"Face the Nation" transcripts, July 15, 2012: Cutter, Madden, Rep. Ryan

(CBS News) Below is a rush transcript of "Face the Nation" on July 15, 2012, hosted by CBS News Bob Schieffer. Guests include: The Obama campaign's Stefanie Cutter, Kevin Madden with the Romney campaign, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc. Plus a panel on the economy with Rana Foroohar, Robert Reich, John Fund and Mark Zandi. Then, Michael Gerson, Frank Rich, and CBS News' Norah O'Donnell and John Dickerson on politics.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Today on FACE THE NATION, from negative to downright nasty, how low can they go?

MIT ROMNEY: If you want a President who will make things better in the African-American community, you are looking at him.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Mitt Romney got roundly booed at the NAACP Convention, but in a week like this that was almost a pleasant interlude. In so many words the Romney campaign called the President a liar.

(Excerpt from Romney Campaign Ad)

BOB SCHIEFFER: The Obama campaign suggested even worse about Romney in a conference call with reporters.

STEPHANIE CUTTER (on phone, Obama 2012 Deputy Campaign Manager): Either Mitt Romney through his own words and his own signature was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the SEC, which is a felony, or he was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the American people.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Romney fought back in five separate interviews and called for an apology.

MITT ROMNEY: This is reckless and absurd on his part and it is something which is beneath his dignity-- dignity.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Back and forth it went. In the cruelest slap of all the Obama campaign rolled out an ad featuring Mitt Romney singing.

(Excerpt from Obama Campaign Ad)

BOB SCHIEFFER: Today we'll hear from Stephanie Cutter who made the allegations against Romney. Kevin Madden, senior Romney advisor, and Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin congressman said to be on Romney's short list of possible running mates.

We'll get analysis from Moody's Mark Zandi, former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, John Fund of the National Review, Rana Foroohar of TIME magazine, New York magazine's Frank Rich, Michael Gerson of The Washington Post and our own John Dickerson and Norah O'Donnell.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: This feels kind of good. I need to cool off a little bit. It was a little warm.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, he may have something there and we'll try to make sense of all of it because this is FACE THE NATION.

ANNOUNCER: From CBS News in Washington, FACE THE NATION with Bob Schieffer.

BOB SCHIEFFER: And good morning again. Stephanie Cutter, who's emerged as one of the main point people for the Obama campaign, and Kevin Madden, the long-time top advisor to Mitt Romney are at the table together with us. And I must say this campaign did get down and dirty last week.

And I want to start with the very latest, Stephanie. I want to play some more of that new ad going on the air in some of the key battleground states--

STEPHANIE CUTTER: Mm-Hm.

BOB SCHIEFFER:--that your people have put out.

(Excerpt from Obama Campaign Ad)

BOB SCHIEFFER: Let me put you at ease, first, Kevin. We will leave the musical reviews to other critics who would be more qualified to comment on that. But, Stephanie, really, the message here seems to be that Mitt Romney is a hypocrite. Are you trying to say he-- he's un-American--

STEPHANIE CUTTER: Oh, of course not, Bob.

BOB SCHIEFFER:--unpatriotic?

STEPHANIE CUTTER: Of course not. You know, the-- the ad pokes fun a little bit, tries to have some fun with it, but then it walks through exactly what Mitt Romney's record is. You know The Washington Post reported that he invested in firms that became the pioneers of-- of outsourcing. It's well documented that as the governor of Massachusetts he used taxpayer dollars to outsource jobs to India. And now you know his tax policies now encourage that same type of outsourcing. So, this is a legitimate discussion about Mitt Romney's record in the past but also what he wants to do now for this country.

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right. We'll get back to that--

STEPHANIE CUTTER: Mm-Hm.

BOB SCHIEFFER:--and talk about it some more. But, Kevin, what-- what's your reaction to seeing that ad?

KEVIN MADDEN (Romney Campaign Senior Advisor): Well, look, I-- I find it very troubling for a number of reasons. I think it is troubling that they would mock somebody who is singing "God Bless America." I think what's more troubling is what's missing from the President's message. This is an ad that's talking about Governor Romney where we have a-- we had a jobs report come out recently. We have 8.2 percent unemployment. We have anemic job growth in this country. We have twenty-three million Americans struggling to find work. We have record deficits. We have people, you know, people that are trying to find a job, they can't find one. People that have a job are really worried about losing it. And the President does not have an answer to that for the American people. He is not talking about his record because he doesn't have one to run on. I think that's what's really troubling. Because right now that, you know-- you know, I think in many ways you're going to see a mirror discussion of what the American people are looking for right now. You have one candidate who is talking about the economy, what he wants to do to move the country forward, what he wants to do to create greater prosperity for more Americans, how we're going to get this country back on-- on track and create jobs and that candidate is Governor Romney. And then you have President Obama, who at this time of very tough economic struggles, is telling the American public that the one thing that they need to be worried about, the two things that they need to be worried about, the three things that they need to be worried about--

BOB SCHIEFFER: Yeah.

KEVIN MADDEN: --or what's in Governor Romney's financial disclosures. And I think that's a very troubling place for the country to be when we have our President right now who's not willing to talk about what he's going to do to fix the economy--

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well--

KEVIN MADDEN: --and is only-- only interested in-- in attacking Governor Romney.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well-- well, Stephanie, you were the one that put the point on it.

STEPHANIE CUTTER: Mm-Hm.

BOB SCHIEFFER: You said that the-- that Mitt Romney either misled the Securities and Exchange Commission when he filled out forms about what his status was with Bain Capital or he misled the American people and you said if he misled the Securities and Exchange Commission, he was guilty of a felony. Now, that is--

STEPHANIE CUTTER: No. I said which would be a felony.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Would be a felony.

STEPHANIE CUTTER: But, Bob, let me make two points. First--

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right.

