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bruce bartlett, thank you very much for joining us tonight. >> thank you. >> send us your designs for "off the cliff!" campaign button. you can tweet us, facebook us, or e-mail us. >>> coming up, mitt romney versus mitt romney on abortion. a video that you really have to see, watch mitt romney changing his contradictory positions on abortion through the years. that's coming up. if there was a pill to help protect your eye health as you age... would you take it? well, there is. [ male announcer ] it's called ocuvite. a vitamin totally dedicated to your eyes, from the eye-care experts at bausch + lomb. as you age, eyes can lose vital nutrients. ocuvite helps replenish key eye nutrients. [ male announcer ] ocuvite has a unique formula not found in your multivitamin to help protect your eye health. now, that's a pill worth taking. [ male announcer ] ocuvite. help protect your eye health. there it is ! there it is ! where ? where ? it's getting away ! where is it ? it's gone. we'll find it. any day can be an adventure. that's why we got a subaru. love wherever the road takes you. wow, ther

i think i may have mentioned this before, but what concns me is that bruce bartlett, who i think theeman probably knows, former reagan and president george h.w. bush official saying that no claim for regulatory issues have increased. he says this. repuicans have embraced the idea that this is holding back employment. they assert that barack obama has unleashed a tidal wave of new regulation which cated uncertainty of business and prevents them from investing in hiring. as i said, he said, no hard idence is offered for this claim. he then says, in my opinion that means -- bruce bartlett -- not my opinion, regulatory system is a kenard used by republicans pursue an agenda supported by the business community year in and year out. nornede, it's a case of political opportumism. that's his opinion. not mine. my concern is if you ask economists on whether or not legislation -- many pieces of legislation that we baffed called jobs bills -- the gentleman has pointed that out -- economists say in the short term which is really what we need to do, we need to do in the short term and the long te

bruce bartlett at one point put 23 of them together on the table, showing heavy large majority supportoften majority support among republicans for raising taxes on the rich. it's the single most popular thing you can do to reduce the deficit. now, republicans say raising taxes in general is unpopular so the two sides have these sort of simultaneously but in a sort of way contradictory propositions going. i think the way, the direction this fight is going, and it goes back to the investment language you pointed out at the beginning, what obama is trying to do in this campaign is say if you don't raise taxes on the rich, if you take taxes off the table, here is what happens to the rest of the budget. those things are very unpopular. the cuts you need to make in investment, the cuts you need to make in education, medicaid, medicare, social security, those are very unpopular cuts. republicans and romney and ryan in particular have been very aggressive about essentially obscuring those effects. they have said look, our tax cuts will be paid for but they have not said at all how. they have n

. >> the other thing is something that bruce bartlett, an economist for ronald reagan and others haved, history tells us that when you get fiscal discipline is when you actually raise revenues and couple that with spending cuts. when you cut revenues it has had no effect on the spending and that's a good part of the reason we've ended up in the mess we're in after all the tax cuts at the beginning of the last decade. >> mark, later in shows we'll talk to olympia snowe, dredging up everybody we can find who once walked roughly in the middle of the road. do you come across those on your travels while we're looking at a campaign? >> look, let me say, i spent six years on capitol hill as a newspaper reporter. i spent a lot of time with the likes of olympia snowe, tom daschle, trent lott, and it's amazing trent lott would be considered a centrist. nowadays, they wouldn't think he's conservative enough. what's happened in congress, things have gotten so polarized at this point seeing the likes of olympia snowe say i'm leaving. enough's enough. we saw that from a democrat from indiana, evan

i think i may have mentioned this before, but what concerns me is that bruce bartlett, who i think the gentleman probably knows, former reagan and president george h.w. bush official saying that no claim for regulatory issues have increased. he says this. republicans have embraced the idea that this is holding back employment. they assert that barack obama has unleashed a tidal wave of new regulation which created uncertainty of business and prevents them from investing in hiring. as i said, he said, no hard evidence is offered for this claim. he then says, in my opinion that means -- bruce bartlett -- not my opinion, regulatory system is a kenard used by republicans to pursue an agenda supported by the business community year in and year out. nornede, it's a case of political opportumism. that's his opinion. not mine. my concern is if you ask economists on whether or not legislation -- many pieces of legislation that we baffed called jobs bills -- the gentleman has pointed that out -- economists say in the short term which is really what we need to do, we need to do in the short term

