our business tax that will not be taxing jobs and job creation in san francisco.-- the controller's office that are reaching out to the business community to get input on how to craft a measure that can really achieve its objectives, lifting up our job creation abilities in san francisco and looking at how to create a fair tax structure in the city. i will not go into detail about the measure, but i want to make sure that both the measure i have and my colleagues are supporting are really looking at how to support small businesses in san francisco. we have an exemption of businesses whose revenues below $1 million will be exempt from any of the gross receipts tax provision. that is something i think is significant as we are moving forward as a city. i am looking at how we can have a measure that can generate some revenue to meet the increasing demands on our public infrastructure and that is increasing when our economy is also burgeoning. that is something i think we will have a clear discussion about in the weeks to come. i am hopeful we can have one measure that

that's the payroll tax, the income tax, excise taxes, and they distribute the corporate income taxes. >> okay. well, maybe i misunderstood then in my quick -- i just picked up your book this evening and haven't really studied it that well. >> that's okay. >> but i was bringing to mind that the tax system is so complicated that a few of us really appreciate it and that there are, there's not only the taxes that we pay on our income -- >> right. >> invoice that we receive from the employer, but there are the hidden benefits and the payroll tax is just a part. >> right. >> i mean, what the federal government receives is the employer's contribution and the employee's crick, and if you're self--- contribution, and if you're self-employed, you appreciate more what you're contributing. >> that's exactly right. >> so you're saying now the table at 113, and apparently i misunderstood, it includes all taxes? >> right. so what this is is -- >> but i was also going to refer to page 106, your table on the tax mix showing -- >> right. >> -- the payroll taxes and i presume there's also, that include

romney tax plan? >> it increases take-home pay, middle class family, $2,000 extra in their take-home pay, and more importantly it reduces the price of doing work, being productive and taking risks. lowering that price, lowering tax rates. that's the way to get the economy going. worked for kennedy, for reagan, worked in the early part of the last decade. it will work again. >> we have to do something. since the recovery began, by the way, june 2009, household incomes are down 5.7%. that's since the recovery. when you're in a recovery, incomes are supposed to go up. >> yeah. what's disstressing and concerning is, at this point i don't know what governor romney has in mind. he's been saying all along he'll reduce taxes and shows up in ohio -- >> reducing tax rates. >> he shows up and says don't expect a huge tax cut, because what he's doing is lowering deductions and exemptions. great. i wonder if somebody will get around to telling me what those deductions and exemptions are that he's going to lower. h

romney is not paying income taxes because he hasn't had a job so this isn't tax income. so how does that morally interact with the thing that he got caught saying that he's so embarrassed on this week? >> it amplifies the bad message. there is a vision that the right holds that right and conservative plutocrats hold and nonconservative plutocrats and mitt romney holds, which is that the nation is veering towards this point in which these kind of super beings, who are the job creators, who are in some deep core, meta physical sense different than normal people hold up all society, and if you start attacking them with your petty slings and arrows, the world will fall down. what we see is when you're looking at the actual social contract, those same people who view themselves as the pillars of the society are welching on the social contract, are doing everything in their power to slither out of it, to get themselves out of those obligations and this reaffirms that. >> and the idea that it's inherent in the job creator idea but also in the reason people aren't paying income

their taxes. but mitt romney is a special kind of millionaire. he doesn't pay 25%. he only pays 14.1%. how do you get 10 points below the rate that even the other millionaires are paying? you get that by trying, by working really hard by avoiding taxes. as the wall street journal noted, the romneys' main tax return mentions entities based in the cayman islands on at least 28 separate pages. the romney campaign is insisting those cayman island investments have nothing at all to do with avoiding taxes. maybe the money just likes the nice view. everything we know about his financial history points to his involvement in decades and decades and decades of one tax avoidance scheme after another. this house on gentle bend drive in missouri city, texas. mitt romney own that house. every month the couple who lives in that house makes out a personal check to mitt romney for $600. they don't have their mortgage on that house through a bank. their mortgage is with mitt romney personally. why is mitt romney th

