we'll talk more about this with dick armey. f the fiscally conservative freedom works group and a flat tax supporter. dick, good to see you. >> nice to be with you. >> all right, well, we have, we have herman cain's 9-9-9 plan and now he's saying 9-0-9 for some folks. you have rick perry talking about an optional 20% flat tax and newt gingrich talking about an optional 15% flat tax. who do you think, right now, has the better plan? >> well, actually, i would have preferred the plan that was written by holland in 1984, even the one i introduced in 1994. but at this point, i think the governor's plan is a very bold plan by way of comparison with anything else that's out there and i think it is possible that it could achieve the growth of the american economy and the job creation that would follow that growth. so, right now, i think that's the best plan standing. no doubt in my mind that this is the best single policy option available to the government to inspire growth of the american economy. and rick perry's gotten pretty close

it was started by dick armey and funded by the insurance companies. what ever happened after that, i do not know. i find it absolutely ironic that the entire movement was based around objection to the obama health care plan, funded by the very people that would be regulated. to me that he party represents nothing more than a cup -- corporate elite, g grassroots movement. how did you enjoy that work? >> it was a fabulous job. it may be the best job i was ever going to have. the problem with those jobs is that you just burn out. >> i understand. given the challenges that we face, what do you think about the challenges that this agency should be concerned about in the future? >> well, i think that don pedro was the key. those are fairly specific. this is so challenging to know what the agenda is going to be. there is a backlog of routine matters that are not being processed by the congress right now. every now and then, you get a little window. then you can get some of this stuff done. but for the most part, the system is dysfunctional. it has always bee

and dick armey. >>> and then, one of the world's richest men on the global obligation to the poor. >> every dollar makes a huge difference. >> microsoft founder bill gates on getting government to give in a gloomy economy and revealing comments about his love/hate relationship with the late steve jobs. >>> good morning. welcome to the program. lots to get to today, but first some news since your morning papers. more than 2 million people in the northeast are without power this morning, after a freak snowstorm slammed into the east coast. the record-breaking nor'easter brought winds of over 60 miles an hour. the largest october snowstorm in new york city's history. >>> in afghanistan, new details are emerging about yesterday's suicide bombings. sch claimed a dozen american lives. the attacks mark a deadly milestone in america's longest war. it cast a pall on a new pentagon report showing that overall security gains in the country. abc's jake tapper has more now from kabul. >> reporter: christiane, good morning. this was the deadliest attack on coalition forces here in kabul in the more

it was started by dick armey and funded by the insurance companies. what ever happened after that, i do not know. i find it absolutely ironic that the entire movement was based around objection to the obama health care plan, funded by the very people that would be regulated. to me that he party represents nothing more than a cup -- corporate elite, g grassroots movement.

these various tea party organizations funded by multimillionaire lobbyist dick armey and the koch brothers bringing these fancy two hundred fifty thousand dollar buses with hundred thousand dollar paint jobs and and leaders behaving like rock stars on the podium giving their speeches and then going home and that was it and people were just expected to follow nothing not a predicate out of it all you know chris matthews of all people made this remarkable observation about a year ago he said republicans want a leader democrats not a meeting. and it was i saw it i thought. it's really true and and frankly i think it's a good thing the leader of the word leader doesn't appear in the constitution but there's a lot the word meanings isn't in there but there's a whole lot of discussion about meetings in the constitution it's our legislative body so frankly taking given a choice i'll take a meeting over a media annoyed or self annoyed leader any good. that would be the good the bad or the very very iraq hoed grathwohl maniacally ugly good mitt romney as long as we're out talking economics medicati

of people all with out the help of secret millionaire public masters like the corps brothers and dick armey so isn't this what a real grassroots movement and real grassroots change looks like as opposed to manufactured outrage funded by billionaires like we saw with the tea party bill kerpen joins me now he's vice president for policy americans for prosperity one of the major organizations behind the tea party and the author of a new book democracy denial power obama is ignoring you and bypassing congress to radically transform america and how to stop it phil welcome back thanks for having me thomas reed of the title there yeah it's a dramatic title that deserves a dramatic read. i'm curious as you know you're going to say she's been very involved in the tea party movement their armies you know. organizing processes that's a different group but it's freedom works the old freedom works ok so america but americans for prosperity has been bought off of the tea party third zation is what we've been very enlightened people so what's your take on the difference between these two groups. it seems

