he didn't mention, tamron, that ronald reagan had tip o'neill. had a congressional partner who understood that the country was in peril and needed help. but what president obama has had is an obstructionist congress that care more about damaging him than they do about the damage that the country's suffering. the president has to lay that out. he has the american jobs act. he will talk about it more and more. it would generate 1 million jobs. republicans in congress including john boehner fought him tooth and nail on fundamental items, tamron, like infrastructure and could have yielded another 1 million jobs. we know that infrastructure is how you put people back to work. >> right. >> the american recovery and reinvestment act, 10% went to inf infrastructure and generated 35% of the verifiable jobs. we don't have a tip o'neill because the republicans want to defeat barack obama. he has to lay that out. don't let folks get away with talks about ronald reagan without talking about tip o'neill with massive margins in the congress at the time but he w

. >> look at what mitt romney--look at what ronald reagan and tip o'neill did. >> michael: i mean, asfriend cenk uygur would say, of course! the reagan defense. they've relyied on drawing a comparison to ronald reagan as well as one other president. >> it's been done before. >> it's never been done before. >> jack kennedy lowered tax-- >> now you're jack kennedy. >> if jack kennedy only knew how much he would come up in vice presidential debates i think paul ryan knew where that was going. i'm joined by erol lewis and thomas frank, thank you for sticking around and talking to us. you know in looking back at this it really taxes the way that they come up in these debates. the thing they're not talking about are mitt romney's taxes. the idea that they can look back and talk about taxes and ryan still getting caught with these lies and then the next day saying that's exactly what we meant to say. how does this work, errol. >> a promise has been made. a big broad promise has been made to splash taxes. it's estimated by a reasonable objective source that this could cost treasury 5 trillion

it's done in 1986 by ronald agan and tip o'neil in bipartisan way.t the economists right, left or center may have to do. we may have different opinions how to do it. but they believe it will result in the economic growth. that's why romney doing that will create 7 million new jobs. pro-growth policy. >> bret: don't you think they are making some headway in saying well, what exactly are you going to take off the table? mortgage deduction? charitable deduction? >> it's making headway because they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on ads and they have been saying it for months. when romney stands up there as he has and say this will be deficit neutral, revenue neutral and it can, all the studies have shown that, check out the american enterprise institute study or studies to find on mittromney.com, studies from harvard, princeton and other places. second, what romney can say is it creates jobs. it's pro-growth. economists across the board agree that having a simple tax code because you have simplification and getting rid of the underbrush that washi

ronald reagan and tip o'neill -- they probably did not agree on much of anything, and yet they were able to have an affable relationship and be decent to one another and not to reach other down in the process. we have to get back to that and keep talking about this. that is why again, governor schwarzenegger, i want to thank you for getting started. if we do not do a bill not happen. -- it will not happen. >> i recently spoke to the senate press secretaries. the two senators from pennsylvania, senator toomey and senator casey, had the two men themselves and their staff -- had a softball game. they had a good time. they went out and place of all, had a few beers. they put it up under facebook pages and both of them told me that they got absolute vituperative remarks from their supporters, saying, how could you possibly consort with the enemy like that? the senator from their own state. you would think that there would be a certain common interests here. but that was the reaction of the voters. bill, you had your hand up -- anybody who wants to take this, take a. >> i would say, i think wh

tip o'neill and ronald reagan were invoked by both sides. ( laughter ). and donald trump became the punching bag of small business. i just eye found that interesting. and of course bill clt was embraced not simply by the president but by mitt romney-- >> this tip o'neill-ronald reagan relationship was not that good. >> s it was a lot more cordial in-- >> woodruff: in memory. >> yeah, in memory. >> ifill: we have a chance to go back out to denver and go to two npr reporters, scott horsily, has the reporting from president obama's campaign, and ari shapiro has been traveling with mitt romney. hi, guys. ari shapiro, did your guy do what he came to do tonight? >> well, mitt romney had to stand on the stage and look presidential and a plausible alternative to president obama. he certainly cleared that bar. i think in many people's thought he went beyond, control the stage, giving memorable lines and standing up to the president, and occasionally the moderator in kind of an aggressive way. >> woodruff: scott what, about the president? you've been out on the tra

