see america you can also follow me on twitter liz wall we'll be right back here at seven. culture is that so much i'm going to call from the right on a compliment and the trials and tribulations of g.o.p. presidential candidate mitt romney mitt romney's rich history and less than transparent business record too much for voters. me leave. immediately. comes.

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my little story along. if you. still. want to. go in welcome to crossfire i'm curious about the trials and tribulations of g.o.p. presidential candidate mitt romney is romney's rich history and less than transparent business record too much for voters why is the campaign down so negative so quickly and is camp abomination getting personal merely to cover up its own record. and. start. to cross talk the us presidential campaign i'm joined by stephen lesser new york he is a senior partner with democratic spring strategies and a writer for democrats for progress also in new york we have. he is

a political activist and journalist and in las vegas we go to wayne root he's a political commentator and author of the conscience of a libertarian empowering the citizen revolution with god guns gold and tax cuts all right gentlemen this is crossfire that means you can jump in anytime you want steve if i can go to you first why is it gotten so personal so fast is obama camp looking for a knockout early even before the convention. well you know the obama campaign is simply going on what mitt romney said is his biggest justification for being president he says his experience at bain capital he claims he created jobs he claims all these wonderful things so the obama campaign is saying all right let's take a look at that let's take a look at all of what bain capital has done and in addition to that let's take a look at you know some of the things that romney has not been forthcoming about mitt romney is refusing to disclose more than two years of his tax returns it's unprecedented for a presidential candidate and you know if somebody is going to be tasked with taking this country to the next level in terms of fixing its economic problems let's see

what their experience is really all about not not just you know the nice parts of our candidate would like to talk about but i'm sure if i go also to you in new york you think this campaign has got negative very fast for the electorate and is it hitting the right note the right notes as far as what the political agenda in the u.s. . political campaigns in the united states typically negative this one has gotten negative as they come into the thing slightly earlier than than others but i that hasn't been my experience in watching politics i mean what else would they talk about the real issues perhaps. you know they you know as stated we have one party in the united states and that is the property party we have two right wings. of a party and therefore they're not going to discuss actually cutting taxes and i mean increasing returning to progressive tax rates that it can actually continue to

fund the treasury so what else is that stock about but personal attacks against each other what do you think about that when they just want to destroy mitt romney's reputation that's the agenda at least for now well you know the obama side the obama side actually peter has no choice but to destroy mitt romney's reputation because they can't run on their record whenever i'm a libertarian i'm actually supporting gary gary johnson the former two term governor of new mexico in this race because i think you've got two parties heading the united states of america for disaster one of them the democrats heads for the cliff and two hundred mph and bankrupt this country and the republicans head for the cliff at about one hundred miles per hour and we'll still get to that cliff still fly off and still go bankrupt but at least it's some level of sad it's better than barack obama who is added more to the debt by the time he's done than all presidents in the history of america come by in the real unemployment rate by the way right around twenty percent forget the numbers year of eight percent the real

estate collapse at this point is the greatest american history worse than the peak of the great depression the numbers are staggering and we have a president who chooses to demonize and denigrate people like me that over own businesses if you can hear just two days ago he sounded like we have a mistake is that the americans. resit he must be your old soviet he's got to be filled with soviet propaganda coming straight from your country because he actually had the nerve to say i never thought in my lifetime i'm here to. say that that that i don't get credit for running my own business when i'm john giannone soviet and you know i had enough american sure i was with the way this is grounds i was with the wane in the beginning because like himself i do agree that both parties. headed to the for the cliff but he lost me where when he started attacking obama's

foreign minister because really that is just more of this same nonsense has nothing to do with the issues the issues and i'm not one of these people that also i would like wayne i do not subscribe to the false equivalency i do believe that. the republicans have shown themselves to be the party of the top one percent they made it very clear that their interest is in preserving the rights of corporations to exploit their workers and and with and grant them and less tax cuts and less breaks and all manner of special treatment the democrats on the other hand have made it clear that they only pay lip service to some of the things that progressives would like to see in this country so. yes a surely the result is exactly the same. neither neither party is willing to eat raise revenue the treasury needs revenue to function that there is no government that can find you know that eventually when all the ok hearing journo know you are going to be fair time. so

