how it actually works here is here's a little town that has been basically devastated by the bush great depression that we're experiencing right now we have just a couple of homes here we've got a farm with a little you know a field out here a silo and. a little grocery store the supermarket and so much happy people are out of work right they they're just scraping by so we come in as the government and we say ok we're going to give you some unemployment money we're going to do the opposite of what rick snyder is doing because you're unemployed right now here's some cash we're going to give that to the homeowners so the homeowners then take some of that cash and they then they go to the supermarket they buy things and the owner of the sewer and they you know they're buying things from those who are in the owner of the supermarket than course has to give some money to the farmer the farm now is making money and they say you know gee maybe we ought to buy something from like you know a store i mean let's let's actually you know get the a.t.'s lawn service out here and fix up our you know the help cle

three years by twenty nine percent something barack obama's been unable to do thanks to the bush great depression and to the extent the. you cannot call it you cannot identify any increase in revenues as a result of the bush tax cuts the bush tax cuts cut revenue twenty two things like in the reagan tax cuts two thousand sets of personal income tax revenues rose tony marsh you had to settle a shot is your economy absolutely not that's of barack obama's own budget statistics but are you there you know santorum has one of the most populist tax plans of all the candidates because i mean he really does want to foster american manufacturing wouldn't you have you have a half more loss of americans who are pain full bore para payroll taxes but no income taxes and he wants to raise their income taxes to ten percent and then you get a couple hundred thousand people who are making over for over a million dollars a year and he wants to cut their income taxes from thirty six percent on twenty eight percent how is that populist well i would say if you look at the plan holistically and you can't just get eve r

help of the republican party in a few we're democrats have become the true victims of the great bush depression so how did this come about joining me now is a man who's extensively studied this exact issue thomas frank is an author journalist and columnist for harper's magazine whose new book is pity the billionaire are times swindle and the unlikely comeback of the right thomas welcome it's great to be here tom good to see you again. this this is really quite extraordinary the militant multi multimillionaire lobbyist grover norquist. calling for the impeachment of the president because he and his rich buddies are the victim yes that's right president we're all if that's exactly right that's the word that's if that's what they are i don't know if they think something like that sincerely but there's a nuff of that kind of stuff out there in the culture that i'm able to create a whole book called pity the billionaire about this you know this phenomenon this is a complete inversion of your usual sort of hard times symbolism ok so do they believe it and are they trying to sell it to average working

one of the reasons why the auto industry needed a bailout nonsense it was it was a great depression caused by george w. bush it sounds like something that mitt romney would say when he's working at bain capital he fired the workers who were in the union so he could hire them at lower wages we all know the fact the facts are true the facts are the true me rated more jobs and the president how many jobs and you know how many jobs to get rid of is the real question we should ask ourselves about the fact forces but are not so true dominoes well let's talk about the facts though the facts are pretty simple the fact is this where there are labor unions there are higher wages there's a better standard of living there's better community development there's less faith talley's on the job the workers are safer they have better lives for their children why would we not want that in this country why are americans not joining unions in the private sector the unions are dominating and i've got to realize that all of the unions and hopefully the seven hundred year industry busting unions well i mean i if you look at where

the economy was in full meltdown people talking about great depression secretary treasury hank paulson was coming out of people's hands were shaking bush saying our economy is in great danger today we just created twenty thousand jobs you see all the jobs that have been created right here. how how. romney's not telling the truth when he says obama's made the economy worse we're not we're not looking at a great depression right now we're doing much better than we were the month eight hundred thousand jobs last month obama took office we're doing i think obama could rightly lean on the fact that he was walking into a recession gobby asli and he had to take it on but when you're showing it our job numbers i mean you can just show now i mean as of today it was as recently it's been speculated back as far back as halloween but the debt has now clips the economy i mean it's it's not like this is like some grand slam it certainly is not clearly you know i believe this is girl labor says it's here including public and private sector jobs a lot of public sector jobs involved in that so if it's a matter of improving the economy i think romney ha

