts expire will say. they'll say that we can't tax job creators, and they'll try to explain how this would be bad for small businesses. here's the thing that you have to remember. the proposal i make today would extend these tax cuts for 97% of all small business owners in america. by the way, these tax cuts are also the tax cuts that are least likely to promote growth. joining me now is our venture capitalist and author of "the gardens of democracy" and ezra kline. ezra, walk us through what we know about the effect of tax rates on job creation. >> interestingly not actually that much. it is very hard to pull apart all the different things that go

into job creation to figure out what role tax cuts are playing. what we have an understanding of is we have tax cuts and overall economic growth. we know that they're part of it, and it matters how you create your tax code. they're not as republicans put it the determinative part. you think that the economy is a simple equation in which taxes are on one side and growth is on the other. if you get taxes and get everything else right. since 1950, the period of time in which americans had the most impressive growth was when our tax rate, our highest marginal tax rate was between 85% and 90%. the second high was at 39% and the third highest at 39.6% and one of the lowest was in the bush years down at 35%. so there's not a really good record of low marginal tax rates on the richest americans leading to very impressive levels of growth and/or job creation. >> nick, you've been out there in this economy making an awful

lot the money for yourself. hundreds of millions of dollars, seeing others do it. working with job creators. what do you hear just anecdo anecdotally in the world of real job creators. people who run countries in terms of what factors determine when they do their hiring? >> i just have to start by saying that it's just dead false that people who run companies are job creators. this idea is a way of completely misunderstanding how economies work. the people who create jobs are our nation's middle -- is the middle class. when the middle class consumer buys something from a company, that is what creates jobs. that's why it doesn't matter very much if rich people pay higher rates of tax. the true engine of job creation is a thriving middle class, and, you know, if if somebody like me who makes millions or tens of

millions of dollars a year pays a little more, it has virtually no effect on growth. >> and ezra, we hear warren buffett say he's never made a business decision based on what marginal tax rates were. that like nick he looks at things like consumer demand and this sort of thing to determine when you should make different kinds of moves in this economy. >> yeah. i mean, imagine an marginal tax rait is 25% or 50% and you made another dollar. you might not care about the profit if it's 50 cent rather than 25, but it remains a profit. that's something to what nick said. peter diamond is a nobel prize winner economist. he said when you're worried about job creation, you're not thinking about people. you are thinking about businesses. businesses are what create jobs, and primarily the kind of businesses that create jobs are small, new ones. we have much more job growth in

new firms than in older firms or larger firms. when you worry about small, new firms, you worry about their ability to get capital and the amount of money they need to expaend. if you're a big firm, it's easy to borrow and if you're rich it's easy to start a firm. if you don't have good access to the credit market and started by someone without ilot of money. people without a lot of money have enough money to help lend you the amount of capital to get started. they can take it out of their house and get it loaned over from friends. this is how a lot of small businesses work. in that world what you really want for businesses to thrive particularly ones that wouldn't thrive otherwise is for them to be a progressive distribution of income. you need to have money in places where it's hard to get money in order for these good ideas to get off the ground and expand and hire people. >> nick, i really like your correction of your language about this one, which is our

conceptual frame, which says job creators create the demand for the product. we will call what republicans are referring to as job creators. let's refer to them as the hirers. they do the hiring in effect. the people who own the companies and run the companies doing the hiring. making a hiring decision involves a set of factors, and when you hear republicans say that the hiring decision is based on what the income tax rate is, what would your response be to them? >> it's the silliest lie ever told. look, anyone who ran a business knows that creating jobs is the course of last resort for capitalists. it's what we do if and only dp rising consumer demand requires it. if there was a shred of truth to the idea athat the more profitable the company was or the more capital valuable or the