>> it reminds you of the days of ronald reagans and tip o'neills when politicians could get together and be friendly and warm for a moment, and we've got to get that back. >> the jokes were fabulous. they were hilarious. obama u nu was good jokes, i did not know romney was. i think he will make a great comedian in chief, which is one of the things we will require in our president. >> last word. see you next week. >> "inside washington" is brought you in part by the american federation of government employees, proud to make america work. for more information about afge and membership, visit afge.org. ! steele: thanks, lucy. darling, here's a list of places you can reach me.

and the only way you can do that as tip o'neill said, all things in politics are local and i think we heard from vice admiral nathan that i think all responses are local as well. and, so, we really need to start most importantly at the local level, at those planning levels, because the first shot of any campaign, the plan will change, but the partnerships need to remain constant. >> and, general baldwin, we heard from colonel span owe about now your three hats of authority, your state hat, your federal hat, and now your dual status hat. but if you could talk about the partnerships and relationships and how that plays into your ability to respond under -- wearing each one of those hats? >> sure. first i'll begin with just a little bit more background on the national guard. the national guard is unique amongst the components of the army and air force in that in addition to our war fighting mission, we have provided support to civil authorities as a core task. that's why we exist as a unique component. in addition, we're a community based force. our soldiers live and work in all the comm

that is functioning worse and worse and you say i want my favorite quotes about politics a lot of tip o'neill's he was interviewed when he left office and had served since the early fifty's more than thirty years and he was asked how the congress changed in his time and he said the people are better the results are worse are we in a long slow decline right now little institutions of the country are in a long slow so what i mean we've we've seen these cycles we saw the the eruption of the new deal we saw the eruption of reconstruction after the civil war you know the change of the revolutionary war seems like every eighty years there's a major crisis and change but you know. what will bring about the next change what's going to reform this is the same it's coming to the same thing that always reforms in the eight hundred fifty s. in the one nine hundred tens in more modern times it is the coming together of popular protest with a responsible elite that comes up with reforms both to satisfy the popular movement but also because it doesn't want the popular movement to get out of control but isn't

>> look at what ronald reagan and tip o'neill and dead. the work together to lower tech -- looking but ronald reagan and tip o'neill dead. -- did. we raise about $1.20 trillion to income taxes. we forgo about $1.10 trillion in loopholes and deductions. denied those loopholes and deductions to hire in, tax payers. so we can lower tax rates across the board. >> i hope i am going to get time to respond. >> we want to work with congress on how best to achieve this. >> no specifics. >> lower tax rate 20%. start with the wealthy. >> you guarantee that this matter will add up. -- math adds up. >> let me have a chance to translate. i was there with ronald reagan. he gave specifics in terms of tax expenditures. 97% of the small businesses pay less than -- make less than $250,000. adds funds -- hedge funds that makes $600 million a year. let's look at how sincere they are. governor romney, 10 days ago, was asked, you pay 14% on $20 million. someone making $50,000 paid more than that. do think that is fair? he said, yes, that is fair. you think these

it will have to be tweaked the way it was by ronald reagan and tip o'neill. the basic structure is sound. i want to talk about the values behind social security and medicare, and then talk about medicare. that is the big driver of our deficit right now. my grandmother, some of you know, helped to raise me. my grandfather died a while back. my grandmother died three days before i was elected president. she worked her way up and started as a secretary, ended up being the vice president of a local bank. she ended up living alone by choice. the reason she could be independent of was because of social security and medicare. she had worked all of her life, put in this money, and understood there was a basic guarantee under which she could not go. that is the perspective i bring when it is called entitlements. the name itself implies dependency. these are people who have worked hard, like my grandmother. there are millions of people counting on this. my approach is, how do we strengthen the system in the long term? what we did in medicare is say, we are going to hav

