The Tea Party's Stranglehold on Republicans
FOREMAN: As hard as it may be to believe sometimes, history teaches us that Democrats and Republicans actually can work together. But what about the Tea Party? Democrats can't seem to stand them, of course. But the more moderate Republicans are also tiring of the Tea Party's influence in these budget battles in particular. Particularly this uncompromising view on raising taxes held by those by presidential candidate Michele Bachmann.</s>REP.  MICHELLE BACHMANN, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I know President Obama does because they embrace the idea of increasing taxes. There is absolutely no appetite anywhere across the United States for increasing taxes.</s>FOREMAN: Will Cain is a CNN contributor and conservative political analyst. Will, you join us now. Look the Republicans love the Tea Party. First of all, Michele Bachmann's incorrect there. There is an appetite among some people for raising taxes, just not the people that support her. But Republicans like the energy of the Tea Party. They like the fact that the Tea Party got people engaged and involved and saying, come to Washington, let's make things happen. Do they like it still?</s>WILL CAIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Some of them. You know Tom; a minute ago you said Republicans and Democrats have a history of working together. And you're right. But that working together, that compromise led to Medicare prescription Part "D," it led to record increases in the Department of Education, interior, agriculture, and virtually every department over the last 12 years. Thus it led to the Tea Party. Now, the Tea Party has a win on their side. Tom, they've redefined the conversation. Obama is talking about major spending cuts. Now it seems like they have an inability to take a win, 3 to 1 spending cuts that is a win. I don't understand that strategy. Why can't you just take yes for an answer?</s>FOREMAN: It comes down to a question of compromise. Which I have a lot of people in the Tea Party said, look I'm not interested in compromise. We were sent here, remember in Congress we were sent here to do something. We're going to do what we were sent to do.</s>CAIN: Yes and that is a noble, noble principle. Guys who are not worried about getting reelected, who are principled individuals, but at the same time, this is a government where you just can't just have my way or the highway. So take a win. It's a 75 percent win.</s>FOREMAN: All right. Mark Skoda is founder and chairman of the Memphis Tea Party. According to a CNN/ORC poll, 55 percent have an unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party right now. Mark do members of the Tea Party concern themselves one way or the other with how the country sees the Republican Party?</s>MARK SKODA, FOUNDER & CHAIRMAN, MEMPHIS TEA PARTY: No, I think we're focused as well said on the fiscal issues. I mean I have to tell you, one of the things and I've talked to a lot of folks lately. The issue isn't about compromise. The issue is about verifiable results. You know Reagan had it best, trust but verify. Even the three to one deal that Will spoke about, I looked at the proposal, there's no legislation, as you know. But it basically takes credit for reducing, as we like to hear, the normal cost curve over time. And the problem, I think, and the reason the Tea Party's being perceived as intransigent in this matter is it's not intransigent at all it's expecting real results. And quite frankly we're not seeing that. The only thing we've seen that actually is legislation proposed and passed is cut, cap and balance. So I think honestly there's not a conflict here. It's just holding people accountable.</s>FOREMAN: All right. We are going to get back to that in a moment. But first, let's bring in John Avlon; he is a CNN contributor and a senior political columnist for "Newsweek" and "The Daily Beast." John a Pew Research poll found two-thirds of Tea Party members say it won't be a problem if we go past August 2nd without a debt ceiling deal. Almost any economist and certainly the credit rating agencies strongly disagree with that. So how do Republicans strike a deal and still maintain support among the Tea Party base?