great depression. starting under your friend george bush. unemployment has gone down. we have seen 23 months of private sector job growth. gdp is up. stock market is up. manufacturing is up. under difficult circumstance, you have to concede he's done well without support from john boehner, eric cantor and yourself. >> the proof is in the pudding. >> i have just given you the statistics. >> if the president agrees, he will spend the next eight months talking about his record. i don't think that's what he's going to do. by every single indicator, this is what the election will be about. the economy is worst by every indicator than when he was elected pch if he believes in what he has done, he will sound like you and he will articulate that. i think he will engage in class warfa warfare. he's going to run against the producers, takers and wealthy. i don't think the country will put up with that. >> you keep saying he's flogging old and tired policies. here is a question for you which isn't old and tired. do you support newt gingrich's plan for revising the tax code in the

great depression. all he is doing is taking the bush policies and saying we need to bring them back into law, we need to take care of the wealthiest, most powerful interests in our own society. i think the debate between president obama and the plans, the real plans that he has set forth in detail in a congressional speech, in speeches across this country, detailed and comprehensive way are going to contrast with what romney is offering, which is the policies that almost led this country off the economic edge just a couple of years ago. >> now, joan, let's just be real candid, because everyone is playing horse races. willard romney is acting as if he doesn't know the president's plan when clearly he criticized it. is it because he doesn't want to have to deal with the fact that what's saying he knows most americans are not going to support and the meat of what the president is saying does have the support of most americans, including in some areas many republicans, if not the majority? >> right. well, you know, actually, reverend al, i think it's more that mitt romney is used to saying whatever he feels

there is no question that president bush was at the helm when he had the greatest financial crisis since the great depressionhange my story until demi moore and ashton kutcher. >> before failed. >> what is the big story going to be. >> surprise. upset in the election. >> ooh. i give you that obama wins. obama wins and crushes who ever the republican. >> not going to happen. >> my guess generic republican beats obama. >> i think alex baldwin will try to get thrown off of the plane. >> or show. greg number one? >> i will continue to be awesome. >> tough to do. >>> and there you have it. all five top stories and predictions for next yearr. we are lookking forward to 2012, have a great year, governor. thank you very much. >> up next. triump over tragedy. >> no matter how bad the story may be and horrible the circumstances, if you look closelyy, you will find a silver lining. >> who does shepherd smith say is one of the heroes of the year. and then the biggest story of 2011, death of osama bin laden. [ mujahid ] there was a little bit of trepidation, not quite knowing what the next phase was going to be, you know

reason there are more people on food stamps now, and there were more under bush we had something that almost rivalled the great depression. you have more people out of work needing temporary assistance. do you want to go back to the policies that caused those people to get on food stamps? those are the policies newt gingrich and mitt romney are offering. the president will offer a blueprint to build an america that will be lasting, that rewards work, that makes sure everybody does their fair share, holds everyone accountable. or do we want an economy that says wall street should write its own rules and give tax breaks to the hugely wealthy and it will trickle down. that doesn't work. that's why we lost the jobs, why some people had to go on food stamps. that's the question facing the country. >> thanks for joining us this morning, david plouffe. >> thanks, ann. >> the state of the union address airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern, 6:00 p.m. pacific time here on nbc. now here's matt. >> ann, thank you. now to italy where work at the site of the cruise ship disaster is entering a new phase today. nbc's michelle kosinski is o

bush bailouts which is bailouts tim geithner was retained. by obama but more importantly there were no sweeping prosecutions you know one when f.d.r. came in after the after the great depression you know and one of the first things it is that when they dance he did stronger reforms in the end they cleaned up wall street obama did exactly the opposite of that and his treasury secretary tim geithner has said openly that if they had pressed too many fraud prosecutions that it would have created quite a run in the bank in other words other. investors around the world would have fled the american markets because they would have been frightened off by all the corruption so i think they they intentionally did not press forward with with sweeping fraud prosecutions because they were protecting those markets and that's so wall street got what they what they paid for they got a guy who did not put them in jail and let's talk about the prospect the potential of even more people getting what they paid for and what we saw recently with citizens united the u.s. supreme court case that you know in a nutshell found that that corporations can be people and that money can be speech talk a litt

bush administration did he's been a lot better especially around homeless veterans we've seen a massive decrease in homelessness among veterans at a time where we're in the deepest recession we've been since the great depression homelessness in general went down one percent because of the stimulus package and the h. p.r.p. or homeless prevention rapid that's inside of that and especially for homeless veterans because of the vashti program which is a supportive housing voucher through the v.a. and through s.s. vs grant which is almost prevention raftery housing money we're seeing big cuts in the number of veterans who are homeless so when i hear politicians like ron paul and other libertarians who want to go out there and say that well we can just cut and get rid of hud if you get rid of hud guess how many thousands of veterans are going to end up homeless again because they're really being helped a lot by these programs and while i disagree with the president on some things the fact is is that when it comes to veterans he has been by far better than any administration we've seen in modern history but the thing is so these cuts that are going to be taking place the four hundred fifty billion dollars in cuts th

