platform run against obstructionist republicans. but, doesn t he need independence and wouldn t it help if they got some, like if he showed, look, we re making some progress on this, this problem. you know, you re asking me to explain barack obama s political strategy, a that s hard to do going all the way back to obama care, which is now one of the most unpopular pieces of legislation that has ever been passed so i can t quite explain barack obama. he has i ve said many times he has his principles and he wanted those taxes raised on the rich and that was his line in the sand and he wasn t going to get it and now he s going to run on that. he promised a veto in october of any deal that didn t include the trillion dollars of new tax revenue increases and he must have known, jason that republicans couldn t possibly raise taxes by that much a year after they ran and won the the house, saying we won t raise taxes. and remember the fallback position, which is across the
raise taxes without violating their pledge to grover. the idea is a work of tax policy genius. like most works of genius, it is stunning in its simplicity and it s deeply and personally embarrassing to me that i didn t figure it out myself since i worked on tax policy in the senate for years. it was sitting right there in front of all of us and none of us saw it. except the freshman tea party supported senator from pennsylvania pat toomey, a member of the super committee. that is trying to come up with a deficit reduction package that includes spending cuts and tax revenue increases. toomey says, republicans can vote to raise taxes without violating the norquist pledge
raise taxes without violating their pledge to grover. the idea is a work of tax policy genius. like most works of genius, it is stunning in its simplicity and it s deeply and personally embarrassing to me that i didn t figure it out myself since i worked on tax policy in the senate for years. it was sitting right there in front of all of us and none of us saw it. except the freshman tea party supported senator from pennsylvania pat toomey, a meer that is trying to com up with a deficit reduction package that includes spending cuts and tax revenue increases. toomey says, republicans can vote to raise taxes without violating the norquist pledge because a vote to raise taxes
switch that offers more than $1 trillion in higher taxes for a promise of temporary tax relief. the president penalizes investment when it is needed most. discourages charitable giving and doubles down on a failed government stimulus strategy. okay. rick perry gets half a point on discourages charitable giving, but he s wrong on everything else. today the president argued that his proposed tax revenue increases would grow the economy. all i m saying is that those who have done well, including me, should pay our fair share in taxes to contribute to the nation that made our success possible. and i think most wealthy americans would agree, if they knew this would help us grow the economy and deal with the debt that threatens our future. joining me now, washington post columnist and msnbc contributor ezra klein. thanks for joining me tonight, ezra. good evening. you brought your pencil and paper.
kim and james are what you might call overly protective. especially behind the wheel. nothing wrong with that. in fact, allstate gives them a bonus twice a year for being safe drivers. dollar for dollar, nobody protects you like allstate. either we gut education and medical research or we have to reform the tax code so that most profitable corporations have to give up tax loopholes that other companies don t get. we can t afford to do both. this is not class warfare. it s math. time for the math. that was president obama today making the argument that deficit reduction legislation should include corporate tax revenue increases. the proposal the president outlined includes $1.5 trillion in new revenue through a