Obama, Romney stump in swing states

>> of the morning. today, president obama and mitt romney stump in important swing states . the topic of the day for both candidates will be taxes. the president will put a face on his effort to extend the bush era tax rates only for americans making less than $250,000 a year. when he holds a roundtable at the home of a couple in cedar rapids iowa as mitt romney has a town hall in grand junction , colorado. george w. bush hasn't been on a national ballot in eight years but his tax cuts are front and center. the president opens up a new attack against mitt romney trying to drive a wedge between the middle class tax cuts and tax breaks for the rich.

>> it's time to let the tax cuts for the wealthiest americans , folks like myself, to expire.

>> the white house vowed that the president will veto any legislation that includes tax cut extensions for the wealthy. it's a promise though the president has made before during his first campaign for president.

>> let's roll back the bush tax cuts that went to the wealthiest americans .

>> and again in 2010 .

>> how do you get up here and talk about how you care so deeply about the deficit and yet you want to perpetuate a tax cut that costs $700 billion. with a b.

>> four months later he signed the extension of all the tax cuts . now, all of this is about trying to put romney on the defensive and actually highlight romney 's own personal wealth. and the president is trying again.

>> let's not hold the vast majority of americans and our entire economy hostage while we debate the merits of another tax cut for the wealthy. my opponent will fight to keep them in place. i will fight to end them. that argument shouldn't threaten you.

>> remember, the holy grail for democrats is decoupling the bush tax cuts , separating out the ones for the wealthy versus the ones for everybody else . in a radio interview mitt romney slammed the president's announcement hitting him saying it's another economic misstep.

>> another kick in the gut to the middle class in america . we just saw a terrible jobs report just last week. and now to add a higher tax on job creators and on small business is about the worst thing i could imagine to do if you want to create jobs.

>> this issue, romney was joined by congressional republicans. they repeated a line arguing that ending the bush tax cuts for the top 2% is in effect a tax increase on small business owners. the president anticipated that talking point and he pushed back on it.

>> the proposal i make today would extend these tax cuts for 97% of all small business owners in america .

>> let's remember here, it's not just republicans who prevented the president from trying to decouple the tax cuts for the wealthy from the cuts for the middle class . it's not clear democrats agree with each other about where the cut-off should be.

>> the problem is in my state there are a lot of people who make above 250 who aren't rich.

>> well, okay. schumer was arguing for years actually to move the threshold up to a million. yesterday in a statement he said he's in total solidarity with the president. guess what. some senate democrats nervous about losing their seat weren't so e few sieve. senator bill nelson of florida said, quote, nelson's favored position is to permanently extend the bush era tax cuts for those making under $1 million. and for bob kerry running for senate in nebraska told politico, kerrey believes the $250,000 limit is too low but is evaluating how specific proposals would affect the ballot. claire mchaskel said she would look at it to reign in the deficit. by the way, the president made sure to argue that the bush tax cuts never worked.

>> we were told that it would lead to more jobs and higher incomes for everybody and prosperity would start at the top and then trickle down. what happened? instead of creating more jobs, we had the slowest job growth in half a century.

>> one of the reasons the white house is sticking to the 250 and didn't agree with senate democrats in the effort to push up the threshold to a million dollars is the math doesn't work. you have a deficit gap. you lose about half that deficit reduction revenue that the white house is looking for if you move that threshold up. so it may help on messaging, but it hurts them in the accounting. the obama campaign likes the tax issue, not just because it polls well. it does. but because they believe it allows them to tie together a core criticism they are doing of romney now. his personal wealth and their economic arguments. the campaign is out with another video doing that this morning demanding romney release more tax returns . yesterday for the first time the president himself dipped into the issue of romney 's offshore investments. came during a series of local tv interviews. he was talking to new hampshire station wmur.

>> is it your belief that it's not patriotic for someone to have a swiss bank account ?

>> well, you know, i think what's important if you are running for president is that the american people know who you are, what you have done and that you're an open book . that's been true of every presidential candidate dating back to mr. romney 's father. i think that given that a big part of his argument about why he should be president has to do with his private business success . i understand why it's important for him to go ahead and answer some questions. all of us have gone through it.

>> in a radio interview with radio iowa, romney fired back at the democratic attempts to draw attention to the, quote, swiss bank account issue.

>> i realize that the president's failure to actually reignite the economy makes it hard for him to discuss his own record. and so he's going to try and attack me on every personal basis he can come up with. all the taxes are paid, as appropriate. all of them have been reported to the government. there's nothing hidden there.

>> you see they are trying to basically say mitt romney who looks for any loophole he can to avoid paying some taxes now is arguing for another tax cut that will benefit him. so you see the larger narrative they are attempting here. the rnc hitting back on another issue the obama campaign had been trying to capitalize on in swing states . the rnc chairman follows obama to roll out obamanomics, outsourced.com. the site will show instances where the president's policy led to job creation overseas. this morning, david plouff responded to criticism of the use of a washington post story on bain's history of supposedly outsourcing in their own campaign ads .

>> the romney campaign trying to get them to pull back the story and they refused. it's accurate.

>> that's not what --

>> well, people who look at it closely. one fact. mitt romney wants to continue tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. he would do that as president. this president wants the focus on insourcing.

>> what plouffe is talking about is the tax code and companies that ship jobs oversaes. the washington post has a story today that criticizes the obama administration saying the rhetoric is there but the policy follow through has fallen short. finally, democrats do believe they have one added bonus of starting the tax cut debate now. it could make house republicans look silly for relitigating health care for what they say is the 31st time. the house will take up the 31st attempt to defund or repeal all or parts of the affordable care act . this is speaker boehner moments ago.

>> tomorrow, the house, once again, is going to vote to repeal all of obamacare. [ applause ] we are resolved to get rid of a law that will ruin the best health care delivery system the world has ever seen. it will bankrupt our country and make it impossible to grow our economy. that's why we're doing it. [ applause ]

>> a week after we saw the public views of the supreme court 's ruling on health care , a new washington post /abc poll shows little movement on the ruling itself. america is divided. 42% approve of the ruling. 44% disapprove after a week of digesting it. there is a significant change on views of the law itself. in the post poll, 47% support the law and 47% oppose it. in april, 39% backed it and 53% opposed it. among those who oppose the law there is a division about whether repeal is the best route. 33% favor repealing the whole law. 30% say to repeal parts of it. 34% say to wait and see. interesting to watch