. >>> tonight, mitt and taxes. romney finally releases his 2011 tax return. did he pay more taxes to win more votes? while the president's on the attack over that 47% gaffe. >>> tonight, i will ask newt gingrich of the gop and martin o'malley. >>> plus, go away. no, i mean that politely but why brat pack idolndreary says leavi america is the best thing that could happen to many americans. >> i think most of our political decisions are all based on fear ould see that americans the wod is much different ace an they're led to believit is. >>> and they're split down the middle just like america. one's republican and one -- actually, it's quite hard to work out what the other one is. big and rich on their music and their olitics. >> we debate about as tough as any guys can, but wend it always with a ld beverage. >>> and a moment i never expected. or craved. this is "piers morgan tonight." >>> good evening. our big story tonight, the race for the white use by the numbers. mitt romney releases his 2011 tax return which shows he paid an effectivtax rate of 14.1%. mea

that is how the tax is worded. for years and years people have been renting out spots connected to residential dwelling, whether single family home or apartment whether there are extra spots after tenants have taken a few spots. it's done so many years without paying parking tax and without knowing it. in addition if you didn't know you were to pay the tax and decided you were going to be a good citizen and comply the city has made it unbelievably difficult to actually pay that tax because the city treats someone renting their garage in a single family home as if they were the fifth and mission garage. you have to have parking equipment to gather data on the garage. you have to pay a bond. you have to pay approximately $1,000 fee, which might be significant higher than annual revenue or parking tax you are paying. you have to be fingerprinted at hall of justice, fill out a significant amount of paper work and pay monthly, just like a large garage. this legislation would do a couple things. first it would dramatical

and back taxes if you do that. we do understand, of course, the concerns of smaller property owners in that they shouldn't be treated as big parking companies because they are not. these are folks who have maybe two units, are renting out their driveway or garage in their building to help pay for the mortgage. it is a concern that they would be hobaled by a great expense. hopefully this won't be the case with the new legislation. we can start with a clean slate, pardon me, and move on from there. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon, i'm dennis ribal, a property manager in san francisco. thank you, supervisor wiener, for your work on this important issue. while i support the direction this proposal is moving, i don't think it goes quite far enough, i think it is difficult to enforce this requirement as far as the tax collector's office. from my own experience i though the property en errs penalized and forced to pay past due tax and penalties, the net in which they are ensnared is if they have t

even though they do pay sales taxes state taxes payroll taxes romney also doesn't give a damn about ninety eight percent of americans who he's preparing to give them as a tax in. increased as this chart from the tax policy center shows romney's plan would give massive tax breaks to all americans making more than two hundred thousand dollars a year roughly two percent of the nation individuals making over a million dollars a year would bring home over four percent more after tax income unfortunately for those americans making less than two hundred thousand dollars a year they will on average see their taxes go up in other words the romney plan is yet another reaganomics ploy to redistribute wealth from the middle class to the millionaire billionaire classes he doesn't represent the forty seven percent he doesn't represent the fifty three percent he represents the top two percent he represents people like him but here's the irony of all ironies the tax policy center also uncovered more than four thousand american households with incomes over one million dollars last year who paid zero

credits and tax rates. cutting tax rates gives you incentive to invest in plant and equipment which then allows you to hire people, because you're going to get to keep an extra amount of money on each dollar of profit you make. cutting tax credits does not hurt incentive, because tax credits are temporary and does not encourage investment. >> steve, i want to keep it on the simplification, because that's success i can identify with. i haven't my own taxes in a long time. the reason is, because it's just too complex. i'm not a small business. if i was a small business, i'd have to do devote hundreds of hours of time, a lot of money, to figuring the thing out. >> that's right. the irs has figured out, david, that last year we spent 6.5 billion hours filling out tax forms, the equivalent of 2 1/2 million full-time jobs. it cost the economy $300 billion a year. huge waste of brain power. so yes, tax simplification is absolutely essential. paul ryan, the vice presidential candidate, has an even better plan than