STEPHANIE CUTTER:--to address what-- what Kevin said about the--the differences in-- in this race. I think it's wholly un-accurate what he said. Anybody who was out there or listening to the President, out there on the trail--and I encourage everybody to do that--to listen to what he's saying on the stump. He's putting forward a defense of his record because we are proud of what we've been able to do to right the ship of this economy. We've got-- still have more work to do but we've made progress. And number two, where he wants to take the country. That's wholly different than what Mitt Romney is saying on the stump. It's a purely negative stump speech that Mitt Romney is-- is saying. Now, let's remember, part of his stump speech is to talk about how the President doesn't understand freedom, doesn't feel the passion of freedom and doesn't understand America. What-- what about that gives you any sense of where Mitt-- Mitt Romney's going to take this country?

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, and let me--let me just go back to Kevin because that brings us to this: either he did put down on the SEC documents that he was the CEO and sole owner of-- of these companies, the Bain Capital, or he wasn't because when he filled out his financial disclosure form when he got ready to run for office he said he had left Bain Capital in 1999. And, of course, the reason is this is important is is that after 1999 some of those companies that Bain owned went into bankruptcy. There were some jobs that were outsourced and he's saying I didn't have anything to do with this. Either he was the CEO or he wasn't. Why would he have signed his name to those documents?

KEVIN MADDEN: Well, look, first I think it is very troubling that the President would direct his campaign to label someone like Governor Romney who is a very good and honorable man as a fellow. I think that is very troubling--

BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Yeah, but let's talk about--

STEPHANIE CUTTER: It's not--

KEVIN MADDEN: And I will get to that point. I think it is-- I think that is very troubling. I think what is equally disappointing is that the-- is that the-- the Obama campaign continues to focus on these attacks even though fact-checked after fact-check, investigative journalist after investigative journalist has shown that Governor Romney left Bain in 1999. The-- the reason that there is documents that had in 2002 that had a signature of his because during that transition from 1999 from 2002 where there was a transfer of ownership over to the new partners of Bain, that there were-- there was a duty-- duty to sign those-- those documents. But every single-- even a bipartisan commission, the Ballot Commission in Massachusetts had indicated that Governor Romney left Bain in 1999. This has been established, yet, the Obama campaign, the President himself continued to pursue these inaccurate statements and-- and I think it's to the detriment of the public right now because the public wants to-- wants and needs an argument about the economy. They need to debate about what we're going to do to move this country forward and the President is avoiding that debate.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Stephanie:

STEPHANIE CUTTER: Okay. So a couple points on what Kevin said--first, if you're signing an SEC document with your own signature that you're the president, CEO, chairman of the board, and hundred percent owner of a company, in what world are you living in that you're not in charge? What American understands that you don't bear any responsibility for the decisions that were made at that company if you're at the head of it? And if he wasn't the head of it, who was? And the simple point is if you're telling the SEC that you're in charge but you're telling the American people that you bear no responsibility, one of those things is not true. And, you know, it's not the Obama campaign that is making these allegations. It's independent reporting from the press. Every day there is a new fact out there about Mitt Romney's involvement with Bain from post-1999. Today there's a Bloomberg story up that they didn't announce his departure, his official departure, until 2001. There's reports yesterday in the Boston Globe that he was appearing in press releases in 1999 after the date of his departure. But let me just finish with this: It doesn't make any difference that we're arguing the semantics of when Mitt Romney left Bain Capital. He has put for his sole rationale for being President. His experience at Bain Capital and that every decision that he'll make as President should be seen through the lens of his experience with Bain Capital and we're just getting a taste of that, you know, whether it's investing in companies and those investments happened before 1999 when Mitt Romney was, in his words, in charge that became the pioneers in outsourcing or whether it's investing in companies, loading them up with debt and pushing them into bankruptcy and yet you walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars, but you're leaving workers without jobs, pensions, health care, and companies decimated.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Let me ask--

STEPHANIE CUTTER: Those are legitimate discussions to have, particularly, because Mitt Romney put it on the table.

KEVIN MADDEN: Time and time again it has been established, even by Democrats such as Steve Pagliuca, who is a Massachusetts Democrat who was at Bain has said, Mitt Romney left in 1999. It is established as fact yet you continue to pursue it.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you this, Kevin: Some Democrats say that Mitt Romney could clear up all of this if he would simply release his income tax returns. Now he has released the tax returns for one year. He says he'll release the ones from the current year. Why is he doing what all other people who-- why isn't he doing what everybody else who has run for President has done and that is release enough of his tax returns to get a sense of where his money was coming from and what he was doing with it.

KEVIN MADDEN: Governor Romney has released tax returns. He's gone above and beyond the law that's required of financial disclosures. He released tax returns from 2010. He's also released an estimate of the 2011 returns. These returns show that he's paid over six million dollars in taxes. Seven million dollars of his income went to charity which is appropriately sixteen percent of his income. He's also filed hundreds and hundreds of pages of financial disclosures with the FEC. He did so in 2008 when he first ran for President then for the Republican nomination and he's done so--

BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): But why not just do the returns and get it over with? I mean he--

KEVIN MADDEN: He's gone above and beyond it. He's gone above and beyond it and-- and most importantly I think we have to remember that the only reason that the-- the Obama campaign continues to make these charges is they're taking line items that are actually in the financial disclosure forms that the President-- that Governor Romney has provided to the FEC and others.

STEPHANIE CUTTER: That's actually not true, Bob.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Do you-- it's not true.

STEPHANIE CUTTER: That he has had to amend his financial disclosure forms to-- for the one year of tax returns that Mitt Romney put out, for 2010. He had to go back and amend his financial disclosures forms because there were investments on his 2010 taxes that weren't on his disclosure forms. When did we learn about a Swiss bank account?