more jobs we create there was, then today we'd be drowning in jobs. american corporations sit on $2 trillion of cash. the nation is awash in capital. it starts with this misconception that businesses are job creators. it's like a business person calling themtsz a job creator is like a squirrel claiming to create evolution. it's not true. it's the other way around. the romney people put it beautifully this week when one of them said that there are people who are the engines of the economy, the job creators and everyone else relies on that engine. this way of expressing it shows perfectly how deeply we misunderstand the economy. the economy is characterized by feedback loops like any eco-system, and it's about a circle of life feedback loop between customers and businesses. >> ezra, basic economic courses teach basically that, but politics loses that -- the

concept completely. >> politics is never not dpor being economically sophisticated. you can't have jobs and you can't have expansion without people there to buy things. the idea is what we need right now is lower tax rates on the business side. there's something to that. it does become more profitable to hire people, for instance, if you pay lower payroll taktss, but that's a marginal change. the reason you hire people is because you need to hire them because there are profitable opportunities. you can only take advantage of if you have more people. until you get money into the pockets of the people who buy things, which you can do by hiring them by building infrastructure and give them tax cuts that affect people with a high propensity to spend and use the money to buy groceries, you don't see fast job creation. not because there's something deeply wrong with the economy or taxes are at that too high and businesses are doing what they should be doing and not expanding when they don't have

profltable opportunities. when they have enough sales to expand, they will expand. >> exactly. >> nick, senator money moynahan talked about see mantic infiltration. in one side can get the other stid to use their language, then they have won. i think your point about who is a job creator is a perfect example of how see mantic infiltration has been at work here in our politics and in our media. >> yes. i agree completely. i think the fight we have over economics in this country is going to come down it to who do the nation's citizens believe are job creators? rich business people like me or the middle class? we had 30 years of trying out the idea that rich people like me are job creators and we've seen what happened. i think it's time to try a new way. >> nick and ezra, thank you both for joining me tonight. >> thanks so much for having us. >> coming up, the dangers of having very sharp, angry

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mitt romney went where the money is this weekend. the beach homes of billionaires. congresswoman debbie wasserman schultz will join us with her reaction. she will finish saying what fox news wouldn't let her say net. later, why i try not to let angry debates erupt on the program. i'm afraid of overly passionate arguments getting out of control as it did icurrent events show recently where one of the debaters pulled a gun. that's in tonight's "rewrite." [ birds chirping ] [ engine revving ]

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billionaire industrialist david coch. it was 75,000 a couple. "the new york times" quotes one woman waiting in line in her black range rover. is there a vip entrance? we are vip. then there's the new york city donor, the "l.a. times" caught up with. she was also driving a range rover and did not want to give her name, but she did say that mitt romney needed to do a better job connecting. i don't think the common person is getting it. nobody understands why obama is hurting them. we've got the message, but my college kid, the baby-sitters, the nails ladies, everybody who has the right to vote, they don't understand what's going on. i just think if you're lower income, one, you're not as educated, two, they don't understand how it works. they don't understand how the system works. they don't understand the

impact. joining me now is someone that understands the impact florida congresswoman debbie wasserman schultz, chairwoman of the national democratic committee. >> good night, lawrence. >> she included among the people who just don't get it her own college kid who apparently is affluent enough that, you know, the mother can go to a $75,000 a couple event. >> well, i think actually what the reality is that working folks, working families like the nail ladies and the cleaning ladies and even college kids of wealthy people understand that president obama has been fighting hard to make sure that we can create jobs, an opportunity for them, invest in education and innovation. make sure that we can outcompete and outinnovate and outeducate the rest of the world so when we

are competing on a global stage that america can be on top consistently in industry and in education and in innovation. mitt romney and the republicans have been focused so much on those folks who were guests at that -- at those events that -- and making sure that they can do even better than they already are that they've sort of left the nail ladies and the college kids out in the cold. i think that's what they understand. >> congresswoman, i couldn't help but wonder if maybe that woman's college kid -- we don't know if it's a male or female college kid. i'll pick daughter. we'll decide it's a daughter. maybe her daughter actually has a roommate at college or someone at college who is dear to her and she knows well who is struggling with student loan debt. maybe that might be something that her college kid knows about that mom doesn't know about. >> or maybe she has a friend that doesn't have health

