Rick Perry Unveils Tax Plan; President Obama Pushes New Housing Plan

It began over the weekend in "Parade" magazine. Here's the part of the interview that got people talking. When asked, "Governor, do you believe that President Barack Obama was born in the United States?" Governor Perry says -- quote -- "I have no reason to think otherwise."

When the interviewer points out that's not a definitive yes, the governor says, "Well, I don't have a definitive answer because he's never seen my birth certificate." ' The interviewer points out that this is an odd answer, and says, "But you, you've seen his." To which Governor Perry answers, quote, "I don't know. Have I?" The interviewer, "You don't believe what's been released?" Perry, "I don't know. I had dinner with Donald Trump the other night."

Governor Perry went on to say that Trump doesn't think the birth certificate is real and when asked by "Parade" what he said to that notion, the governor said, and I quote, "I don't have any idea. It doesn't matter. He's the president of the United States. He's elected. It's a distractive issue."

So, "Keeping Him Honest," if it's such a distractive issue, to use Governor Perry's own words, then why bring it up?

Here's how he answered.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RICK PERRY (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I said, it's a good to keep alive. Just, you know, Donald's got to have some fun so -- and the issue is --

JOHN HARWOOD, CNBC CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: It sounds like you really do have some doubt about it. PERRY: Well, look, I haven't seen his -- I haven't seen his -- I haven't seen his grades. My grades ended up on the front page of the newspapers. So let's -- you know, if we're going to show stuff, let's show stuff. So -- but look that's all a distraction. I mean, I get it. I'm really not worried about the president's birth certificate. It's fun to poke at him a little bit and say, hey, how about, let's see your grades and your birth certificate.

HARWOOD: Well, so --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: So he says he's doing it to have a little fun but it doesn't really matter, but hey, why not also stir a little more insinuation into the mix such as mentioning the president's grades. The suggestion in a nutshell is that they weren't really good enough for him to have gotten into Columbia or Harvard Law School where his classmates elected him president of the "Harvard Law Review."

Now we don't know that kind of grades President Obama got at Occidental College and later at Columbia. We do know, however, that he graduated from Harvard with high honors in the top 10 percent of his class.

Late today Perry was asked again this time by CNN's Jim Acosta what he really believes and again Governor Perry did not provide a definitive answer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm just curious, what will it take to convince you that the president was born in this country?

PERRY: You know --

ACOSTA: And do you have any plans for --

(CROSSTALK)

PERRY: I will cut you off right there. That is one of the biggest distractions that there is going. We need to be talking about jobs. Somebody wants to see my birth certificate, I would be happy to show it to them. But the fact is that is a distraction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, "Keeping Him Honest," it's a distraction -- it's a distraction that the governor himself revived for no apparent reason with no basis in fact. None. The evidence shows Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, period. Campaign initially put out this short form, computerized certificate of live -- certification of live birth, exact same document anyone in Hawaii gets and can be used to get a driver's license, a passport and so on.

Birthers didn't buy it. Donald Trump didn't believe it, he claimed he was sending detectives or had sent detectives to Hawaii to investigate. No one ever found any evidence he actually did. We did, however, send Gary Tuchman to look into the Trump claims and find the facts. He spoke with people at Hawaii's Health Department including a former director who'd inspected the original long form birth certificate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Do you has anyone else looked at the certificate? Has anyone else --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The registrar has actually seen it as well.

TUCHMAN: The registrar is someone --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Alvin Onaka. He is the chief registrar for the state. And he has -- he is the one that took me to see the documents.

TUCHMAN: And you are a registered Republican?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At the present time, yes.

TUCHMAN: And work for a Republican governor.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I did.

TUCHMAN: And you still say that the birth certificate of this Democratic president is authentic?

TUCHMAN: Absolutely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: So Gary found nothing unusual, no sign of conspiracy, no sign either of Trump's so-called investigators. In fact, no evidence of anything, absolutely anything out of the ordinary about President Obama's birth records.

And finally earlier this year in an effort to end the saga once and for all, the White House made a special request and obtained a copy of the original long form birth certificate. And for a while that seemed to work. But eventually Trump again raising doubts again and inexplicably flirting to some in the Republican establishment GOP hopefuls began flocking to New York courting Donald Trump and in Rick Perry's case flirting with Trump's birtherism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARL ROVE, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: You associate yourself with a nutty dude like that and you damage yourself. And I know he went and he's trying to cultivate us all of Donald Trump in order to get his endorsement, but this is not the way to go about doing it because it starts to marginalize you in the minds of some of the people who you need in order to get the election.

(END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: Well, the polling appears to bear him out. Donald Trump is not, repeat not, a kingmaker, just the opposite in fact. According to a recent FOX News survey, just 6 percent said a Trump endorsement would make them more likely to support a candidate, 31 percent said less likely and 62 percent said it would make no difference.

And a sharp warning tonight from Jeb Bush telling "The Washington Post's" Jennifer Rubin, quote, "Republican candidates should categorically reject the notion that President Obama was not born in the United States. It is a complete distraction from the failed economic policies of the president."

Joining us now former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer, he's now at Twitter -- on Twitter @AriFleischer. Also Democratic strategist and pollster for the Obama campaign in 2008 Cornell Belcher.