the tax returns put the focus back on the issue of tax fairness in america. romney was asked about his tax rate during an interview with "60 minutes." >> is that fair to the guy who makes $50,000 and paid a higher rate than you did? >> it is a low rate. one of the reasons why the capital gains tax rate is lower is because capital has already been taxed once at the corporate level. as high as 35%. >> so you think it is fair? >> yeah, i think it's the right way to encourage economic growth to get people to invest, start businesses, to put people to work. >> that's hogwash. mitt romney's world, americans can be sold on the idea of rich people being taxed less so they create jobs. haven't we tried that? not even ronald reagan could preach that. that was nearly 30 years ago. >> we're going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allow the wealthy to avoid paying their fair share. in theory some were understandable, but in practice they sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing. and that's crazy. do you think the millionaire ought to pay more

it is one tax levy on top of another tax.oreover if you look at the way we tax other types of capital in, as such as dividends we will be having effective tax rate on capital income over 60% next year. frankly that is the preposterously high rate of tax for a country that wants to compete on a global economic basis. we have to consider a way around it. that said i understand the trade offs between capital gains taxation and ordinary income taxation and tried to come down on the side of bringing them together on balance raising capital gains rate and taxing other forms of income. in doing that we need to keep in mind the experiment we are going to be running but running backward. we did some extensive work in 2001 in preparation for the 2003 tax cut on the effect of dividend capital gains taxation on the level of that. for not just because people hold equities but many millions of americans hold potential buttons and we are concerned with the plight of pension funds. the estimate we came up with was capital gains change would

the taxes collected last year and employment taxes and corporate taxes and exercise tax ...x-cise taxes. is it fair to say that 46%. >> many of those people paysomey are out there working and they are paying in social security trust fund. >> and medicare. >> and then obviously weshouldnl governments. these folks go out and consume things and they pay taxes. >> some of them own homes andpa. our nation there are many ways to pay taxes other than the federal income tax. >> sure not all of that goes to. property taxes goes to another agency. great debate. tom marron along with us from the tax policy. policy. a big personnel change at goldman sachs. long time chief financial officer is retiring. he will leave the firm in late january. replacing him harvey schwartz who currently serves as goldman's. >> tom: the narrow trading ranges continued with the major stock indices in a relatively quiet session. the s&p 500 was in negative territory the entire session. it made one unsuccessful run toward the unchanged line in the late morning. the index finished down a fraction. 629 million

a certain tax rate that people like mitt romney pay those working americans pay federal income taxes even those who earn so little they don't pay taxes are still if they're locked changes subject to a top tax rate of thirty five percent for working people be they burger flippers or brain surgeons federal income taxes start around ten percent for those making around seventeen thousand bucks a year and go all the way up to thirty five percent for those making around four hundred grand. for the mitt romney and paris hilton class they pay a different tax rate from the rate working people pay romney and paris hilton pay what's called the capital gains tax rate as the rate applied to those americans who don't earn a living making things with their hands or with their mom. means but instead make a little make a living making money with money or who just inherited a lot of money which makes money with the money and no matter how rich those americans are and how much money they made off their investments they'll pay a top tax rate of fifteen percent equivalent to what a school bus driver maki

also a tax avoidance scheme. an attempted $77,000 write off on his tax returns. mr. romney's first release of his tax returns earlier this showed invests in switzerland, a swiss bank account where money can have a very nice view and can be shielded from american taxes. mitt romney's entire adult life has been one long boring plot to dodge taxes at one level or another. that's what rich people do, certain kinds of rich people. that's what makes the specifics so exotic and therefore so interesting. that's why people want to see his actual returns for multiple years. they don't just want to take his word for it. today he released one year's tax returns but the other years still holding back. today they released a summary of 20 years. they are not releasing the tax returns. they are not releasing specific details. they are just leasing a summary of what tax rate he paid. he's had to release summaries of his financial situation in the past. mitt romney had to do that this year. rick santorum, rick perry, all these guys had to do that. mitt romney has hidden stuff that cou