i take issue sort of with both mitt what both men are saying because first of all barack obama is the president of united states right now and he is doing things to try to both bring the economy around and also address some of the protests progressive taxation issues that it was bringing up he's trying to remove the bush tax cuts for the wealthy he's trying to keep the ones for the middle class and the other thing is what the president inherited and where we are now is a track record that he absolutely can run and i think we're going to see a lot of that during the campaign is going to be debates where the entire topic is going to be the economy there's plenty of time to talk about that but what we want to talk about right now is we have a we have a person who thinks he can take over this job from the present he's saying that he can do a better job i don't think he can and he's using this this company and his running of it to try to claim that that's why he should get the job that's why he would be able to do a better job and when you look at that company it's not making a compelling argument it's not saying the type of things about mitt romney that he

would like to be able to say about himself i think that's absolutely fair game and i don't think that that's a smokescreen and i think that's going to be a big problem for mitt romney going forward and it's not just president obama and they will bomb a campaign democrats have been saying about stuff about this the republicans who are his competitors for the nomination have been saying these kinds of things since january this is not new the romney campaign knew this was coming and they've just been caught flatfooted ok when you want to jump in go ahead peter i well with even going away i just said go ahead what what if your guest just said that we've got to get more revenue and that is the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard my life the revenue is massive we've got to cut spending the united states of america is like a drug addict we are addicted to spending where shopaholics we don't need more revenue i pay plenty in taxes i pay way too much with all due respect stephen the reality is that x. communist countries your ex soviet republics all have flat ten to twenty percent.

and tax rates well the united states of america has massive taxes and the average american pays taxes later in the year if you add up everything we owe that or any time in the history of america it's not about just the income tax rate on the federal level it's state it's local it's sales tax it's property tax it's business taxes we have the highest corporate tax in the world and you are chasing people away one of the biggest democratic contributors in america is denise rich and she was the friend of the clintons and she just renounced her american citizen ship if obama is reelected i will make this prediction you will see americans in droves record numbers leaving the united states of america and renouncing their citizenship the taxes are too high we are off shoring jobs because the taxes and the rules and the regulations on. drilling what we need to do is we need to offshore barack obama let's say to him to russia. going to. give it

a break these lovely red meat this is a lovely red meat talking points that you know invoke the wrath of people by lying that we are paying high taxes taxes actually the lowest of the second was the ever been since a record study where over fifty years democratic republic i guess never. even use the lowest they've ever been only eighteen percent for the country. in the clinton years and as it has done in the past taxes have been at a rate of twenty five percent they're only eighteen percent now and with the bush tax cuts added in and the two wars we simply cannot afford it corporations in this country do not believe that we're in x. rays they we're going to be a marginal tax rate that is high but no corporation pays those rates because they

all have all manner of loopholes we have all manner of loop. it's for all sorts of categories throughout the tax code and you know this the mortgage the mortgage deductions the deductions we have companies like g.e. that were paid three billion dollars by the treasury instead of being taxes at all last year and there are many companies that don't. and right now the issue is i want to mention the other way around here i want to show you the next very hard to understand what i want to do it is easier. to go to steve here but the strategy right now is is the rich against everyone else ok and if the obama people are doing a really good job with that these are hard times well and the reason is the reason why the rich against everybody else is you know when you're trying to cry and say that the rich people want to leave rich people you know that the taxes on dividends and those types of income is around fifteen percent i mean if they're saying that's too much how much should it be i want to know from from way how much of it should be zero should should the rich pay no taxes on millions of dollars on dividend

income you're really trying to tell people wayne that that's too much because i don't think anybody around the world is going to try to answer even the two tax returns that he did released there was an average of around fifteen percent tax rate so corrent is absolutely right that's an absolutely ridiculous suggestion that the rich are going to leave because of a fifteen percent dividend tax rate so you know i'm going i'm happy to have that sort of debate with republicans. before we go to the break go ahead wayne go ahead . what you've done is you've taken the democratic message the obama message which is distraction distract the average middle class and upper middle class small business people and tell them that the rich aren't paying enough in taxes and then raise taxes on people like me that i'm sure are going to stop this and turn to our destruction to drive the tax returns are you guys that's exactly that's exactly what was on his tax return you're trying to have thinkers than average times in the last two years and there and here we have actual this country to try to salvage job

in harrisburg really going to assure break in after that short break we'll continue our discussion of the u.s. presidential campaign they. keep.

