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earth. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." mitt romney is using ads, web videos, speeches to hammer away at president obama on welfare. romney is taking a lot of heat though over his claims about the administration's policies, but with support from an unlikely ally he's raising the stakes today. here's our national political correspondent jim acosta. >> reporter: wolf, mitt romney is not backing away from his accusation that president obama is trying to make it easier for the poor to receive welfare checks and to help make his case he's getting some help from an old r...

Nearly twice what they expected. jerry brown to call for increased sales and income taxes, cuts to state programs. brown proposed cuts in spending on welfare and indigent medical care along with a shortened workweek for government workers to cut payroll costs. he compared it to the financial crisis in europe. >> takeaways are never pleasant. i mean, take a look at what's going on in greece. take a look at the 100,000 people marching in spain. once you have it, it's much more painful to give it up than if you don't get what you desire. and that's why it becomes very important to block new spend...

Patchwork. you have s.n.a.p., section 8, tanf, all of these. one thing i worry about is the issue of poverty traps. people who are working poor maybe a family with an income arounds 25 $25,000, they approa 100% because they pay taxes on the income and lose benefits as they get wealthy. a critical factor. talked about it last week having this discussion. >> that when you, one of the ways tanf reform, welfare reform, get rid of the cliffs. if someone gets a raise or a better job, the actual gross amount of income taking into their family, net amount redu reduces. combine the federal programs tog...

first, both president obama and mitt romney acknowledge a recovery is under way and that's about all they agree on when it comes to your money. the president called economic fairness the defining issue of our time. >> in this country broad based prosperity has never trickled down from the success of a wealthy few. it has always come from the success of a strong and growing middle class. >> the president argues he is here to protect medicare, social security, and milgtd class be jos and this is what the president is banking on, a recent cnnorc poll finds president bush and the republi...

$105,000. the bottom 99% saw wages up .2%. $80 a year. >> yeah. >> you look at those figures. this is now. this is what's happening now in america. but to your point, ryan, the reality is that the lottery does pay for state programs and education is one of the biggest areas where lottery money you know ends up. the new york lottery contributed more than $3 billion between 2010 and 2011 which is 15% of the total state aid to local districts. in 2009, the $336 million jackpot generated $50 million in aid in seven weeks. so i mean, it's both at once a good thing to be playing the lottery and a ba...