>> look at what mitt romney -- look at what ronald reagan and tip o'neill did. they worked together out of a framework to lower tax rates and broaden the base and worked together to fix that. what we're saying is here's our framework. lower tax rates 20%. we raise about $1.2 trillion through income taxes. we forego $1.1 trillion in loopholes and deductions. what we're saying is deny those loopholes and deductions to higher income taxpayers so more of their income is taxed which has a broader base of translation so we can lower tax rates across the board. here's why i'm saying this. what we're saying -- >> i hope i get time to respond. >> you'll get time. >> we want to work with the congress on how best to achieve this. that means successful -- >> no specifics again. >> what we're saying is lower tax rates 20%, start with the wealthy. work with congress to do it. >> you guarantee this math will add up. >> six studies have guaranteed -- six studies have verified this would add up. >> vice president biden. >> i'll come back in a second then, right? >> first of all,

i was one of eight people sitting in a room that included tip o'neill negotiating with president reagan. we all got together and everybody said, as long as everybody is in the deal, everybody is in the deal, and everybody is making some sacrifice, we can find a way. we made the system solvent to 2033. we will not, though, be part of any voucher plan eliminating -- the voucher says, mom, when you're 65, go out there, shop for the best insurance you can get. you're out of medicare, you can buy back in with this voucher, which will not keep case with health care costs. because if it did keep pace, there would be no savings. that's why they go the voucher. we will be no part of a voucher program or the privatization of social security. >> a voucher is you go to your mailbox, get a check and buy something. nobody is proposing that. barack obama four years ago staid, if you don't have any fresh ideas, use stale tactics to scare voters. if you don't have a good record to run on, paint your opponent as someone to run from. >> you were one of the few to stand with president bush when he was seek

what i do is the same way that tip o'neill and ronald reagan worked together some years ago, when ronald reagan ran for office he laid out the principles that he was going to foster. he said he was going to lower tax rates. he said he was going to broaden the base. you've said the same thing. you're going to simplify the tax code, broaden the base. those are my principles. i want to bring down the tax burden on middle-income families. and i'm going to work together with congress to say okay, what are the various ways we could bring down deductions, for instance? one way, for instance, would be to have a single number. make up a number. 25,000. $50,000. anybody can have deductions up to that amount. and then that number disappears for high-income people. that's one way one could do it. one could follow bowles-simpson as a model and take deduction by deduction and make difference that's way. there are alternatives to accomplish the objective i have, which is to bring down rates, broaden the base, simplify the code, and create incentives for growth. and with regards to health care, you have

i don't think -- i think the, if you go back to the 1980s, what reagan and tip o'neill did to save social security, they worked a deal where payroll tax went up, the most regressive tax in the history of this country, and they agreed to cut back on some benefits. and part of the deal was -- what's that noise? is gordon liddy out there somewhere? [laughter] you're too young to remember gordon liddy. [laughter] you -- o'neill and reagan. part of the deal was we're raising the tax, we're cutting some benefits, and so o'neill says to reagan, look, you go out and say whatever you want about what this deal is. and i won't contradict you. and i'm going to go out, and i'm going to say, describe the deal i want it described, and don't you contradict me. deal made, it's gone. no one, no one objected. it was voted through the congress. people who ran, i know a couple of senators who ran i think first in 1983 like john kerry. he said in his campaign the issue never came up because there was no clash. there was no conflict. part of the deal was, i mean, look, obama and speaker boehner would have a muc