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know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom hardy welcome to the big picture. and. welcome back to rostock i'm you know about to mind you were talking about presidential candidate mitt romney. and. ok can i go back to new york let's use it to have

a test the ronald reagan test are you better off four years ago than you are today . and who should you vote for well i personally. i personally. i suppose i'm about the same. but they kind of me i would argue that i present them by the same i would argue that most people would probably say i good number of people would probably say they are better off now than they were four years ago who are those people. grant you are i well remember that unemployment is unemployment right now in the country is at about eight percent that actually means that ninety two percent of americans are employed the their remaining eight percent unemployment. people that are. periodically unemployed and periodically employed it's not the same necessarily

group of people that remain unemployed there is there are certainly improvements that have happened in the last four years americans do understand that the bush tax cuts in the bush wars lead us to the precipice that they have led us to we cannot afford the bush tax cuts they represent two point eight trillion to. get up to three point lead or can i jump in here in los angeles give me your point go ahead and then go ahead. peter we have a disaster on our hands trust me so listen to the people who get a paycheck each week a safe paycheck so lets the government employees who have a pension a fat pension and free health care for life and bloated salaries listen to small businessmen like me main street is a disaster it's a tragedy we're on the edge of a cliff because obama is running our country the same way that france and italy and spain and greece and portugal have been run and they're all bankrupt and insall that they have disasters on their hands you can't run

a very very serious thing on with a lawyer and that politics of division the steve don't think so now there is a vision even today with a receiver that you know is working and it's going to that message might you know that nice that that that message might play to u.s. audience for folks who may have it may have not been overseas don't live overseas with an international audience here ninety nine percent of the people who just heard what you said wayne are not going to buy it they don't believe that the u.s. is run at all like france or italy or spain and it's not. do not how about forty six million people out of those stands people in those countries and you know so so you know i would say i'm going to have figures in charlie rangel is saying is that we have way too low taxes for the wealthy there's too much of a burden of this country to fund government programs we need to lower taxes for the middle class we need more stimulus and we need a higher tax rate on the wealthy in this country fifteen percent is not acceptable that's why mitt romney doesn't want to release any more of his taxes at the very

best that the very best it's going to hear that he's paid about fifteen percent tax for the last ten to twenty years and the american public the middle class who are paying eyes five twenty eight percent are not going to excite listen up guys listen up ok i want to go to you the reason there are no jobs reason there are no jobs is because you g.m. in the eyes of the wealthy and by the way i mean the two hundred fifty thousand to five hundred thousand a year category that's small business and you keep talking about the wealthy like billionaires and then democrats like well i mean that really is actually what i want to tell you about and so i want to tell you i'm not ok with mitt romney says he's against crony capitalism isn't he part of crony capitalism. well listen you know you're talking to a guy i would love to see gary johnson be the next president of states you want a model for how to run the country these two hysterical guys i'm debating with gary johnson brad new mexico with fourteen tax cuts never raise taxes once dramatic spending cuts and at the end of his term the most vetoes of all governors in

america combined and they went from a dramatic budget deficit to a one billion dollar budget surplus that's how america needs to be run massive spending cuts and make sure that people keep more of their own money and stop demonizing successful people like me when you need us ok create all the little jobs in america well i don't know it's kind of interesting because a lot of people as i could enjoy if i go to you the financial crisis was caused by crony capitalism. the financial crisis was indeed caused by crony capitalism by endless tax cuts for top corporations by endless deregulation for top corporations allying wall street to basically gamble with money i walked i worked on wall street myself i am familiar with with the endless push for special treatment on wall street and this deregulation knowing full well that it is actually required and wayne you know we're not here to demonize the successful we're just saying that

people nobody in this country makes it on their own you have you know people like you like to argue as we get help from guys you do not do you believe we have help from scientists from the government there's all sorts of grants and subsidies from the government oh come on wayne you know with these no cooperation that doesn't get covered i certainly don't and why cities for research and development and that comes from taxes that you and i pay and so and the two hundred fifty thousand five hundred thousand mark only includes a few small businesses there are lots of individuals like yourself that count for you and you would still get tax cuts on the first two hundred fifty thousand dollars this is not about envy really lovely words that your side likes to throw around do they like to leave out the facts and i would like to find out exactly and gary johnson by the way he had supper at a time when the federal government had enough to send over to new mexico so. new