KEVIN MADDEN: Governor Romney has dutifully and according to the law filed all of his financial disclosure requirements. He's gone above the law and (INDISTINCT) those taxes.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Could he be confirmed as a member of a cabinet--either a Democratic or a Republican (INDISTINCT) cabinet--

KEVIN MADDEN: Absolutely.

BOB SCHIEFFER: --with the amount of financial information that he has provided?

KEVIN MADDEN: Absolutely. I mean the disclosure laws that we have right now are being dutifully followed by this campaign. He has complied with them one hundred percent and that's the reason that you're even having this discussion is because he's gone above and beyond the laws. Not just the FEC disclosures but releasing the tax returns.

STEPHANIE CUTTER: This is not about-- no one is suggesting that Mitt Romney isn't following the law. That's not what this discussion is about. This discussion--

KEVIN MADDEN: So when you--

STEPHANIE CUTTER: --is about transparency and-- and showing the American people what your perspective is and what judgments that you're going to make as a President. So let's just take for an example--

BOB SCHIEFFER: But you suggested he--

STEPHANIE CUTTER: We know--

BOB SCHIEFFER: --wasn't following the law.

KEVIN MADDEN: You should--

STEPHANIE CUTTER: No, I did not suggest.

KEVIN MADDEN: And the President directed his campaign to label him a felon.

STEPHANIE CUTTER: Oh, no. No. We-- we saw the transcript right at the beginning of the show. What I said exactly, I'm happy to repeat it because I think the American people need to understand this that either you're the CEO, President, chairman of the board of Bain Capital as you attest to the SEC or he's telling the American people that he bears no responsibility for that. Those two things both can't be true. Either you're in charge or you're not. And I think from the information that's been dripping out from independent sources not from the Obama campaign is that he was involved in Bain Capital.

BOB SCHIEFFER: He's--

STEPHANIE CUTTER: What he's doing is misrepresenting to the American people.

BOB SCHIEFFER: He wants an apology.

STEPHANIE CUTTER: He should take responsibility.

KEVIN MADDEN: And on this--

BOB SCHIEFFER: Is he going to get an apology?

STEPHANIE CUTTER: He's not going to get an apology. You know, it's interesting, just a few months ago in the Republican primary Mitt Romney said to his opponents, who he was crushing at the time, stop whining. And I think that's a good message for the Romney campaign. Instead of whining about what the Obama campaign is saying, why don't you just put the facts out there and let people decide rather than trying to hide them. The tax returns is exactly just about that. If-- you know if he didn't gain any tax advantages from having investments in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and a Swiss Bank account then show us. Show the American people.

KEVIN MADDEN: What's most--

STEPHANIE CUTTER: What-- what is it that--

KEVIN MADDEN: --disappointing about this--

STEPHANIE CUTTER: --you're hiding?

KEVIN MADDEN: What's the most disappointing about this with the Obama campaign is focusing on this again. We've got twenty-three million Americans struggling to find work in this economy. There are deficits being piled up. We've seen four trillion dollars added to the deficit just under this President. And the Obama campaign-- this is what they want to focus on. Governor Romney believes that he-- that the most important thing we can do is talk to the American people about what we're going to do to fix this economy.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Let me--

KEVIN MADDEN: And that's what's he's focused on.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Let me inject one more thing. I was really kind of surprised Friday afternoon when our Jan Crawford asked Governor Romney what he thought about this hubbub about it suddenly coming about that the Olympic team's uniforms were not being made in America. In fact part of them were being made in China. I was surprised when the Governor refused to say whether he thought the uniforms ought to be made in America or not. Now it comes to light that when he was running the Olympic Committee it turns out that the uniforms were designed in Canada and were being made by a Canadian company. The-- is that true?

KEVIN MADDEN: I-- I don't--

BOB SCHIEFFER: That's what I've been told.

KEVIN MADDEN: I-- I do not know. But, again, I would say that the people that are out there watching the show right now that haven't made-- made up their mind about this campaign, the people that have a job and are afraid of losing it, and the people that don't have job--

BOB SCHIEFFER: But I mean is it that about--

KEVIN MADDEN: --and can't find one I don't think that they're really concerned about Olympic uniforms or Olympic pins. I think what they're most concerned about is the fact that this President is spending the country into oblivion, that we don't have jobs, that we had a jobs report come out recently that show we have anemic job growth. We have a GDP--

BOB SCHIEFFER: Okay. I think--

KEVIN MADDEN: --not-- not growing where it need to be.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Okay.

KEVIN MADDEN: And-- and that's what we should be focused on.

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right.

STEPHANIE CUTTER: Bob, you know what they are concerned about? They're concerned about their jobs going overseas and I think that's what the Olympic uniform discussion was about, about how we bring jobs back to this country and make the goods here that we can ship all over the world.

BOB SCHIEFFER: I would agree with that.

KEVIN MADDEN: Okay.

STEPHANIE CUTTER: And there is a--

KEVIN MADDEN: I would agree with that.

STEPHANIE CUTTER: There is a difference in--

KEVIN MADDEN: But the President's--

STEPHANIE CUTTER: --and the--

KEVIN MADDEN: --(INDISTINCT) stimulus bill sent millions of dollar--

STEPHANIE CUTTER: Mm-Hm.

KEVIN MADDEN: --billions of dollars overseas to--

BOB SCHIEFFER: Okay.

KEVIN MADDEN: --companies.

STEPHANIE CUTTER: Mm-Hm.

BOB SCHIEFFER: We're going to let it go right there. We will ask Paul Ryan about some of this because he's going to be with us. He's said to be on the short list of running mates for Mitt Romney. We'll talk to him about that, when we come back. Thanks to both of you.

KEVIN MADDEN: Great to be with you.

