joining us now, fred smith chairman and ceo of fedex. , i just off camera said about maybe we can let washington, you know, do immigration, and do, you know, social issues, things like that. and can we put you in charge of trying to figure out what we need to do for growth for the private sector? if we did do that, it's not going to happen, but if we did, what would you do? >> well, i think what needs to be done to restore growth is very straightforward. and that's to change the u.s. corporate tax system. it's very dysfunctional, and it retards investment and investment, in turn, is what creates gdp growth and jobs. >> yet we were going to do that i think. i think simpson-bowles told us to do that. do you know where we are in that, andrew we've talked about it a few times. where are we on the -- >> nowhere. nowhere. we're nowhere. >> wee nowhere on the tax -- once we got that 39.6 on the high end, we're not even talking about taxes anymore. right? it's like -- i don't know what happened to all the other recommendations of simpson-bowles.

. >> does the republican party want to be the party that says to the most productive, the fred smithhe late steve jobs that if you achieve, if you try something great commercially that improves our lives and employs us, we're going to penalize you for doing it i don't think that should the message for the republican party. kweupbdz -- republicans are supposed to be about growth and enterprise. this is them saying the opposite. >> you've got people saying there was a lost growth during the clinton years and the top rate, was that 3 9%? >> i would say if you give us all we had during the clinton years we would take 39% but you wouldn't take it when the dollar is in free fall. this is a very bad deal. it's antigrowth. the last thing you want to do in a struggling economy is raise the penalty on work for the most productive. >> what about the dividends going up from 15% to 20% from those who make that horrible rate of $400,000? >> it's another negative signal. when you raise the tax on dividends you reduce the process whereby limited capital can get to new businesses. this is another ant