and then there are excise taxes, gas taxes, cigarette taxes. host: this story about tax policy -- on the cigarette tax, it suggests smokers spend 25% of their income on cigarettes. over time there has been an increase on taxes for cigarettes for the hope of changing behavior. here is the story. the poor pay $600 million in cigarette taxes and get little help including. mr. sanders says statistics show smokers earning less than $30,000 a year paid 39% of state and city taxes on cigarettes. he added more of the revenue should be used to finance smoking cessation. so higher income people pay a smaller portion, will appear smokers, those earning $60,000 or more, pay 2%. donald marron is our guest. we are talking about taxes and who pays them. bill is a republican in florida. caller: hello, how are you. it seems to me, one of the problems we have is we do not separate the welfare system from the income tax system. what we're doing is we are giving welfare to people through the tax system. if we would let everyone pay their fair share or whatever the

taxes and a lot of those taxes disproportionately affect lower income people things like taxes on tobacco sin taxes lot of the axis on everything pretty much everything going by absolutely rational policy to make sure that there aren't these loopholes and deductions that only people who can afford tremendously expensive accountants can take advantage of or are you in favor of doing away with the capital gains tax you know i'm in favor of so you think people who make money with money are the blessid few among us who should get a special lower tax rate than those of us who actually work for a little any time they draw income from those capital gains they're paying income taxes on it you know absent fifteen percent rate you terror cell and six cents out of the pool and pays a maximum fifteen percent income tax rate on her investments but if you work for a living you can pay up to thirty six percent somehow that doesn't seem fair and i've seen it i mean on the one hand you've got people who make money by moving money around and then on the other hand you've got the forty seven percent of thes

tax is seen as the key to why it is not an impermissible direct tax. the other part of the analysis the chief justice focused on was the fact that in the framing generation there was a tax on carriages. on owning a carriage. that issue divided the framers. madison thought that was an impermissible direct tax. hamilton thought it was permissible in direct tax. the issue made it to the supreme court and the supreme court decided with hamilton. the problem is as the chief's analysis makes clear this isn't a tax on buying health insurance. this is a tax on not having health insurance. the analogy is not a tax on having a carriage by a tax on not having a carriage. it is hard to understand how the framers would have thought those two were the same thing. if you look at the court's analysis they say the reason a tax on carriages was not a direct tax on you as an individual is because it is a tax on purchasing a carriage but the same reasoning suggests that a tax on not having something whether it is a carriage or health insurance is a direct tax that orates

they're likely to pay state sales sales taxes, local taxes and federal excise taxes. so they're not paying nothing at all. they're just not paying income tax. >> ifill: when the candidate makes the comment dependency and he's talking about people who are relying on government. are they talking about social security, medicare, medicaid, tax credits? mortgage interest deductions? >> it's really hard to tell exactly what he was speaking to. he was talking about dependency. do you mean when we grow old and we start collecting social security and medicare, is that what we're talking about? are we talking about the temporary assistance for needy filies? are we talking about food stamps? we have a whole pan plee of programs that help people when they need the help. if we look at the way the tax system works, we have some people, about half the people who pay no tax just because they're plain poor. their incomes are so low that the personal exemptions zero out. the other half of people benefit from special preferences built into the tax system. tax credits for children, low-i

if there's a lot of tax shelters and some, frankly, incredibly low tax rates, significantly lower say than your 13.9% rate in 2010, mitt, then say this, my tax rates were too low. i don't believe that passively invested money should be taxed lower than income other people earn by working. i benefitted from low rates on investment, that's not great policy and i'm going to change it. all right. well, now he came out with -- he's part of the way there. first of all, he chose to not take a charitable deduction on $1.75 million last year. he did that in order to keep his tax rate at 13%, a promise he had made this summer. and, you know, really to stay consistent with what he had said in august. >> i did go back and look at my taxes, and over the past ten years i never paid less than 13%. >> now, how do you take in the charitable deduction in all of his charity his effective tax rate would have been according to one estimate, 12.2%, not 14.1%. the loophole that allows private equity managers like he was at bain capital to be taxed at capital gains rates instead of the tarates that the rest