STEPHANIE CUTTER: Thank you.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: And we're back now with Congressman Paul Ryan. He's the chairman of the Budget Committee. He's a key Romney supporter. Some say he is on the short list of possible running mates.

Congressman, you are speaking us today from the City of Parks, Janesville, Wisconsin. So we're glad to have you. I take it you're indoors there, you're not out in a park right now but we're glad you're in a good place. You're probably not going to ask this question but I guess I ought to ask it. Are you in fact on the short list? Have you been told that and, if you are, what kind of information does the Romney campaign want from you?

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN (Budget Committee Chairman): Bob, you are very clairvoyant. I am not going to answer that question because it doesn't do the Romney campaign any favors to speculate in this area. So I just don't want to comment on it because I just don't think it's helpful to their campaign process.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, do you think that Mitt Romney-- let-- let's get right to it. Do you think Mitt Romney could clear up a lot of this confusion over when he was at Bain Capital and when he left and what he was doing there if he just released some income tax returns?

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN: Look, he's already done that. These attacks--

BOB SCHIEFFER: One year.

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN: --have already been labeled by the independent fact-checkers as untrue. Look, Bob, I'm sitting here in Janesville, Wisconsin. People are not worried about the details as to when Mitt Romney left Bain Capital to save the-- the Olympics. Or the details about of his assets which are managed by a blind trust, for Pete's sake. They're worried about their jobs and their families' future. And Barack Obama, he doesn't want to talk about that. He has a terrible jobs result. He has a terrible record to run on. So since he cannot run on this record, he has now gone to dividing the country in order to distract the country to try and win this election. This is not the 2008 Barack Obama we thought we were getting. This is not the candidate of hope and change. This is a candidate who is hoping to change the subject by attacking his opponent with attacks that have already been labeled by independent fact-checkers as deceitful and untrue.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, you know, Scott Walker, your Governor out there in Wisconsin, has been encouraging Mitt Romney to fight harder. He told Dan Balz of The Washington Post, for example, never fight a battle on your heels. Is Governor Romney going to have to put out, I know he's put out fifty-eight points or whatever it is of things he's going to do to improve the economy. But can we expect some time in this campaign where he's going to put an economic plan out that there that people can kind of put their arms around? I mean isn't he going to have to go beyond just saying Barack Obama ought not to be President?

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN: Well, he's been doing that. Look, this is why I think Mitt Romney won the primary. This is why I endorsed Mitt Romney in the primary hearing in Wisconsin because he was more specific than anybody running for President about specifically what he would do to prevent a debt crisis to create jobs, to reform the tax code. To reform these entitlement programs from bankruptcy. Look-- look at the record that Barack Obama has to run on. It's the worst economic recovery on record, the highest deficits and biggest government since World War II, the worst jobs quarter in two years and the highest poverty rates in a generation. That's not a record he can run on and Mitt Romney has been very clear and very specific with how he'll do things differently to get our economy turned around to save us from a debt crisis. And so he will continue to emphasize those things and at the end of the day that it's really going to be a big choice about two futures. Do you want the path the President has put us on? A path of debt, doubt, and decline, a welfare state with a debt crisis or the Mitt Romney path which has been very clear about prosperity, the American idea, turning the economy around and getting us back to growth again?

BOB SCHIEFFER: Again, I go back to-- to my point here. Isn't he going to have to say something beyond we've got to keep taxes low on businesses and to get this economy going again? Isn't he going to take a much bolder plan than that? These things-- this economy is in bad shape. We don't know what's going to happen with the European economies. There are all sorts of factors going into this beyond just keeping taxes low for business. Shouldn't we expect more from him on that front? I mean what would you suggest?

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN: Well, yes and we're getting more. Look, we in the House have already passed a very specific budget, detailing exactly how it would solve this problem. The Senate hasn't passed a budget for three years. President Obama hasn't tried for four years to deal with this problem. Mitt Romney has put out more specifics on reforming the tax code, cleaning up the corporate system, getting rid of special interest loopholes, lowering rates to twenty-five percent on the corporations. He has put out more specifics on how to reform entitlement programs, to save Medicare from bankruptcy, to cut government spending, to reduce the deficits than Barack Obama, the United States Senate has. So he has put out these specifics, so I think this narrative is kind of false in many ways because what Mitt Romney has done has given us not only specific plans but reapplying those core principles that made America great in the first place, on how to restore economic growth and get the American idea with the safety net back on track because I really got to tell you, Bob, the next few years are going to make it or break it for America. We will determine the direction of this country for a long time, what kind of people we're going to be, what kind of country we're going to have and, yes, Mitt Romney has put out lots of specifics on exactly how to deal with those things and, yeah, I think he needs to continue to emphasize those so that we have a real clear choice of two futures about what kind of country we want to have when people go to the polls in November.

BOB SCHIEFFER: What did you make of--

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN: Barack Obama is not going to be able to run on his record.

BOB SCHIEFFER: What did you make of the leak that I guess obviously came from the Romney campaign this week that Condoleezza Rice has emerged as a top possibility for running mate? Would she be good?

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN: Oh, yeah. I love Condi. I think she's fantastic. I think she's somebody who is absolutely worthy of consideration.

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, Congressman, we want to thank you for coming this morning out there in the City of Parks, as-- as you all call it. So go and join the parks--

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN: Thanks for the plug--

BOB SCHIEFFER: --this afternoon.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Okay. Back in a moment and we'll have some--

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN: All right. Thanks for the plug, Bob.