i'm curious as you know your organization has been very involved in the tea party movement dick armey you know. organizing processes that's a different group so if that's freedom or the freedom works ok so america but americans for prosperity has been involved in the tea party thirty stations what we've been very enlightened people yeah so what's your take on the difference between these two groups. it seems to me that if i may in fact it's seems to me that if you were to ask the leaders of the tea party movement that's what the people in congress are going to get going to answer i think the leaders are more the local organizers in the different cities who threw those original big tea parties on april fifteenth two thousand and nine that caught a lot of people off guard when we had even relatively mid-sized cities to have thousands of people turn out and the. it was really done with thousands of volunteers around the country with loose coordination through conference calls and stuff like tax day tea party dot com but that really wasn't driven by any of the national digs and when you p

that and i'm curious if if you think that maybe the tea party movement i'm not talking about a dick armey the p.r. firm the fox news tea party you know the fancy buses with a hundred thousand or paint jobs but the average people who are showing up in the streets was that the same cases that the same energy was that coming in many cases in the same place they were just expressing it through the only political mechanism that they knew which was you know. reagan republican politics. i think you're the nail on the head but i think when people really stop and take a look at this especially the original tea partiers the people who are ron paul supporters because that is the answer on foreign policy you cuz of his stance on the drug war because of his stance on economic liberty. i think that you will find of those people really have a lot in common with some of the issues that are being raised close night you know i. wish it's not so much partisan as it's trying to appeal to the public good and i think that there are probably three maybe four issues in america that even people on the right peopl

idea of in the recently when you also when you poll tea party sure grassroots tea partiers not dick armey and you know the. big shots but when you poll the grassroots you find basically the same the same things where they want strong social security and they don't want cuts and they're and they'd like to see the cap lifted they want a national health care program sixty seventy percent of tea party years would like it you know of a single payer national health care program you guys know these numbers they would they want the right to unionize they want i mean you know just the score stuff they want the banks held accountable and for example ronald reagan put a banks years in prison prosecuted sixteen hundred people in the us and as went down three years after they were deregulate the four years five years after the banks get the regulated they go down and george bush says we're not going to put him in jail we're going to be a well known the common thread the common thread between these two movements is frustration you're absolutely right on that point but when it comes to the way that they

the whole tea party sure grassroots tea partiers not dick armey and you know. big shots but when you pull the grassroots the parties you find that basically the same the same things where there was strong social security and they don't want cuts and they're and they'd like to see the cap lifted a lot of national health care programs sixty seven percent of tea partiers would like a you know a single payer national health care program you guys know these numbers they want the right to unionize they want i mean you know just for stuff they want the banks held accountable i mean for example ronald reagan would have powers in banks two years in prison prosecuted sixteen hundred people when the us was run down three years after they would be regulated that you know for years five years after the banks get the regulated behavior down and george horses are going to put him in jail we're going to be alone the common thread the common thread between these two movements is frustration you're absolutely right on that point but when it comes to the way that they actually vi

. >> let me bring in former congressman dick armey, a leading voice in the tea party. congressman, are you embracing herman cain and if not, why not? >> well, we all sh -- i speak for a lot of folks across the country, we like herman cain's authenticity. one thing that you can say clearly, he's not a politician, he's considered by the politicians for being too amateurish. yet he has a personal record of accomplishments that none of them can match in terms of his personal life and how often he got the job done. he's straightforward in the way he talks. he campaign very directly. he doesn't seem to be beleaguered by -- from our point of view, yeah, he's not one of them. so, therefore, make him very attractive to us. >> michele bachmann had that position, self-declared position during the summer. is he now "it" for you? >> the fact this is a longterm process. we enjoy having people in the race. make their point of view. and we like herman cain, a great deal, we don't think he has the best economic plan and the time analysis, we're concerned with what policies will in fact

unanswered fight it be the non-romney candidate, we've also got tea party groups and groups like dick armey's works group that's corporate funded, direct action group. they have announced they'll oppose a romney nomination by the republican party. does that actually, does that keep the schism open for too long in order for romney to actually make the ground he needs to make this year? >> no. look, i think at the end of the day it's a pay for play organization that is good about sending out press releases about itself. i think it's pretty impotent in terms of being able to do serious injury to, you know, the nominee should mitt romney be the nominee at the end of the day. but, you know, you're going to see now a really vigorous contest on the right side of the republican party between cain, between bachmann, between santorum, between perry. you know, with all of those candidates trying to grow by taking a piece out of perr of course perry wants to keep his vote share. it's been declining. in order for him to get stable in the race he has to hold off the conservatives coming at him in the debat

