On Thursday's The Ed Show on MSNBC, the Huffington Post's Howard Fineman - formerly of Newsweek - praised President Obama's campaign to raise taxes on the Wealthy, asserting that, even in tax averse New Hampshire, voters believe the federal income tax code is "unfair" as he labeled the President's strategy on taxes as "smart."
Fineman went on to ooze that it is "very, very, very clever" of Obama to argue that "if we go back to the Republican theory of things, which is symbolized by the tax code, we're going to go right back into the recession that we had under George W. Bush."
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Thursday, April 12, The Ed Show on MSNBC:
New Hampshire's a swing state. It's a state that President Obama won in 2008. It's going to be up for grabs again this time. And the White House is convinced that in that state where talking about taxes is tricky, you know, that's the Live Free or Die state, anti-tax state, no state income tax, no state sales tax, etc.
The White House is confident they can make this case because they're not just talking about taxes per se, they're talking about fairness. They're talking about being fair and playing by the rules in American society and values. Now, most of the American people think that the current tax tables are unfair. They think they're skewed toward the rich. They think they're onerous and unfair. So the White House is pushing on an open door there, and I think it's smart.
They're also taking the tax issue and putting it in a larger context, and, frankly, changing the subject a little bit merely from the current sort of mediocre state of the economy and saying, "Look, we've made improvements here, but if we go back to the Republican theory of things, which is symbolized by the tax code, we're going to go right back into the recession that we had under George W. Bush." I think it's been very, very, very clever, on their part.