i think bruce bartlett is just wrong about this.evious discussion about republicans being against raising taxes. i'm one of those people. to be a republican is to be against raising taxes and if democrats want to be the pro-tax party, that's fine. what we found in our study very clearly through every dollar of taxes that have been raised over the last 50 years, spending has gone up by $1.50. that's one reason why i don't think raising taxes is a good way. if you look in the '80s, as you know, one of the things reagan did is cut that top tax rate from 70% to 80%. in 1980 when reagan was elected, by 1990, $1 trillion of revenue. one last point -- >> tax increases after that first year, stephen. >> what did you say? >> after six round of tax increases. we raised taxes in '82, '83, '84 and '86. >> did reagan cut taxes or raise them? >> he cut them in one year and then raised them in six years. >> the rates came down from 78% to 28%. that's a pretty big reduction in rates. the point i'm making, norm. i think you would agree with this. i

i think i may have mentioned this before, but what concerns me is that bruce bartlett, who i think theentleman probably knows, former reagan and president george h.w. bush official saying that no claim for regulatory issues have increased. he says this. republicans have embraced the idea that this is holding back employment. they assert that barack obama has unleashed a tidal wave of new regulation which created uncertainty of business and prevents them from investing in hiring. as i said, he said, no hard evidence is offered for this claim. he then says, in my opinion that means -- bruce bartlett -- not my opinion, regulatory system is a kenard used by republicans to pursue an agenda supported by the business community year in and year out. nornede, it's a case of political opportumism. that's his opinion. not mine. my concern is if you ask economists on whether or not legislation -- many pieces of legislation that we baffed called jobs bills -- the gentleman has pointed that out -- economists say in the short term which is really what we need to do, we need to do in the short term an

bruce bartlett slammed the plan, writing, he offers only the sugar of the reductions without telling us what the medicine of the big broadening would be. mitt romney said something similar, cutting rates for the rich, while refusing to name the deductions that would be needed to play for it. it was a bait and switch. it was not a step in our direction. it was a leap toward the tea party and away from ideal. democrats were willing to match the republicans dollar for dollar on the spending side and more. we even beyond when it came to tackling entitlements. we had backing from our leadership and our party to make a big deal. we jumped right into the middle of the ring. republicans refused to move an inch in our direction on revenue. they actually tried to use deficit reduction committees to cut taxes for the rich even further credit they were so focused on how their base would react, they could not summon the will to leave their policy -- partisan court. why is this? why is the moderate republican party so opposed to allow the rich to pay just a little bit more in taxes to help solve t

bruce bartlett, ronald reagan's reagan's-- >> a great guy.has got to say. [ ♪ music ♪ ] [ ♪ music ♪ ] >> stephanie: good morning billy in texas. >> caller: hey steph you really just disarm me with that song. >> stephanie: that's why i do it. >> that's clever. >> stephanie: it's hard to get back to you're talking point. >> caller: have you ever wonder idea there is not a lot of gun debacles like that in texas? >> stephanie: why there are no gun debacles in texas. >> oh, there have been mass shootings in texas. >> caller: stand by and admit. every time one of these knuckle heads dye their hair in orange and pink we symptom them. >> stephanie: it's hair color. >> caller: let's not go there. >> you do preemptive violence. let's hurt them before they might hurt someone else. >> caller: vigilante. >> it is a vigilant any thing that you're talking about. >> caller: really, really? >> stephanie: that's grounds for assault if someone dyed--what are you, the mitt romney of texas? >> caller: would it have been better if we vigilantized that guy or he sh

i think i may have mentioned this before, but what concerns me is that bruce bartlett, who i think the gentleman probably knows, former reagan and president george h.w. bush official saying that no claim for regulatory issues have increased. he says this. republicans have embraced the idea that this is holding back employment. they assert that barack obama has unleashed a tidal wave of new regulation which created uncertainty of business and prevents them from investing in hiring. as i said, he said, no hard evidence is offered for this claim. he then says, in my opinion he then says, in my opinion that

bruce bartlett slammed the plan, writing, he offers only the sugar of the reductions without telling us what the medicine of the big broadening would be. mitt romney said something similar, cutting rates for the rich, while refusing to name the deductions that would be needed -- closed to play for it. it was a bait and switch. it was not a step in our direction. it was a leap toward the tea party and away from ideal. democrats were willing to match the republicans dollar for dollar on the spending side and more. we even beyond when it came to tackling entitlements. we had backing from our leadership and our party to make a big deal. we jumped right into the middle of the ring. republicans refused to move an inch in our direction on revenue. they actually tried to use deficit reduction committees to cut taxes for the rich even further credit they were so focused on how their base would react, they could not summon the will to leave their partisan court. why is this? why is the moderate republican party so opposed to allow the rich to pay just a little bit more in taxes to help solve t