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(Dean) well, first of all, christie is pretty conservative, but these guys make him look moderate, which he's got to love. secondly, the big mistake that the governor in wisconsin has made is he's openly contemptuous of working people. and that has really hurt him. if you see the polls that came out today, the " wall street journal" poll, the pew poll, there was another one -- oh, the rasmussen poll, which is a republican poll. the republicans are going to get hammered in wisconsin. democracy for america's got a recall effort going on for five republican senators. 57% think the republican senator ought to be recalled of the five they're looking at. so this is killing them. and what christie essentially is saying is look, we can respect each other and i'm going to be tough as nails. there's nothing wrong with being tough as nails. there is something wrong with balancing the budget on the backs of poor -- of working people when you've given away $100 million of tax breaks to business, which is exactly what walker in wisconsin did.
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(Dean) i think, first of all, franklin roosevelt was coming at -- came in at the -- toward the end of the real battles over the right to unionize. and most states, including new york, which was pretty liberal, which he was the governor of before he became president, do still forbid many public employees from striking. i don't think people are wanting the unions to be so militant. i think they're just wanting them to be treated as human beings here. look, the unions in wisconsin have given back health insurance, a higher percentage in health insurance. they've given back wage increases. they've made concessions in their pension. why strip them of their dignity? this can't be about dignity. this can be about money because we don't have much in this country and everybody needs to make a sacrifice. but when you start attacking the other side because of their humanity, because of who they are and because of what their social status is, that's when you get in trouble and that's when the republicans overreach.
(O'Donnell) governor, the federal budget negotiations are moving along smoother than i think maybe any of us thought. i'm very surprised that they got such an easy agreement on that two-week extension. now vice president biden meeting today talking to leaders in both parties. but off the table it seems in any discussion for the foreseeable future, is any change in the top income tax rate. we have new polling out indicating that that is the one way, the one way that gets the most public support for helping solve our budget crisis, adding taxation at higher levels on millionaires and above. and that also seems to be the one thing that is forbidden to be discussed in these negotiations.
>> i think -- and that's going to change. the president himself acknowledged that in the state of tune union when he said there will not be an extension of the upper income tax brackets. this is a huge losing argument for the republicans. for example, the other day the house refused to cut some of the -- any of the $53 billion that we give to the oil companies every year in subsidies. and they're doing that at the same time they're making all these cuts that are hurting low-income women and children and so on. the american people have a tremendous sense of fairness. they are tight fisted and they should be, and they are fiscally conservative, but they think that the pain ought to be spread everywhere. and for the republicans' position to be that we're going to give people who make a million dollars a year a tax break while we're cutting social security of little old ladies, that is going to be a disaster for them in 2012. so i hope they keep insisting on this stuff because it's a huge loser for them.
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