BOB SCHIEFFER: --thoughts about Congress and their priorities.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: There was once this guy who loved to talk about guns. And when he couldn't figure out any other way to work guns into the conversation, he would just say, "I think I heard a gunshot." Speaking of guns and off he'd go talking about his favorite subject, which brings me to Congress where House Republicans did their favorite thing last week, virtually their only thing, of late. For the thirty-third time they voted to repeal all or part of the health care law, knowing that the action was totingly-- totally meaningless because the Senate would never go along. Now, mind you, this is no endorsement of the new health care law. We need health care reform but I am a long way from believing the President's plan is the best way to go about it. My beef is that Congress cannot seem to figure out how to do anything, but vote on this one issue over and over time after time day after day. Hey, guys, we hear you, we take your point. But the way I heard it, government is there to improve the lives of citizens. You seem to believe all this repetitious blather will help you raise campaign money, maybe so, but it is hard for me to see how it helps anyone else. The best estimates are that Congress has wasted a total of two full work weeks--eighty hours--voting on this one thing. According to the Congressional Research Service, it costs us millions of dollars a week to operate the House of Representatives, the staff salaries, the mail services, cafeterias, all of that, and we're not even including paying the capitol cops. So you do the numbers. Do you think we're getting our money's worth when Congress spends two weeks voting on the same thing over and over again? I think they can do better.

Back in a minute.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: Some of our stations will be leaving us now. For most of you we'll be back with a discussion with top economists, including Moody's Mark Zandi, the former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, Rana Foroohar of TIME Magazine, and John Fund of the National Review. We'll talk about where they think the economy will be on Election Day.

Plus, our political panel and this week's FACE THE NATION Google Hangout. Stay with us.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: And we're back now. We're joined by Mark Zandi, who is the chief economist for Moody's Analytics. He's the author of the new book Paying the Price. Rana Foroohar and I apologize for getting your name a little bit wrong. And also John Fund who is with the American Spectator--

JOHN FUND (National Review): And National Review.

BOB SCHIEFFER: --former longtime member of-- of-- of the Wall Street Journal. And out in Berkeley, California, the former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, author of the ebook, Beyond Outrage. I want to thank all of you for joining us.

Robert Reich, let me just start with you. We're four months from the election now. I think most people still believe the outcome of this election hinges on what the state of the economy is going to be. Where do you think we will be on Election Day?

ROBERT REICH (University of California, Berkeley/Former Labor Secretary): Well, Bob, you know, economic forecasters exist in order to make astrologers look good. So I'm not going to venture. I mean there's so many variables. You know the downside and the worries are, number one, obviously the eurozone which is drifting into a deeper and deeper recession, but you also have China's slowdown and we don't know what impact that could have. It could have a much larger impact than Europe. On the other hand there is a silver lining here in the United States in that June employment report that otherwise was quite discouraging, we saw that the hours worked by the typical worker was up--were up. That is that employers are-- are increasing hours and also increasing the pay of workers which might indicate increasing demand for workers.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Mark Zandi, what's your take?

MARK ZANDI (Moody's Analytics): Well--

BOB SCHIEFFER (voice overlapping): Where are we now? Where are we going?

MARK ZANDI: I'm not much into astrology but I'll take a crack at economic forecasting. I-- I think the economy on Election Day will feel pretty much like it feels today. So, the benchmark is the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate today is 8.2 percent nationwide. If you told me, it's eight percent on Election Day, I say that sounds about right. One, perhaps, interesting point, it's lower in some of the swing states. So, Ohio, it's closer to seven; Virginia, it's closer to five; New Hampshire, closer to five; unemployment is eight percent in Florida. So in some of the key swing states, the economy is doing a bit better.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Do-- do people out there, I mean, those of us who talk about all this kind of stuff in Washington, we talk about these numbers and that tick up or tick down, is-- is that how people decide what shape they think the economy is in?

MARK ZANDI: No, but they feel the numbers, right? I-- I-- I think they-- they sense that the economy isn't fully engaged. We're creating seventy-five thousand jobs per month that's what we've created on average for the past three months. They-- they know we're growing, but that doesn't feel really good and that's certainly not enough to get the unemployment rate down. So they're not into the numbers, but they-- they feel the numbers.

JOHN FUND: Bob, I think almost everyone out there has a friend or family member who's out of work or has-- having trouble finding a job. Sixty-three percent of Americans say we're on the wrong track. And the job creators--small and big businesses--they know one thing for sure, if nothing is done, the largest tax increase in American history begins December 31st and so far Congress, the White House, everybody hasn't come up with a plan. That creates economic uncertainty. The biggest single enemy of job creation is economic uncertainty and we have a lot of that right now.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Let me-- let me go to Rana because you-- you wrote something very interesting the other day. You said that since 1967 when consumer confidence is as low as it is right now the incumbent is always defeated. Does that mean this thing is already over?

RANA FOROOHAR (TIME Magazine): Well, you know, I actually think that we're on the verge of a historic upset. That's true, the statistic that you just gave. And it would make you think that Obama has no chance of winning this election. But I think this election is going to hinge on middle-class pain. I think that people know that what's happened in the last four years have not been down to Obama's policies, it's about globalization, it's about the rise of technology. Each recovery since the early 1990s has been weaker and taken longer than the one before. So this is a-- this is a twenty-year problem. This is not a three- or four-year problem and I think that whoever can best speak to the middle-class is the person that's going to win.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, what do you mean when you say a historic upset?

RANA FOROOHAR: Well, I think that traditionally if you had consumer confidence numbers that were this weak and growth that was this low, there would be no chance that the incumbent is going to win, but, frankly, I think the only thing weaker than the economy is Mitt Romney's electoral skills. And I think he hasn't really put himself in a good position for this debate over the middle class.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Is-- is the President doing enough to tell his story, you know, he was on Charlie Rose this morning at-- an interview that Charlie did last week and the President said he thought his biggest mistake was that he hadn't been able to really tell the story. He said he went into the presidency thinking it was all about policy and he said he needed to do a better job of telling people where we were. The Romney folk obviously came right back and said, "It's not about story telling." But, Robert Reich, you've been there. Has the President done a good job of explaining where he is and where the country is and-- and what he's done?