seriously enough to care about their full-on, fire-breathing no mitt romney, never, campaign in the dick armeydom works, says the republican party will have to pry a mitt rom nomination out of their cold, dead hands. joe miller who beat incumbent senator lisa murkowski in the alaska primary only to lose to her as a write-in the general election, joe miller working with a conservative tea party pac whose mission in life is to keep mitt romney from being the nominee. why are we supposed to take the influence of these group opts republican party so seriously? why are we supposed to believe the tea party is the the controlling fact nor tea partile politics now, except in the case of their multiple committed energized campaigns to stop mitt romney? these guys don't seem to like rick perry much and we know as of today, they won't have the chance to select sarah palin y where do goal in and how long before we hear serious noises from the right, if romney get will get a third party challenge from the right f that's not possible, i'm done hearing about the intractability, power and influence of the tea

disappeared for a few years when our chairman, steve forbes, ran in '96, and our our chairman, dick armey tax back in the '90s. herman cain has brought the debate back. rick perry has brought the debate back. he left some exemptions in there so it is not a pure flat tax. i think it is the sort of compromise that you might actually get moved through congress. >> what about the whole question of fairness, of progressivity and helping those that need the help in the middle and the lower income people? doesn't the flat tax really favor the rich? >> i would say the opposite. i think the flat tax achieves all of those things. i think the american people know that the current tax code i part of the problem in washington. because it is a 60,000 page catalog of favors to powerful special interests, that's how you get the current situation where warren buffet pays less than his second, as we hear or g.e. pays zero taxes when they have income. they are the powerful ones. they hire the lobbyists and lawyers and get the tax code manipulated to favor them. get rid of all the deductions these big corpor

. >> so crossroads gps, karl rove, dick armey, there's no -- >> because that's the bankroll, jimmy? >> that's who's going to bank this election. $250 million. >> but they're already doing it. and let's face it, the establishment right now, if you want to call those money people and that group part of the party, they're banking the senate. they're not banking on the president. >> got to bounce. we'll stick around -- we'll be back in one second. i don't know what we're doing, we're taking a commercial. up next, america the vulnerable, keeping our country safe in the age of digital espionage. our specialist, former top level national security agency insider, after this. [ shapiro ] at legalzoom, you can take care of virtually all your important legal matters in just minutes. now it's quicker and easier for you to start your business... protect your family... and launch your dreams. at legalzoom.com we put the law on your side. i know what works differently than many other allergy medications. omnaris. omnaris, to the nose. did you know nasal symptoms like congestion can be caused by al

we've seen with the rise of the tea party and the influence of the outside groups run by folks like dick armeyreedomworks, you know, or grover norquist, who tried to scare members of congress and say, if you don't vote the way we want you to vote, you're not going to get our money, or look at how the tea partyers went after scott brown. what you're seeing is, the whole seniority system is also impacted by, you've got the tea partyers. john boehner can't get any votes, is the challenge i would have to what jimmy's saying. it strikes me that the-ov other piece of this is, particularly now that chairman or leadership don't have, maybe it's the pork system, i don't know, that's part of my question. they don't have a lot of leverage if a group of members that is backed by an outside group that can raise money for them supports them, they're on much more of an even footing than hay used to be. >> look -- i'm losing the audio here. >> that's okay, professor. can you hear me now? >> yeah. >> all right, go ahead. >> look, if you look at the current -- the budget ceiling debate that just concluded, in f

and congressman dick armey is doing a greatob of putting that together.e do not have the advantage of 30 years of reaganism. some of the things i will describe to you we do not know how to do yet. it will take about a year to pass all of this. we have had in this current administration a stimulus package and a member had read. we had no, care so complex that speaker pelosi said youhave to -- we had and obamacare so complex that speaker policy said you have to pass it in order to know what it is. that is wrong. the subcommittee' hold markups and report to the full committee. they hold marcus and the go to the floor and have a chance to amend it -- they hold mark ups and they go to the floor and have a chance to amend it. it is a much harder process. it is not ramming things through. it is legislating. it is trying to bring to bear the intelligence of the american people to solve our problems. the first thing we need to do is to repeal obama care and we need to work towards transformation. there are all sorts of ideas in the paper at newt.org. one reason we