insurance coverage. without being able to stay on her parents' insurance, which she can now do until she's 26 years old. so there's been so much progress made for working families. finally they have a champion in the white house. i think that's why folks like those people that the donor named so-called don't get it in that woman's eyes. >> there was an odd moment. you were on fox news yesterday. it was an odd moment where they ran out of time apparently on a question for you. they were talking about mitt romney's offshore accounts and the host of the show, substitute host was reading a statement from the campaign about the offshore accounts. let's watch that. >> sure. >> this comes from romney spokesman. he haven paid a penny less in taxes by virtue of where these funds are domiciled. talking about bermuda and cayman island accounts. his liability is exactly the

same if he held them in the u.s. as a u.s. citizen he's accountable for u.s. taxes, some investments in foreign countries can be tax havens, but mitt romney does not hold any such investments. >> and then at the end of that read they ran out of time before you can make a comment. >> yeah. >> what were you going to say, if fox didn't have to go to a commercial? >> what i was going to say is how would we know? i mean, the bottom line is that because mitt romney has only released one year of his tax returns, even though he gave 23 years of tax returns to john mccain, we have no idea. we have only the word of a spokesperson that works for mitt romney, and that's why george romney, his own father when he ran for president, said at that that releasing one year of tax returns maybe an anomaly and it's not enough. he set a precedent of multiple years of tax returns so you had transparency and examine the finances of a candidate offering

themselves for president. so mitt romney isn't willing to live up to his own father's standard or the standards of every major recent presidential candidate going back several decades. so we could actually see whether or not mitt romney's spokesman is accurate if we could see what his finances are hiding. a bermuda corporation, swiss investments, cayman island investments. why doesn't an american businessman, lawrence, need to have a swiss bank account or a bermuda corporation? why did mitt romney transfer that bermuda corporation to a blind trust in his wife's name the day before he became governor? those are unanswered kquestions he needs to answer. >> if you ask me, it's to hide the money from taxation. thanks for joining us tonight. whenever they run out of time on fox news, you get to come here to complete the thought. >> this was so delicious. thank you so much. >> thank you.

>> coming up, why having two people with die metrically opposing views fight it out on tv can turn out to be a very bad and dangerous idea and maybe lead to a case of attempted murder. that's in tonight's rewrite. and the number one, number one reason why you should vote for -- why you should always vote for president is, of course, the supreme court. the supreme court is not what it once was. there is the bromance, scalia and roberts, that's over. we'll talk about it coming up later. pioneers in outsourcing us jobs supports tax breaks overseas. insourcing. industry and favors bring jobs home. it matters. i'm barack obama, and i approved this message.

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on crossfire to say he's had quite enough of crossfire. >> why do you argue? the two of you? i hate to see it. i made a special effort to come on the show today because i have privately amongst my friends and also on occasional newspaper and television shows mentioned this show as being bad. >> you're beingnoticed. >> and i felt that that wasn't fair and i should come here and tell you that i don't -- it's not so much that it's bad as it's hurting america. stop. stop, stop, stop hurting america. when have you people on for just knee jerk reactionary talk. >> i thought you were going to be funny, come on. >> no, i'm not going to be your monkey. >> what? go ahead. >> i watch your show every day and it kills me. >> i can tell you love it. >> it's so painful to watch. it's someone who watches your show and cannot take it anymore.

i just can't. >> everyone in the cable news business stared at that jon stewart appearance on cross fire more than once and faster than he could have imagined cross fire and its imitators disappeared. in this country anyway. but cross fire tv is alive and fwhel many other countries, and in jordan last week on a show that bobs opposing guests with the hope that they will get almost out of control, cross fire tv finally went where it was bound to go. somebody pulled a gun.

[ speaking in foreign language ] >> and, yes, the control room cuts the audio. and the guy with the gun could now face charges for attempted murder and defamation, as if defamation mattered. and that is, that is why i don't do crossfire tv. i don't want to be that guy, the hold them apart guy. no, no. now we know jordanian television needs two things. one, metal detectors at their tv studios, and two, it's very own jordanian jon stewart.

