Finding details on Romney tax ‘reform’ essentially a wild goose chase

>>> today's new job figures confirm what we know. growth is sluggish and the unemployment rate is still above 8%, but no worries. mitt romney has a plan. it involves closing the tax codes many loopholes, deductions and credits, but not telling you which loopholes, deductions and credits until sometime after he's elected in november. fox news found that out this morning when it tried to find out from a romney policy adviser, take a look.

>> can he not tell the american people those facts?

>> back up for a second.

>> why don't you explain why and which ones and how much? mr. chen, forgive me. you're just not answering my question.

>> give that journalist the dupont award. joining us now in washington, ezra klein and here with me in new york, william cohen . good day to you, both. ezra, these famous deductions, credits that mitt romney talks about. you're the expert. where are they? have you seen them? can you find them? can you tell our viewers where they are?

>> i can tell you where they would need to be, but mitt romney would not like it very much. i thought chen's comment, why would he tell you what he would do, the answer to that is elections are about giving voters the information.

>> yeah. right.

>> and if one of the two candidates would like to close out the home mortgage interest deduction and tax deductibility of employer based health care if people get thrown off their health care ending state and local taxes, that would be a big deal to them, but even so, the point we need to make here, this is true for a lot of what president obama mentioned last night. a multiyear we form of the tax code is not going to create jobs in the short-term. it does not alleviate the the jobs and nor by the way do obama's. i've been very surprised how little we are hearing in this election about immediate strategies to create jobs now.

>> right.

>> bill, you said before that one of the biggest problems here is not the presidency. it's the congress. and the budget impasse.

>> one of the facts we have to remember here, since a year ago, since august of 2011 , 2.4 million jobs have been created. and the the reason there aren't more in my opinion is because if wrour the the ceo of a company and you're sitting, you're one of these ceos sitting on this $2 trillion of cash people are sitting on, why would you invest in plant, equipment or hiring more people if you don't know what's going to happen come this fiscal cliff, the sequester at the beginning of the year. since congress won't get its act together and deal with what's about to happen, why if you're a ceo would you take the chance of investing any capital?

>> you're saying that sequester that is going to come in and involve cuts in military, particularly --

>> 1.5 trillion of cuts.

>> you're saying that is affecting the business community right now?

>> absolutely, martin.

>> but why didn't we hear that from a single republican politician?

>> i don't know why we don't hear anything from mitt romney and his cohort of republican politicians. they won't tell us about his ira, trust funds. they won't tell us about his tax plans, anything. so i'm not surprised, but it's clear to me that if i'm a ceo of a company, why am i going to invest without knowing what's going to happen.

>> ezra, do you want to butt in?

>> sure. i think bill is certainly right that we're going to see a lot of uncertainty coming out of the fiscal cliff. i don't think that sluggishness in the economy, i don't think the the reason we're not seeing more investment this year and people have tried to run the numbers on this, is because they're worried about what's going to happen in january. people are saying look, they're going to figure that out. we're seeing this every six months in congress. it's not helping anything. god knows no one thinks congress is doing a worse job than i do there. it is a national embarrass m, but we have europe happening. we're having a drought across the middle of the country, which people think is knocking off a half a gdp point. we're going to have fiscal drag next year. one thing we have a problem with in politics, we talk and politics and try to make the economy all about what we're doing in washington, in politics and a lot of us, i don't want to say beyond control, but just fundamentally unrelated.

>> bill, let me play you something bill clinton said on wednesday night. listen to this.

>> since 1961 , for 52 years now, the republicans have held the white house 28 years. the democrats, 24. what's the job score? republicans, 24 million. democrats 42.

>> bill, before you tell me what you think of that statement, it has been fact checked and fact checked and proven to be true. what's your analysis?

>> the facts are the facts, right? the democrats are better at creating jobs. i mean, bill clinton was the last president to have a balanced budget and we know that after he balanced that budget, that the economy took off and millions of jobs were created. these are the same republicans, martin, who had that national debt sign up in the back, the debt clock. forgetting they were responsible for many of the trillions ticking away there and trying to blame it on the democrats. which i don't understand cht thest like we didn't start two wars and didn't you know, send the economy into a fiscal recession.

>> thank you, gentlemen. stay with us.

>> such as that. i've known ben a long time. he and i have disagreements on these issues, but they're respectful of one another. bob... oh,