and i did say to dick armey, who is basically at that point, he and newt gingrich and tom delay weregetting very macho with me, that he would have -- i told him, you've got to understand, i don't care if i go to 5% on the polls. you have to give somebody else to sit behind that desk before you get this done. and so, all the democrats were thrilled. you know, our liberal base always thinks the president is going to cave. just like the conservatives are always afraid the republicans are going to cave. so anyway, we had this meeting and then they left. the meeting was adjourned and the democrats hung around afterwards. they were all so happy and al gore and then looked at me and said you know, that was really great what you said, but he said i think you should've told them that you are going to hold out even if he he went all the way to zero. why did you stop at 5%? [laughter] and i looked at him an asset now,, forget to 4%, i am going to cave. [laughter] so, i say that because the one lesson of all of this as he got to keep your sense of humor here. and i was aided and not because in 1

i was a supporter of the flat tax on income when i thought it had a chance of passage when dick armey was talking about it, steve forbes ran on it. anything to replace the current tax code i was for. i worked on economic growth and tax reform commission that jack had headed up, and out of that commission came six principles a replacement should satisfy. guess what -- the fair tax, national consumption tax, and the flat tax on income, they both satisfied the six principles we came up with. the 13-person commission was deadlocked on which to recommend because they both had at the beach, they both had negatives, etc., and as a result commission decided to stay the principles and we physically sick and the report, which got put in a drawer, by the way, basically said that either one of those will satisfy those principles. for decades, i looked at both of them. i knew that they both offered some very positive benefits. the people who have supported a flat tax for a long, long time, and they feel strongly about it. the people who support the fair tax for a long time feel strongly about it.

and it was centrally funded and coordinated by dick armey and others.ly affiliated group of young people coming together to do this on their own. i think the idea that they don't have their act together misses the point at this point because as reverend sharpton said, they're about consciousness raising. >> i think the fact that people are crying out says that the movement is working, otherwise people wouldn't care at this point. >> let's move to your cover story in "rolling stone." and just a fascinating quote by jeff goodall. he wrote about the steve jobs that nobody knew. this is fascinating. this is what he said. when uh first met steve jobs, i thought he was a loser. what i remember about him was he would storm around the office yelling and how he wore tattered jeans and how everyone seemed to be afraid of him. i knew his type. uneducated, blustery, a guy who thinks a lot of himself. to me he just seemed like a lost hippie kid and i was not terribly interested. >> wow. >> fascinating. >> whoops. >> great story by jeff. he goes on to say that he was

the first tea party groups, freedom works, run by dick armey, who's a former house majority leader. the republican party, almost from the beginning. whereas, these folks occupying wall street, both political parties and much closer to liberal democrats than conservative republicans. this in many ways is a true grass roots, pavement side of the movement -- i'm sorry? >> so the big difference with the tea party is it had money. money backing it, and it had a political force backing it as well, because even though the tea party doesn't like government so much, it knew it had to use government to evoke change. >> right. >> this group needs that big money backer, which could come, we don't know. what sdp. say to you that the unions, at least the local unions here in new york are joining the cause? might that be a sign that groups with money are starting to back these protesters? >> maybe. if you have a lot of numbers, you don't need quite it's a much money, and unions have actually been demonstrating on wall street since 2009, since the aig bailouts but not getting much attention, becaus

in 1984 former representative dick armey, now a tea party godfather, described social security as a bad retirement plan and a rotten trick on the american people. he said, i think we are going to have to bite the bullet on social security and phase it out over a period of time. then in 1987 newt gingrich, while many politicians are still afraid to mention abolishing social security, he said, i'm convinced this generation is ready for honest talk and real leadership. these are not retired politicians speaking. one is a leader in the tea party. and the other is a candidate for the republican nomination for president. even today in our house we have members who still are beating the tired, failed statement that social security is unconstitutional. but the numbers are clear. half of all seniors live near or below the poverty line. and one in three seniors depends on social security for more than 90% of their income. what happens to these americans if we start violating the program they depend on, frankly, for their life? let me close with some comments from americans from ohio about social

was a supporter of the flat tax on income when i thought it would have a chance of passage when dick armey was talking about it, steve forbes ran for president on it. anything to replace the current tax code i was more. i worked on economic growth and tax reform commission that jack kemp headed up. and out of that commission came six principles that a replacement should satisfy. guess what? the fair tax, national consumption tax, and the flat tax on income, they both satisfied the six principles we came up with. at the 13 person commission was deadlocked on which to go because they both have agitated and they both had negatives, et cetera, and as a result the commission decided to state the principles. and we basically said in a report that got caught in a drawer by the way, basically said that either one of those will satisfy those principles. so for decades i've looked at both of them. and knew that they both offered some very positive benefits. the people who have supported flat tax for a long, long time feel very strongly about it. the people who supported the fair tax for a long time