</s>JOHN AVLON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well that's becoming a real problem because with a rise of what I call debt ceiling deniers is a dominant strain among conservative populists. I think the Tea Party best sell is one that was focuses, throughout '09 and '10 and rederic on reducing the deficit and the debt, rightly identifying it as generational theft. But it becomes a question of priorities. Right now the divisions of the Republican Party are between deficit hogs and anti-tax absolutists. Reality check here, tax revenues are the lowest they have been since Harry Truman. And Ronald Reagan presided over 17 rise increases in the debt ceiling. So let's get some - you want to talk about accountability and a sense of perspective. To Will's point, take a win. The gang of six deal which reduces tax rates and does entitlement reform, this is something that should be embraced. This "all or nothing" attitude really exposes the fact that some folks who have been elected, the real enemy is bipartisanship. Not because of a history of spending increases, because if we divided government in the past, we've had the inner highway bill, we had the Marshall plan; we had all of Reagan's terms, essentially. The real issue for some of this focus is a fundamental discomfort and dislike and distrust with bipartisanship, which is essential to get anything passed in a divided government. So reality check, folks, we need to raise the debt ceiling and we need to reduce the deficit. And the only way that gets done is with a bipartisan plan.</s>FOREMAN: Mark, I'm sure you want to jump in on that. Why don't you want to take the win at this point?</s>SKODA: Because it's not a win. Look, I've looked at the numbers. And many of the Tea Party have done so. First of all it's a proposal. There's no legislation we can even put our hands around. So first of all it's a $1 trillion tax increase. And secondly the $3 trillion savings includes --</s>CAIN: It's not.</s>SKODA: I'm sorry I'm just reading what I read that has been proposed. There's no legislation I can point to. So let me just suggest at this point there's $1 trillion of, quote, unquote, tax increases through closing to proverbial loopholes. And in addition there's roughly the additional $2 trillion of savings on future costs of government.</s>CAIN: Mark, do you consider closing the loopholes a tax increase?</s>SKODA: Absolutely. I absolutely do.</s>CAIN: It's in the tax code. I thought you were against earmarks.</s>SKODA: Let me be clear. I'm against the current tax code because it's overly complex and it is frankly is deleterious to this economy. There are fundamental issues in terms of closing what loopholes you want, it's a political motivation. We talk about oil companies but we don't talk about windmills. We talk about offshore drilling but we don't talk about aspects of nuclear power. We don't deal with the realities that this economy is facing. So what we as a Tea Party and certainly my own personal views are that we want verifiable reductions in spending. Look if they get to that $3 trillion. That's $300 billion a year, $100 billion of which is taxes.</s>CAIN: Mark, let me ask you a question. Mark, this is Will. Here's a guy -- I believe in small government, constitutional limited government. You can't win me over, and then we've got a problem here. So here is my thing, you've made two different arguments. Are we opposing this gang of six deal or any kind of grand bargain because the spending cuts are unclear or because there's any potential tax increases?</s>SKODA: There are two things. Fundamentally one, the tax reduction, as you said the cost reductions are not clear. It's not evident. We went through that already last year at the end of the year with John Boehner. He was excoriated because of that. We haven't saved a dollar. So lets be very clear if we're going to reduce the actual spending, we have to have verifiable results, number one. That's absolutely required. I think in my context of suggesting to you that a lot of people in the Tea Party aren't maniacs about this, they say, look we're not going to get fooled again. Let's talk about bipartisanship very quickly. In 2009 during the health care there was no partisanship, I was there in Washington, D.C. when they sequestered Congress and made them vote because they didn't want them to come home to hear the constituents. So please don't look at the context of the discussion here around bipartisanship. That's not the question. The question is verifiable results; we want to get cutting in spending.</s>FOREMAN: Mark, we've had a reduction in time here. So we are going to have to wrap it up here. Same question to you guys, very quickly here. John, very quickly, do we see a debt ceiling deal by the end of next week?</s>AVLON: I hope so. I hope that Obama and Boehner are able put together a grand bargain or the gang of six legislation moves forward.</s>FOREMAN: OK.</s>AVLON: It raises taxes, it raises the debt ceiling, and it will end up dealing and producing deficit in the debt which is what we need to do as a country.</s>FOREMAN: Mark, yes or no? Do we get a deal by the end of next week?</s>SKODA: I think we will. We've raised the debt ceiling 100 times since it's been enforced.</s>FOREMAN: Will.</s>CAIN: Yes, I agree we have a debt ceiling deal by next week. We have to.</s>FOREMAN: All right. Thank you all for being here. We appreciate it. Listen, coming up, why higher wages could actually be good for job growth. That's next.