very position. what congressional republicans are proposing is permanent extension of tax cuts for wealthy. 80% of the people who get those tax cuts are millionaire. in a recession i understand those who say maybe for a year we should consider this. my view would be and i m not an economist and i m not involved if we re going borrow money from the chinese to give further tax cuts, it ought not go to millionaires. we ought to do more for small business. what the president is proposing is permanent extensions for tax cuts for the middle class. a small business plan in front of the united states senate that would provide huge tax relief, incentive for lending and incentive for expansion. will the president entertain the idea of extending the tax cuts for a period of two years? i don t no what his final position is going to be. what he s been pretty clear on is the middle class and small businesses ought to be the target of our tax relief. that those at the very top again, we re
going to borrow money from the chinese to give further tax cuts, it ought not go to millionaires. we ought to do more for small business and tax cuts. what the president is proposing is permanent extensions for tax cuts for the middle class. we have a small business plan right now in front of the united states senate that would provide huge tax relief, incentive for lending and incentive for expansion. that s what we ought to be doing. will the president entertain the idea of extending all the tax cuts for a period to have years? i don t know what his final position is going to be. what he s been pretty clear on is the middle class and small businesses ought to be the target of our tax relief. that those at the very top again, we re not talking about the mom and pop small business person. we re talking about 80% of the people the republicans want to give permanent tax credits to are millionaires without paying for it. so this is a very important issue. we won the tax debate with
capital gains tax. things that republicans have pushed for and advocated for so long but now in an election year, they say our agenda of no is absolutely enough. it s not. small businesses are out there hurting and they should. this bill does not add one dime to the deficit. and this bill should be passed and those are some small things that can be done. business research and development tax credits. that should be passed fully paid for again. not adding to the overall deficit. that, penny, one of the things he may unveil next week in cleveland, we ve heard, will, as for that small business plan, it seemed to be something aimed at republicans. but the $30 billion that s intended to increase loans, the republicans are not backing this. how do they spin that? look, you know, dave, tax credits and tax holidays are temporary measures. and yeah, i m all for it. look, abolish the income tax. that s fine. that will help us out. but we don t need a political solution to this. there are two
peter is an economist at the university of maryland and the former chief economist for the u.s. international trade commission and joining me now. thank you for being here today. good news, moderately good news you tell our producer. why is that? moderately good news. retail sales were up in january, but they were down in december. data seems to bounce around. if we look at it year over year, retail sales are growing after inflation maybe at a 2% rate, which means the economy is recovering very slowly. and if we look at things like imports and other data, inventories and so forth, the economy remains very vulnerable to a second dip. so you re saying let s be cautious here. let s not sarah, a, and shake out the pompoms quiet. the skeptics got to right. so does wall street. the stocks have greeted obama s recent pronouncements, his small business plan, export plan with
a lot of skepticism and well they should. his export plan is very small given the goals he set. his small business plan, they provide a few bucks here and there, but by and large, this administration doesn t have a strategy or plan to bring down the high level of unemployment. it s just about conceded that unemployment will stay near 10% for the next 12 months. in a different study, an uptick in retail sales, yes, but consumer sentiment is down. exactly. the policies and programs that mr. obama and mr. geithner have put forward have left economists, investors and consumers lukewarm. he says he wants to double exports, for example. to do that, that would require $850 billion in additional exports. to accomplish that, he has devoted $2 billion in additional resources. that s hardly up to the task. we always quote our experts and you are an expert in this field. what do you think the president