mexico was also dependent on federal tax dollars and your side likes to talk about cutting spending but no one on your side wants to specify where they're going to cut because nobody's willing to cut medicare medicaid and they should really because those are necessary programs that nobody is really not sure she's offering and what you didn't favor here is the essential cutting social security and medicare. personally i would favor a means testing social security and medicare side you see is that democrats are afraid to propose it and you know side is constantly increasing defense spending which is the highest spending in the country so exactly where are these tax cuts going to come from the only people of the us side is willing to go after the very. end here in way and i want to i want to and i want to. do it i

just want to ask you. let me let me answer to any question do you think mitt romney's holding back on his taxes because there's something there that he doesn't want people to know about i think it's another distraction i couldn't care less about mitt romney's tax returns i do care by the way about barack obama's background so maybe we should arrange a trade and i would suggest mitt romney arrange a trait he should announce that he'll release his tax returns when obama releases his college records he was my college classmate at columbia diversity and i believe there's a massive scandal brewing at obama's time at columbia diversity so as soon as he releases unseals his college records if i was mitt i release my tax returns going back ten years but guess what the economy is in shambles and i don't care about mitt romney's tax returns i care about cutting spending cutting regulations rules and mandates and getting america back to work and i just as you know living coolidge one of our great president said the business of america is business you've

got to take care of business man and i think. he's infinitely steve jobs than just out ahead steve. you know i'm not so sure that the american people want to know what barack obama got in english one o one at columbia you know but but one of the things that i do want to say is that mitt romney jumped all over ted kennedy in one thousand nine hundred four during their debate and complained that and it attacked ted kennedy for not releasing more tax returns so here we are right seventeen eighteen years later and he's refusing to release his own tax returns in two thousand and four ed gillespie one of romney's top advisers attacked the kerry campaign for not releasing teresa heinz kerry's tax returns to the wife there so we have this massive hypocrisy here of romney demand and his top aides demanding everybody else's tax returns that they've ever dealt with in the past twenty years they don't want to release their own you know that's going to become a bigger and bigger problem everybody's going to want to we want to increase hiring and i think that's a relevant question what is the high i'm not deciding is the city's iranian or

ceiling not tonight is it tax evasion what is finances. with you know organized crime we don't even know we don't know. you won't release the information here republican seven republicans have been demanding more tax returns using the is allowed to say things i want to show you i can go ahead and jump and. jump in i am rageous outrageous you can say things like that that slander and release lewis generosity very simplistic and i'm not here you certainly had some of the release of the letters here to turn their fifteen republicans fifteen problem on the whole book and including bill kristol a whole bunch of other folks the people if you look up the word republican half of these folks his pictures come up in the dictionary they're telling mitt romney release your tax return here and i was in here and western media only he won't do it and you go ahead jump in. peter i want to you. know this is going to be

a fair time you're going to go ahead. the mitt romney's tax returns are actually obsoleted relevant because mitt romney has a tax proposal that would give himself even cuts so that is very relevant barack obama's transcripts relevant and you know it when we had president bush who was a state student and wire in the sea and we had dick cheney the vice president was a dropout from yale and none of those mattered made them those were not the reasons that that made them worse presidents or maybe they were but we do know that you know so these are distractions and for someone who comes on on t.v. saying that you're not here to defend mitt romney and that you're not here to defend the politics of distraction you should throwing around a lot of distractions mitt romney's tax cuts tax returns because of his proposals on the tax code it is absolutely relevant all right we're going to the last one of

the programs that's relevant peter what's relevant is forty six million americans on food stamps a levon million a disability for the last three months there's a higher rate of people getting on disability than the job rolls what's relevant is forty percent of the net worth of the average american is gone what's relevant is i own businesses on main street and they're being systematically destroyed and all residents are the results of doing totally despise this business and generally i think when you do this for hours thank you very much many thanks and i guess today in new york and then las vegas and thanks to our viewers for watching us here to see you next time and remember national. stage.

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