>> look at what -- look at what ronald reagan and tip o'neill did. they worked together out of a frame work to lower tax rates and broaden the base and fix na. we are saying, here's our frame work, lower tax rates 20%. we raised $1.2 trillion in income taxes and forego $1.1 trillion in loophole deductions. we are saying, deny the loopholes and deductions to higher-income taxpayers, so more of their income is taxed -- >> can i translate? >> to lower the tax rates across the board. what we are saying -- >> i hope i get time to respond-- >>> you will get time. >> we want to work with congress on how best to achieve this. >> martha: no specifics? >> lower tax rates 20%, start with the wealthy. work with congress to do it? >> martha: you guarantee this math will add up. >> six studies have guaranteed and verified. >> martha: vice-president -- [overlapping dialogue] >> let me translate. let me have a chance to translate. >> first of all, i was there when ronald reagan tax rates and he gave specifics of what he was going to cut, number 1 nterms of tax expen

the way tip o'neil and ronald reagan worked together. ronald reagan laid out the principles he was going to foster, lower tax rates, broaden the base, you said the same thing. simplify the tax code, broaden the base. those are my principles, i want to bring down the tax burden on middle income families. i want to work with congress on bringing down deductions. we could have a single number, $25,000, $50,000, anybody can have deductions up to that amount. and then the deductions disappear after that you could follow bowles-simpson and do it deduction by deduction. we need to bring down rates, broaden the base, simplify the code and create incentives for growth. with regard to health care, you had remarkable details with regard to my preexisting condition plan. you studied up on my plan. i do deal with people with preexisting conditions, that's part of my health care plan. what we did in massachusetts is a model for the nation state by state. and i said that at that time. the federal government, taking over health care for the entire natio

ronald reagan made a deal with tip o'neil. it was for tax increases and spending control. >> hurt republicans when they ran for office, didn't it? >> they got the tax increases. they didn't get spending cuts. he got the tax increases ch he didn't get the spending cuts. >> do you think it was a governing mistake. if he gets elected president, is he going to regret that? >> i think the crisis we face financially is so severe that all the discussion of finances last night, you can fergs. we don't have the money to expand the military. we don't have the money you have to overhaul sos to keep it sound. >> he wants to spend more money in the military. do you think that's a mistake? >> the money isn't there. >> david, this is where the obama campaign wants to go. it's saying, yes, we lost on style. but romney made himself -- i mean, senator, it's a complicated argument he's making on these issues. >> absolutely. and it's going to make sense after the the election. we're facing a fiscal cliff. all the consumers will come into play. an

was when are we going to have some bipartisanship, the same kind of thing that bill clinton and tip o'neill used to do and he couldn't answer except to say -- >> bill: you must have been surprised how flat the president was, 'cause you know he's pretty energetic guy and he can do the two step as well as anybody. he had nothing that night. he was knocked out in the first inning. >> well, i think -- as i said, at the time, if it was a fight, they would have stopped it. but i think he'll do a lot better the next time around and don't underestimate him. >> bill: no, no. but the next time around -- >> the town hall meet something different. i wish stewart had come out as flat as the president did. >> you guys ought to go on the road. hell of a job. i liked the sitting on the lap routine. that's the best. >> bill: thank you, senator. we appreciate it. next on the rundown, mitt romney gives a big foreign policy speech today, predictably criticizing president obama. brit hume has thoughts. and bernie goldberg and adam corolla warming up in the bullpen right now. we're coming right or. >> sense o'cl

what i do, is the same way that tip o'neill and ronald reagan worked together some years ago. when ronald reagan ran for office, he laid out the principles he was going to foster. he said he was going to lower tax rates. he said he was going to broaden the base. have you said the same thing, simplify the tax code, broaden the base. i want to bring down the tax burden on middle-income families. i will work with congress to say, what are the ways to bring down deductions? one way would be to have a single number -- make up a number, 25,000 -- 50,000, anybody can have deductions up to that amount. and that number disappears for high-income people. one could follow bowl etion-simpson and make deductions that way. there are alternatives to the objective i have, which is to bring down rate, broaden the base, simplify the code and create incentives for growth. with regard to health care, you have remarkable details with regard to my pre-existing plan. you studied up on my plan. i do have a plan for pre-existing conditions. what we did in massachusetts is a model for the nation -- sta