income taxes, they don't pay a 1040 tax or file a 1040 form.eil: you think that can get a pass. you think that can get a pass. >> neil, let's get beyond that, let's talk about the patriotism issue, first of all, focusing on a four point program, only one of the elements, you know, related to higher taxes on the wealthy, most was about fostering the economic status of the midet class and having growth from middle out, not top down. neil: where, was patriotism to reduce spending? >> in my group, patriotic millionaires for fiscal strength, we believe in modestly, slightly higher taxes on wealthy persons, consisting of people who make a million dollars a career or more that roughly correspondents to top% as a temporary measure to address what you are talking about fiscal crisis, you can't solve the fiscal crisis as made clear in simpson bowle report by cutting spending. neil: but he leaves the spending out. and it might be in a future. >> it is in the plan. >> he rejected -- he rejected simpson bowls, the very debt commission that gave him ideas, h

taxes.no, it doesn't seem that way and it will be very hard for him during the shared sacrifice argument. no one minds that romney is rich. it's america. you celebrate that. but the fact is that he can't comprehend that the system is rigged in his favor. normal people can't go offshore. they don't get amazing accounts to cattle off that money so they pay 14% fundamentally. he'll have problems moving forward. >> that's such a good point. i don't care that he's rich. i care that he doesn't know he's rich. that he lived such a privileged life. they keep trying to share the narrative that they've had hard times. no, sheno, they haven't. and if they can't recognize that, he can't be president of the entire country. >> eliot: i think you're both exactly right. it's not that we resent wealth. we celebrate it. look at those who are enormously wealthy. but they've been able to demonstrate sympathy and% understanding that they have benefited from the system that permitted them to be wealthy. they don'

tax policy.e as latinos have children and a lot of us have children and have families. we care about their education. romney just wants to cut that education budget. >> let me ask you about the taxes. do you think the 14% rate going back to a story we covered earlier tonight is a conversation in the latino community? middle-class families? lower income families, is it a fair rate? is this going to hurt him? >> i think here's the problem. most of us would lose our deductions for our kids of $2,000 just so that he can give a $250,000 deduction for millionaires? i mean we're middle class families. it's not going to go over well with latinos. and the latinos that are actually supporting romney better wake up and smell the cafe con leche. that's all i have to say. >> annette taddeo, thank you for your time. i appreciate it. >>> coming up, mitt romney proves he doesn't understand the science of aviation. you won't believe what he said. stay tuned. [ male announcer ] introducing a stunning work of techn

. >> they are patriots and we forget those americans are paying taxes not always income taxings. rich, that is not the code we are speaking in. only republicans understand that heavy mumbo, jumo. we don't know from the graduated capitol gains. >> oh, please. >> it was a secret code. >> we know, steve, that the president's plan to raise taxes dramatically . we have two different sets of plans on what to do with taxings. mitt romney said he would lower tax rates on everybody . the president would raise the top bracket from 35 to 39 percent. a new surcharge for obama care . he said we go back to clinton and we would be going back to tax rates under the carter administration, right? >> the whole thing with europe and japan and now the america governments are crushing the private sector and deficits get big yer problems get worse. that is the problem in europe. why do we want to repeat that here? greece is now more taxs and now awe depression. massive increase in taxes and 80s we did the opposite and 90s, clinton raised taxs and economy slowed down and he reduced taxes. >> you are sha