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well, i certainly wouldn't nominate someone who i knew was going to come out with a decision i disagreed with and he reached a conclusion that was not accurate and not an appropriate conclusion. >> well, he was for him before he was against him. that was mitt romney last week talking about chief justice john roberts and why he wouldn't now nominate someone like john roberts to the supreme court. here's what romney had to say about roberts during the primaries. >> quickly down the line with just a name, favorite supreme court justice. >> roberts, thomas, alet at that and scalia. if we had justices like roberts, and roberts they might return it

to states as opposed to the federal constitution. >> according to someone reports no one more disappointed than some members of the supreme court in john roberts. >> if he was what the liberals from the beginning that would have been one thing. to have switched his pox infuriated conservatives. we don't know why he switched. he may have focused solely on the law, but that's not what some colleagues believed. >> joining me now is a constitutional law professor at george washington university. jonathan, i've always thought that justices changing sides during deliberations was not that unxhocommon. >> you're correct. chief justices can game the system because they're the most senior justice voting in that first conference. they can essentially take control of the drafting process. what i think is different here is that this chief justice didn't usually change. this is the first time in his

entire history on the court that roberts switched to vote with the liberals in a 5-4 decision. this is a court that is replete with 5-4 decisions. so i think what was shocking was not that a chief justice would do it but this chief justice would do it. >> you have the report they're saying that the judges don't think that he was focusing on the law. they think he was focusing on something else. the justices who ended up in the minority who he abandoned. >> well, there's obviously a great deal of bad blood here, and roberts' decision didn't sit well, obviously, with the conservative members of the court. it's a departure for roberts. his opinion didn't hold quite together as well as the opinions on either extreme. scalia and ginsberg were very consistent in how they viewed the question of federal authority. whether it was tax or whether it was the commerce clause. roberts had an opinion that

seemed really to rest uneasily within itself, and up i think that has prompted many conservative justices to view him as trying to do something other than be consistent on principle. >> jonathan, what's at stake in the supreme court? the composition of the supreme court in this presidential election in the next presidential term? what retirements might we expect? >> well, it's hard to say. first of all, i think for the last ten years people have been calling and asking is it true that, you know, justice ginsberg is leaving tomorrow? >> she's 79 years old. >> yes. but the poor woman the people have been writing her departure commentary for over a decade. she just said just recently i'll be 80 next year, and i don't think that's that old. she is 79. the average life expectancy in the united states is 78, to give you a measure. and you have scalia who is 76, you have kennedy who is 75 and

breyer who is 74. they have lifestyles that enable them to be healthy and productive longer in life. stephens just retired at 90. blackman retired at 85. it's hard to apply the measure for most people to members of this court. they clearly do not like to give up this job. if you look at the the '70s, romney could change dramatically the trajectory of this court just for those four alone. >> jonathan turley gets tonight's last word. thanks, jonathan. >> thanks, lawrence. >> "the ed show" is up next. >> good evening americans and welcome to "the ed show" from new york. the day after mitt romney hangs out with a koch brother, president obama goes on offense for the middle class. this is "the ed show." let's get to work. >> we should all agree to extend

the tax cuts for the middle class. let's agree to do what we agree on. right? >> the president puts republicans in the corner again. >> the republicans say they don't want to raise taxes on the middle class, i don't want to raise taxes on the middle class. >> will republicans hold the middle class tax cuts hostage yet again? i've got commentary. howard fineman has answers. democrats are tearing into mitt romney's offshore accounting. >> he is the first and only candidate for president of the united states with a swiss bank account with tax shelters, with tax avoidance schemes that involve so many foreign countries. >> senator dick durbin is here tonight. the big panel takes on the ridiculous details coming out of mitt romney's koch brother fund-raiser. and a day after this terrifying picture was taken, the beaches were back open in cape cod. >> equwe will be open for busin. >> we'll ask a shark expert if