On Sunday's show Chris and his guests discussed Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital and the Obama campaign's new attack ads against him. Also, conversations about economic issues, such as U.S. government debt, spending cuts, and this weekend's G8 conference at Camp David, which focused on the Eurozone crisis.
Joining Chris were:
Ezra Klein (@ezraklein), MSNBC policy analyst and columnist at the Washington Post.
Betsey Stevenson (@betseystevenson), former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor (2010-2011).
William Black (@williamkblack), author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One.
Karl Smith (@ModeledBehavior), assistant professor of economics and government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
:: Blogged by Brett Brownell (@brettbrownell), Up w/ Chris Hayes web & video producer ::
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Great show, as always, Chris. Besides the layoffs and lost pensions/benefits of employees at GST Steel company that Romney broke up while at Bain, now we have another example, SCM Office Supplies. According to video provided by barackobama.com, Romney while at Bain shut down this small, healthy business and sold it to Ampad. Debt piled up causing it to go bankrupt and employees were fired without their benefits/pensions. Again. Romney and partners make approx. $100M.
In Romney's proposed budget plan (source: Congressional Budget Office estimates) Romney would cut taxes as follows: 1) permanently extend 2001-2003 Bush tax cuts, 2) eliminate tax of investment income most individuals, 3) reduce corporate income tax (this would be similar to Ryan territorial tax which provides for zero corporate income tax if corporations take their profits and intellectual property overseas and per Mr. Cay, tax expert we should demand "NO MORE SEPARATE COMPANY ACCOUNTING"), 4) eliminate estate tax and 5) repeal taxes enacted by 2010 health reform legislation.
All the while breaking the backs of the poor via: 1) cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and other non-defense programs 28% by 2016, 2) cuts to SNAP (food stamps) over $1,700/year for family of 4, low income, seniors and disabled, 3) cuts over 1/4 of disabled vets compensation and pensions for low income vets, 4) cuts 1/4 Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for poor aged and disabled, 5) cuts non-defense discretionary spending by $166B in 2016 including: a) aid to public education, b) vets healthcare, c) law enforcement, d) national parks, e) environmental protection, f) biomedical and scientific research.
Romney is NOT safe for America. Based on the above information, I can only gather that Romney believes in austerity for the disenfranchised while hoarding obscene amounts of money for his buddies: big banks/big oil/big industry (NRA and Wal-Marts of the world).
One way to fight the 1% by the 99% is one important message I learned from one of your provocative and informative shows; "institutionalize occupy or grassroots movements". This I heard from Nadler (D) New York and MIT professor (the name escapes me). I cannot agree more!
Love your show!
Maria Hernandez
I really enjoy your show Chris, and you always have insightful and entertaining guests. I was slightly taken aback though, buy you folks almost complete agreement that cutting food stamps (SNAP) was acceptable as part of a package of fiscal correction. If we have no jobs, and we have to starve those without work just to get the middle class back on its feet, what kind of a recovery is that? Poor folks are doing bad because there is no work and low wages, but to practice what Bain capital did, but to do it to the poorer class, this so called 'creative destruction' is not going to leave this country in a better place. The poor need bailed out also, because the people of this country, and that includes us poor, are the ones that are really 'to big to fail', and Europe and China will find it out. We have to save the lower American classes by giving them bootstraps to pull themselves up with!
Chris, has anyone ever told you that your cadence sounds like a Valley girl. It is hard to watch a guy talk like that.
Try muting and using the caption option; you might learn something. In fact, with all of the misspellings you might find Chris really speaks your language.
Chris, thanks for having Haidt on your show. Doesn't his recent work relate/rely heavily on Sperber & Mercier's "Argumentative Theory?" This is exciting stuff that can be found on John Brockman's site: Edge.org.
Something always seems to get left out of any analysis of the GOP's debt-expanding economic policy (as distinct from their debt-busting rhetoric): ideologically speaking, Republicans have a direct political vested interest in expanding state or national debt as much as possible, because they know from experience that this can pre-emptively short-circuit either maintenance or expansion of basic social safety-net programs (while their core constituencies of defence & high-finance will remain unharmed).
Reagan was in fact quite explicit that his "Two Santa Claus" plan for Reaganomics was intended not just to hand out tax-cut lolly to encourage people to vote for him but also to "cut the air-hose" to programs for the poor that he & his fellow Republicans knew were successful, cost-effective & socially beneficial, because they had no rational argument against them that would pass the laugh-test. With Reaganomics, they didn't need to initiate a long & costly political fight to slash welfare programs: once the imbalance of spending got titanic enough, they could simply raise a debt-scare & then strangle them of funding indirectly.
Even better, in the long-term the (inevitably) declining performance of the slashed social programs can then be used to "prove" their wastefulness, thus justifying eliminating them outright. With good timing, the blame can even be passed along to the Democrats: note that by far the most devastating cuts to America's welfare system came not under Reagan or G.H.W. Bush, but under Clinton - after the government's books had been loaded down with more than a decade of $3,600 Toilet-seats & $38,000 coffee-makers for the Pentagon, & a "Permanent Christmas" policy of huge regulatory & tax gifts to multinationals.
Any discussion of the Republicans' economic track-record needs to include this essential ingredient to be coherent - otherwise one must assume on the basis of the numbers alone that they are either cartoonishly malevolent or breathtakingly idiotic ... & they are neither.