and doubling the child tax credit, also, a 10% tax bracket. so, it's not that-- it was not that long ago that this wasn't such a problem, but again-- >> and the irony, it was 86 taxpayers of ronald meagan that raise the the deductions and the like. >> enough blame to go on all sides, but ben stein, a perspective from you. you say the only way out of this right now is just to, well, the rich pay more? >> that's where the money is. it isn't 47% of the tax base excluded. it's 47% of the people nowhere near 47% of the base. the base in terms of money to be raised is in the rich and upper middle class. >> neil: and just gouch them some more. >> they're not being gouged now. >> neil: really? >> people in long island, a family of five in long island, that makes combined income of $200,000 a year, been stein is saying is not being gouged? >> these are your friends, obviously, that's what you're upset about. >> not being gouged? and the wife and the husband make 200 grand a year and living richly in long island? >> no, they're not living rich, compared

that tax reform resulted in fewer people paying taxes. >> it did indeed, and it was the beginning of 30, 35 years of a market etiology in which our assumption was if we reduce the means with which government operates we're going to improve the economic fortunes of the country. that simply has not happened, and, in fact, what we've seen is we've seen tax rates go down, down, down. they were 90%, 80% on the rich in the '50s during the clinton era and 28%. today they are around 18%, but most of the rich like romney don't pay that. they pay even less so what we have is a trickle up theory. give tax breaks to the rich and they will take the money, and they will do things, not jobs. they say they will create jobs, but that's in the in fact what they do. >> okay. >> all through the bush years, all through the bush years taxes, you know, they -- they were given back to the rich and we lost jobs. the great recession happened under bush's watch with his tax policies in place. >> okay. so ben care tid one step further to a conspiracy. one that i won't disagree with to start. let's say this. you

tax, irs penalties tax, luxury taxes, marriage license taxes, real estate taxes, i am editing as i go. etc. and etc. why did you include this list of different taxes in your book "freedom manifesto: why free markets are moral and big government isn't"? >> guest: it shows what you call government coercion. the creed of government. that is almost everything you do now, we really don't realize it. what is the first thing you do? you turn on the electricity. you then turn on the water. look at your utility bill. you have a cup of coffee and tea, sales tax, gasoline, go to work and that list doesn't even include the upcoming taxes on medical devices and the obamacare taxes, you could expand that for at least 16 coming that way. the bottom line is everything you do ends up getting taxed in that reduces your capacity to create resources and reduces your freedom. >> host: you also talk about the fact that tax withholding, we never think of that money. >> guest: yes, that came in world war ii. once upon a time, we paid taxes once a year and we made people contents of the income taxable rate. i

taxes and as soon as you raise those tax rates i'll pay more taxes. romney is paying more. they got the right to indict him. it's absolutely ridiculous. >> should we want more people -- say we had ten times as many people -- >> oh, no. >> no, listen, no, we don't want taxpayers. we don't want people giving $4 million to charity and value creators. those are the parasites in socie society. we don't want this. >> this is the embodiment of what's wrong with this country is -- is that someone -- >> wealth creators. >> no, here's what we want. we want people like mitt romney who go out over the course of their lives and have created wealth, started companies and turned around companies and paid millions in taxes and give millions to charity. i would think that -- listen, a nation full of mitt romneys would be fantastic. >> howard, going give you one more chance on that. >> look -- >> i think you're being quiet because you really don't have anything to say. i think you're being very quiet tonight? you're a tough combination, you and jim. >> don't back down.

the tax but this is income taxes.on page 106 -- >> that's not right. on page 113 is the congressional budget office average tax rate, and that's federal taxes of all kinds. that's the payroll tax, income tax, excise taxes, and they distribute the income taxes spent maybe i've misunderstood them. i just picked up your book this evening and haven't really studied it that well. >> that's okay. >> but i was bringing to find a tax system is so complicated that a few of really appreciate it, and that there's not only the taxes that we pay our invoice we receive from the employer, but there are the hidden benefits and the payroll taxes is just a part. and me, the federal government receives, the employer's contribution and the employer's contribution to if you're self-employed you appreciate more of what you are really contributing. so you're saying now that the table on 113, and apparently i misunderstood, it includes all tax. >> so what this is -- >> but i was also going to refer to page 106, showing the payroll taxes and