have the bush tax cuts followed by ten years of job losses, declining median incomes, and the beginning of an economic crisis of the sort the united states hasn't seen since the great depression talk about some of the other things you say really do work especially with the multiplier. we went over the incredible benefit from infrastructure. also you say loans and loan guarantees. walk us through that. >> there's leverage. if you -- the xm bank goes and loans money to companies so they can export, create jobs by tapping into other markets. they get paid back and get to do it again. an infrastructure bank is the same kind of thing where if we created a bank that lent money and could leverage money to people to build a bridge or build a highway, well, that would create the jobs now, the money would get paid back. we'd get to do it again. that kind of thing is very beneficial. >> what about research and development tax credits to encourage the sort of upstream things that happened in our universities and laboratories? >> look over the wall. look around here. you know, that's where it's happening. research and development, whether it was at xerox park or bell telephone laboratorie

great depression. we had a recession. that recession started with george bush.ratic party and the democratic party's candidate who is currently the president i believe are far better for america and that we will be reelected. >> gretchen: we should remind people what you're talk being in supporting other people is that you supported the republican gentleman who was running for congress in anthony wiener's former district here in new york. >> yes, i did, because i'm an independent. i'm a democrat. i love the democratic party. but when it does something that i think is wrong, i'm going to stand up and say so. that makes me an even more independent person, doesn't it? >> gretchen: it does. we always appreciate your viewpoint. thank you for coming in, good to see you. coming up, a bungee jumper's cord snaps. this morning, that woman survived and she is sharing her incredible story. their dream of own ago home got crushed when the government stepped in or stomped on them, however you want to look at it. what they're doing today could affect any american that owns pro

great depression. what do you think -- why do you think that president obama has raised taxes? why did president bush lower taxes when we had more expenses? that doesn't make sense. host: i will leave it there and get a response from the governor. guest: there is a number of attacks she has made there. let me start out by saying that president obama was elected with the majority of democrats in control both houses of congress. instead of really reaching out and working with republicans, a massive increase in the size of the federal government, the stimulus plans the that increased spending dramatically. the result of that was the american people overwhelmingly rejected the democratic control the congress, and in 2010 elected a republican majority in the house. republicans picked up a number of senate seats as well. that is a rejection of the direction the president was leading the country. he had an opportunity last year with the state of the union address to put together a bipartisan plan to address the problem of the country, a trillion-dollar increase in the national debt year after year. he had t

great depression. what do you think -- why do you think that president obama has raised taxes? why did president bush a lower taxes when we had more expenses? that doesn't make sense. host: i will leave it there and get a response from the governor. guest: there is a number of attacks she has made there. let me start out by saying that president obama was elected with the majority of democrats in control both houses of congress. instead of really reaching out and working with republicans, a massive increase in the size of the federal government, the stimulus plans the that increased spending dramatically. the result of that was the american people overwhelmingly rejected the democratic control the congress, and in 2010 elected a republican majority in the house. republicans picked up a number of senate seats as well. that is a rejection of the direction the president was leading the country. he had an opportunity last year with the state of the union address to put together a bipartisan plan to address the problem of the country, a trillion-dollar increase in the national debt year after year. he had

great depression. why do you think president obama has raised taxes? why did president bush lower taxes when we had more expenses? that does not make sense. >> i will leave it there and get a response from the governor. >> there are a number of tax she has made their but let me start out by saying president obama was elected with the majority of democrats in control both houses of congress. instead of reaching out and working with republicans, he pushed through a massive increase in the size of the federal government and the stimulus plan that increased spending dramatically. the result of that was the american people overwhelmingly rejected the democratic control of the congress and in 2010, and elected a republican majority in the house. republicans picked up a number of senate seats as well. that was the direction -- rejection of the direction the president leading the country. he had an opportunity to put together a bipartisan plan to address the biggest problems of this country -- the chilean dollar increase in the national debts year after year. -- the trillion in doll