ROBERT REICH: Well, I think the President has done a reasonably good job. The speech he gave at the start of December out in Kansas about where the economy has been over the last twenty, thirty years, where it needs to go, the structural changes in the economy, I thought it was a masterful speech. But he's also kind of painted for Americans a very, very high expectation of a quick recovery. That's what he did initially from the worst recession since The Great Depression of the 1930s and I think that inevitably there's a sense of-- of letdown. I-- I would recommend very strongly that the President now sketch in his second term for Americans what he would do, kind of in bold strokes to get the economy moving as it should be moving again toward four-percent or five-percent unemployment.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, John Fund, what should Mitt Romney be doing? Is he doing enough?

JOHN FUND: This is the summer. A-- a lot of people are focusing on side issues, Bain Capital, which aren't really going to affect a lot of voters. Voters are going to wait, I think patiently, for the acceptance speeches which will outline where people want to go in the next four years. Mitt Romney has to flesh his out, but President Obama has a real problem. His second-term agenda is a mystery. In fact, his own party thinks it's a mystery. There have been three separate votes on his budget priorities in the Congress. Democrats haven't voted for them. They refuse to hold a vote on Obama's own tax proposals because Democrats don't want to run with these kind of tax increases coming. Eve-- even Obama's alternative to the Bush tax cuts would tax JP Morgan and General Electric at a higher rate than many small businesses. That's not a story you want to sell. The story is a bad storyline. It's not that he hasn't told it well.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Mark, what is the state of-- of the economy? How bad is it and with all of this stuff going on in Europe and so forth as you'd kind of look at it as a neutral observer here?

MARK ZANDI: It's much improved. I mean, think about when the President took office. In January of 2009, we lost eight hundred and twenty-five thousand jobs. We're now creating jobs and we've been creating jobs now for over two years. We've crea-- created four million jobs. So the economy is moving in the right direction. Stock prices are rising. House prices have stabilized. But clearly, we're not anywhere where we need to be. An 8.2-percent unemployment rate is just way too high. A-- an-- an unemployment rate that people would feel comfortable with would be five and a half to six percent, so we have a long way to go. But I think the key here for the President is the trend lines. You know, he's got to make clear that look where we were, look where we are today, and then you draw the line--you have two data points--you draw the line and you can see where the future is headed.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Uh, Rana, you-- Bob Reich has just said, of course, you know, it needs to be bold, there needs to be some bold strokes. Are there any bold strokes?

RANA FOROOHAR: Well, I think that there are bold strokes and I actually disagree--

BOB SCHIEFFER: Such as?

RANA FOROOHAR: Well, I think that the President would like to spend a lot more on infrastructure, on education. This is what we need to be talking about right now. I'm-- I'm actually sad that we're spending so much time talking about taxes because one thing that's not going to get us some kind of a growth boom is a tax cut. I mean it hasn't worked in the last three or four years, it really hasn't worked since 2001 when we had much broader across-the-board tax cuts. We need to be focused on infrastructure spending, on how to get our roads in better shape and how to get our schools in better shape and I think that if business saw that government was investing in this country and making it a place that you'd want to do business that they would start spending some of that two trillion on their balance sheets.

JOHN FUND: But the problem with that is--

BOB SCHIEFFER: Go ahead.

JOHN FUND: Four years ago we had an enormous stimulus package which we were told a lot was going into infrastructure and then two years later the President had to admit in public, "Well, I was wrong. There were no shovel-ready jobs." So we've heard that story before. Words are easy in Washington. Watch what people do, not what they said.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, here would be the question I pose to both of you. Is there any way to get the two sides--the Republicans in the House and the White House and the Democrats in the Senate on the same page?

JOHN FUND: Yes, the day after the election.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Some of these things.

JOHN FUND: Yes, the day after the election there will be clarity because the voters will have finally spoken and the voters will have a direction. Look, Bill Clinton handled this differently. After the Republicans thrashed him in the '94 mid-term elections, Bill Clinton moved to the middle. He worked with the Republican Congress, they changed policies, Clinton got things done. He got the message that the voters wanted a course correction and he moved somewhat in that direction. Obama didn't do that. Obama has fought and fought and fought. The Senate hasn't passed a budget for three years. That is called gridlock. So rather than doing the Clinton approach he's doing the Obama approach which is gridlock.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Mister Reich?

ROBERT REICH: If I may-- if I may I was there in the Clinton administration and I saw what happened. In 1995 Newt Gingrich almost sunk the Republican Party and much of the country by using a kind of tactic that current Republicans are using that is threatening to do absolutely nothing, say no to everything or to bring the government to an absolute halt. The Republicans here and now, the Republicans that the President has had to deal with are much more like Gingrich in 1995. They said no to absolutely everything that the President has come up with. It is impossible to reach common ground with people who have no common ground and put forward no common ground.

JOHN FUND: But, Bob, the Republicans and Democrats passed an awful lot of legislation in '95 and '96. So if your storyline is correct, we-- we-- something must have been different then because the Republican Congress and the Democratic President passed a lot of legislation.

ROBERT REICH: I'll tell you what happened after 1996 when the Republicans learned that they could not follow Newt Gingrich tactics and kind of burn-- kind of "burn the House down" tactics they began to cooperate with the President, but it was not until they learned that lesson. The current group of Republicans has not learned that lesson.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, is-- is the consensus here then that nothing is going to happen before the election?

JOHN FUND: Not as if.

RANA FOROOHAR: No, I don't think anything's going to happen before. But I think really, I agree with Bob and I think that we need to move beyond partisan politics. We are living in a globalized world. Jobs can go anywhere. Now, that's not going to change and that has nothing to do with the President's politics. We need to look at the-- the core problems: improving education, building infrastructure, making America a better place to put jobs. That's-- that's the real issue here.