that's from the tax policy center. cut taxes for the rich, raise taxes for the poor. that is what mitt romney's tax plan would do. it's also what republicans have pursued in the states since they took over the governorships in so many states in the 2010 elections. earlier this year, the republican tax reform bill in south carolina proposed raising taxes on the poorest families in that state and cutting taxes for people who are well off. because i guess republicans believe that south carolina poor people have too much money. in wisconsin, when the republicans took over there, what got the attention was the new law to strip union rights, which is now tied up in the courts. but the budget introduced in wisconsin would have cut taxes for everybody in the state except for poor people. the wisconsin republican budget would raise taxes on the poorest people in the state. because republicans there also think that poor people have too much money. in kansas where the republican takeover has gotten much less national attention than it ought to have, the republican governor signe

." >>> coming up -- a taxing week? congress taking aim at capital gains taxes. could this be the first salvo in a long battle ahead in reforming the nation's tax code? >>> plus, unintended consequences. banks say they don't have enough man power to process the growth in mortgage applications that a fed stimulus is to create. who's at fault, the fed or the banks? >>> and striking out. as chicago teachers strike enters its second week with no end in sight, is this a sign that politics is once again getting in the way of progress in america? that's all coming up on the "closing bell." [ male announcer ] when this hotel added aflac to provide a better benefits package... oahhh! [ male announcer ] it made a big splash with the employees. [ duck yelling ] [ male announcer ] find out more at... [ duck ] aflac! [ male announcer ] ...forbusiness.com. ♪ ha ha! with the fidelity stock screener, you can try strategies from independent experts and see what criteria they use. such as a 5% yield on dividend-paying stocks. then you can customize the strategies and narrow down t

tax return because of foreign taxes paid, what was paid in the way of foreign taxes?r, because actually mr. romney has voluntarily overpaid something like $2.5 million in order that his total amount in percentage terms would be just over 14% so he may well seek to get that back at some point i guess so he will be back down to the original which should have been 9%. >> so i'd like to know, does he plan to do that? i'm just curious about it, but, you know, he didn't release his actual returns for a good reason i'm sure, and that's, i think, what people would like to take a look at. in other words, his policies are going to reflect his beliefs, which is going to reflect his actual actions, his everyday decision making. so if we know how he deems with his own tax return, we'll have a much better understanding of how he would deal with the american people's tax returns. >> you, sir, know all about mr. ryan's budget, which, as you know, would slash bloc grant assistance for 23 million americans, would cut meals on wheels for 2 million, would remove transportation and r resp

that's a tax. 220 million people in this country pay consumption and other taxes, that's a tax. 110 million households pay property tax. that's a tax. the issue is not that people aren't paying taxes, the issue is our tax system needs fundamental reform and he's not addressing it. we need a tax consumption and reduce the taxes on labor, the payroll tax. >> has the president addressed these issues? >> no. >> it feels like the president isn't answering questions either about the issues important to the american people, like job creation. >> i agree. the two parties are now simply engaged in a war of talking points in an artificial debait about hot buttons they can press in ordered to mobilize this or that constituency. sgluf an intriguing idea. you are in favor of a national consumption tax. like a value added tax to replace taxes on corporations. what are you saying? that corporate taxes go away entirely and then you come up with this vat tax? >> i think we need a vat. >> isn't it shifting from corp

tax. if doug's position is also the romney campaign's position, he's just laid out a clear choice. what he said is getting rid of things like the mortgage interest deduction or tax deductions for health care benefits, you are going to raise taxes on middle income earners. >> he's saying he's only getting rid of them for the wealthiest americans. >> right. said no tax increases for people making under $250,000 a year. >> but how are they going to get -- i'm not, get to keep the deduction they have and he's giving them a 20% tax cut, how is that a tax increase? >> what he's saying is that the mortgage tax deduction and other deduchov deductions are going to go up. >> for high income americans. >> which what that means is the average middle class american, their taxes are going to go up. that is the math. now, you can get rid of those if you want, but you're effectively paying for wealthy tack deductio deductions. >> now, to tim's point, when you're saying over 100,000, you're not faulking ab