MARK ZANDI (Moody's Analytics): Can I make one quick point and that is the key issue is-- these are important issues, no doubt. But the key issue now is fiscal cliff and how do we achieve fiscal sustainability. And that's why taxes are so important because both Governor Romney and President Obama have different perspectives on how we're going to do that.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Mark, let me just ask you this: your agency was one of those who downgraded the credit rating of the United States.

MARK ZANDI: No, that's-- that S&P did that.

BOB SCHIEFFER: S&P, okay, they did. Do you see any indication that that may happen again, if this economy doesn't get better?

MARK ZANDI: Well, let me say I'm not part of the rating agency.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Okay. So I'm asking you--

MARK ZANDI: I have no inside information here. Yeah, so I-- I listen to what they say and hopefully listen to what I say. But from that perspective, you know, I think if policymakers, the next President, the next Congress don't address how we achieve fiscal sustainability, that is future-- in the future how we're going to get deficits low enough to stabilize our debt-to-GDP ratio, if we can't do that in a credible way, then, yeah, I think there's-- the odds are that we're going to have problems with the credit rating agencies and more importantly than that from-- from global investors, they were the key here because if they bail, our interest rates will rise.

BOB SCHIEFFER (overlapping): Well, on that happy note, we're going to have to end this. We'll be back in one minute with our political panel. Thanks to all of you.

JOHN FUND: Thank you.

MARK ZANDI: Thank you.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, we're back now with our political round-table in Washington, Michael Gerson, the columnist for The Washington Post, used to work for George Bush. Our CBS News panel team of Norah O'Donnell and John Dickerson; and in New York this morning New York Magazine's Frank Rich. Frank, we're very glad to have you. I want to start with something that we didn't know about when this broadcast started. But, it is my understanding that just a few minutes ago, the Romney campaign bought time on FACE THE NATION during one of our commercial blocks and in some other markets around the country running a new ad, which includes me. We're going to just-- just show you that.

(Excerpt from Romney Campaign Ad)

BOB SCHIEFFER: I'm running this not to give circulation to it, but just to state that obviously I have no connection with the Romney campaign. This was done without our permission. It comes as a total surprise to me and-- and that is that. But that is-- that's where we are in politics. Frank Rich:

FRANK RICH (New York Magazine): I hope you get residuals.

BOB SCHIEFFER: I'll get some blowback, I'll tell you that for sure.

FRANK RICH: I am sure.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Frank Rich, glad to have you on the broadcast.

FRANK RICH: Thanks for having me.

BOB SCHIEFFER: How big a deal is this Bain Capital stuff? Is this election still about the economy or is this the questions that the Obama campaign is raising about Mitt Romney and Bain Capital and when he left and so forth. Is that--is that a big deal?

FRANK RICH: I think there area two things going on. Obviously, the economy is very important to the election and for reasons your previous panelists just said. But, the problem for Romney is a lot of Americans don't really know him. They don't really know his biography and Bain is the biggest part of it. It's what he's running on is a sort of Mr. Fix-It. He was obviously governor of Massachusetts but he doesn't really want to talk about that because of Obamacare being inspired by his own health care plan. The Olympics is small potatoes. So what has he-- what has he got to run on? It's this. And so, of course, it's going to keep going. And what's shocking I think is not the individual answers to any particular questions but the fact that this was first brought up in a very tough campaign in 1994 against Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts. And some of the ads that are being run now are sort of similar to the ads then and it's almost two decades later, we can't answer these questions? You know I think if you took his interviews over the past couple of days that he did with all the networks to explain why he was CEO but he wasn't really at Bain, that he got a six-figure income but it was-- it was a different entity, I think that's a character issue. It goes beyond the specific outsourcing questions or any of that. People don't know what-- what he's talking about or who he is.

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right. Michael Gerson, you wrote speeches for George Bush before you became--

MICHAEL GERSON (Washington Post): Mm-Hm.

BOB SCHIEFFER: --I must say a very influential columnist at The Washington Post.

MICHAEL GERSON: Right.

BOB SCHIEFFER: What do you make of this? In some ways it seems like the Romney campaign was a little slow out of the gate in-- in responding to these allegations?

MICHAEL GERSON: Well, they may have been taken aback. This was a genuine innovation, which is to accuse a presidential candidate of the possibility of committing a felon. I've been involved in three presidential campaigns. That's actually not politics as usual. I think it's a serious challenge. This is a campaign that-- an Obama campaign that tends to not just criticize but to vilify. This week they were really a combination of Huey Long and Michael Corleone. This is a-- you know, and I think that the Romney campaign has had a tough time responding to this, does it work? I don't think it changes the fundamental dynamic of the campaign, which is both stable and very close. But it's certainly changed the narrative and dialogue this week away from a very bad jobs report.

BOB SCHIEFFER: John Dickerson, sum it up for us.

JOHN DICKERSON (CBS News Political Director): Well, you know, as Frank said, that Romney's argument is I'm a Fix-It man, the Obama argument is maybe, but he uses bad parts and that's the argument at the center of this was when he was at Bain, he was an outsourcer. Well, the Obama campaign still hasn't proved that any decision Mitt Romney made led to outsourcing. But they've tied him down for several days on this question. Any day the conversation is about outsourcing is a day Mitt Romney loses and the ad you started this segment talking about is their response, which is isn't this disappointing for the candidate of hope and change? Now, will people care about the niceties of politics, maybe not? But, what they're trying to tie that to is aren't these attacks disappointments and doesn't that match your larger disappointment with this President? The question one advisor said to me is not are you better off but did you think you'd be better off and if you don't think so aren't you disappointed in Barack Obama? And that's where they're trying to get.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Not to dwell on this, but you're talking about that ad that they put me in. I-- I-- you know, that was a question that I posed to David Axelrod, the President's campaign manager. I wasn't stating something there. I-- I was--

JOHN DICKERSON: Sure.

BOB SCHIEFFER: --asking somebody else a question. But--

NORAH O'DONNELL (CBS News Chief White House Correspondent): Yeah.

BOB SCHIEFFER: --Norah, do-- do the Obama people think this is working?

NORAH O'DONNELL: They do. They do think it's working and they heavily tested this new ad, that that affirms that's out which is the music playing that you played at the top of the show and they say it works. This is not just an effort to disqualify Mitt Romney. This is an effort to destroy him early on in this campaign. The Obama campaign has spent a hundred million dollars in advertising so far. Twenty-five million of that was positive ads, about another twenty-five million was comparative ads. I mean, comparative/negative, you can call it what you want, but a majority of fif-- fifty million plus has been spent on this Bain message. So they are trying to-- they've got-- they-- you know, if this were the early rounds of a boxing match, you know, Romney is on the ropes and Obama's throwing all the punches. And any time even as Romney says you're defending yourself, you're losing. And so instead of-- you know, the economy in the last couple of weeks has been serving up some softballs. I mean, Mitt Romney's not even at the plate. I mean, he's-- you know, you've got the third straight lackluster jobs report, you've got the CBO this week saying that for the fourth straight year we're going to have trillion-dollar deficits. And the Romney campaign's not talking about that. The Romney campaign is largely putting on ads with you in them responding on these Bain attacks and so they've lost the messaging in these past couple of weeks.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Frank Rich, does President Obama have to do more than that, though? I mean, can he win just by make-- trying to make it a referendum on Mitt Romney while the Romney people, of course, are trying to make it a referendum on Barack Obama. I-- I keep looking for both of them to come up with some more things about what they-- they are going to do, not what's wrong with the other guy. Is that-- am I just a hopeless romantic?

FRANK RICH: Bob, you may have to make another ad pleading for that. But if-- no, obviously both candidates have to step forward with-- with-- with a positive program and presumably will and it will coalesce around their acceptance speeches. But just to go back a second to Michael Gerson's characterizing what is being done by the President as Michael Corleone tactics. That's exactly the tactics his former boss used or people around him in swift boating John Kerry. So this is nothing new. And for all the talk about Obama and hope and change in the last campaign, the truth is he ran negative ads then. Remember that one where he presented sort of a dotering John McCain not knowing how many houses he had? So it's not as if he ran as Mother Teresa entirely in 2008. You have to mix it up.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Right.

MICHAEL GERSON: Well-- well, I do-- I do remember the inaugural address, Obama's inaugural address where he said we need to lay aside childish things. This now seems like a campaign run by a nasty thirteen-year-old. This is a very, very different from-- you know, it's the kind of thing that gets snickers in a campaign war room but I think there could be a reaction against this--

FRANK RICH: Well--

MICHAEL GERSON: --in the American public. This-- you know, I don't think there are a lot of Americans out there saying, you know what American politics really needs? It needs more juvenile viciousness.

NORAH O'DONNELL: Yeah, but this is--

MICHAEL GERSON: That's what--

NORAH O'DONNELL: But Michael, this isn't Little League. Those sides--

BOB SCHIEFFER: You know what--

NORAH O'DONNELL: --play--

BOB SCHIEFFER: --our clock has-- has--

NORAH O'DONNELL: --play tough. Yeah.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Has the--

MICHAEL GERSON: But-- but Mitt Romney's very--

BOB SCHIEFFER: The gong has rung here.

NORAH O'DONNELL: Yeah.

BOB SCHIEFFER: I'm terribly sorry. We-- we have to come back with this week's Google Hangout in a moment.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: This week's FACE THE NATION Google Hangout was all about women voters Norah O'Donnell hosted. Norah.

NORAH O'DONNELL: That's right. Thanks, Bob. Yeah, both sides working hard, of course, to attract women voters and our panelists from this week's Hangout totally agree.

LESLIE SNACHEZ (Republican Strategist): I would say independent and suburban women particularly are looking at both parties (INDISTINCT). Who can stimulate the economy?

MICHELLE BERNARD (Bernard Center For Women, Politics & Public Policy): But people are going to dig further and-- and ask very specific questions. How do you feel about the Violence Against Women act? How do you feel about the Paycheck Fairness Act? How do you feel about People Pay for Equal Work. And I think all of those things are very important to any woman who cares about the economy.

MARIA CARDONA (Democratic Strategist): It's very puzzling for me that then you have all of these Republicans across the board in all these different states talking about social issues and when, in fact, that gives heat to the whole issue of that there is a Republican war on women.

NORAH O'DONNELL: Leslie, you want to take a whack at that?

LESLIE SANCHEZ: Women feel there's a lot of underemployment and that personal feeling that this economy is not as strong as it could be because of this President directly falls at the-- at the feet of the President's policies, positions, and that's the-- the deciding factor when they're in the voting booth.

NORAH O'DONNELL: Ann Romney said that she hopes that her husband chooses a female vice president. I guess the first question is if Mitt Romney doesn't choose a woman what are people going to say that he doesn't listen to his wife?

STEPHANIE SCHRIOCK (Emily's List): It's not just because there's a woman on a ticket that the women are going to vote for that woman, right?

NORAH O'DONNELL: Why?

STEPHANIE SCHRIOCK: It's about the policies that those candidates are standing by.

BOB SCHIEFFER: And Norah O'Donnell, thank you for that. We will be back in a moment.

(ANNOUNCEMENTS)

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, that is it for us today and we'll be right here next week. We hope you'll join us on Face The Nation. Thanks for watching.

ANNOUNCER: This broadcast was produced by CBS News, which is solely responsible for the selection of today's guest and topics. It originated in Washington, DC.