So, Ari, what does it say about Governor Perry and his campaign that he's kind of tipping his hat to a repeatedly disproven conspiracy theory?

ARI FLEISCHER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It tells me that if he really wants to do well and run for presidency, he needs to up his game and focus more on the issue that counts, which is the economy. Today is an important day for Governor Perry. He announced the new flat tax, but he's taking attention away from his own idea, again, to this foolish issue about where Barack Obama was born.

Anderson, it's a waste of time. He's an American, he's our president. Let's get on with the issues.

COOPER: In a way, Cornell, I mean, does this help President Obama particularly with independents if such a high profile Republican contender is attempting to play to the fringe of his party on this made-up issue?

CORNELL BELCHER, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well look, no, it doesn't help President Obama very much at all because frankly -- because frankly, we'd rather be talking about his tax -- his tax plan today than talking about the birther issue because I think that's an area where I think we can go after him on.

I think the birther issue, look, there's a certain percentage of their base who want to delegitimize the president. However, I'm going to agree with Ari at this point. That's not going to get him back in this race. And just as a political professional, not as a Democrat or Republican, it's as painful to see him shoot himself in the foot time and time again when he came into this race with such fanfare and people thought that he was going to actually challenge Mitt Romney. And right now he's -- you know he's in single -- he's in single digits. And you see -- and you see why he's in single digits. He's got to run a much better campaign if he wants to be taken seriously. He's going to challenge Mitt Romney, oh, and I'm sorry, and Herman Cain for this nomination.

COOPER: We -- FLEISCHER: Anderson, there's a -- COOPER: Yes.

FLEISCHER: There's a deeper issue here, too, and that's for too long in American politics -- and I saw it from the other end -- people try to delegitimize their foes. It's one thing if you oppose somebody on policy, it's another thing to say that they're a liar or that they're illegitimate, that they did not win the election or that he's not an American citizen.

This is destructive to the body politic. We should be able to clash on ideology, clash on issues but don't question the other person's motive or their legitimacy. I didn't like it when people did it to George Bush and I don't like it when people do it to Barack Obama. I want to beat him on ideology and issues, not things like this.

COOPER: Let's stop talking about the whole birther thing because it just -- I -- even repeating all that -- the whole kind of history of it is just -- we're so beyond it, it feels like. But it's interesting that it's suddenly back now with Rick Perry.

But I do want to turn to Rick Perry's tax plan that he announced today. Tom Foreman has been looking into that so guys, just hold on.

Tom, the flat tax is not a new concept. Former presidential candidate Steve Forbes, who has endorsed Rick Perry, has been talking about it for years. What do we need to know about it? What should people know?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think what you most need to know, Anderson, when you look at the plan today is what you don't know because that's what all the tax policy people here in Washington have been asking all day long.

What do they know about this? The fundamental claim of the governor is that it will lower taxes for everyone. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PERRY: Families in the middle and on the lower end of the economic scale will have the opportunity to get ahead. You know, taxes will be cut across all income groups in America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOREMAN: Well, that's a big, big claim, Anderson. Let's look at some of the facts here. Certainly under his plan it looks like there would be lower taxes for wealthier people. There's be lower corporate tax rates for companies, no tax on dividends or capital gains, no inheritance tax. Those are things that generally tend to favor people who have a lot of money. They're the ones who benefit from those sorts of things. But what about everybody else? Well, that's a different matter. He's talking about a $12,500 exemption before you pay taxes. That's higher than what we currently have. So you can argue that's better for people at the lower end of the spectrum. If you have two parents and one child, for example, they easily go over $36,000 before they start paying an income tax of any sort.

But then he's talking about a 20 percent flat rate over that. So the problem here -- when I say the part we don't know, Anderson, is for all of the 95 percent we know here, the 5 percent could have tremendous details and that could make a big difference.

What kind of breaks do people lose at the lower end of the scale? Things like the earned income tax credit. Do they still get credit for that in the long run? There are many, many, many details left in this, Anderson. So the bottom line is, when we judge this one, we have to say this is really a case of it being at best true but incomplete.

Big emphasis on the incomplete, Anderson.

COOPER: Tom, thanks very much. Appreciate that.

Back now with the panel, Cornell Belcher and Ari Fleischer.

Ari, is this -- is this plan a strong move by Governor Perry here?

FLEISCHER: It is a strong move by Governor Perry and here's why. What you're seeing on the Republican side from Governor Perry, from Herman Cain and to a lesser degree from Mitt Romney is a desire to fundamentally change how Washington is doing its business, to throw out the existing tax code which doesn't work, full of loopholes and is anti-growth, and replace it with something that encourages economic growth to lift everybody up.

It breaks from the stale debate we've had in the '80s and '90s over should you get this distribution or that distribution. It focuses instead on how does the country grow with a tax code that encourages entrepreneurship and job creation. That's a fresh good debate to be in. That's what I like about the Republican proposals.

And as for the ideas of what about the specifics, et cetera, we all know that those really get ironed out whoever the new president is with a Republican Congress. That's where you really pay attention to those details. This is a directional move and the direction is a fundamentally new tax code.

COOPER: And, Cornell, how do Democrats respond to that? Because whether it's Cain's plan or Perry's plan, both do have that appeal of being, you know, on the face it, relatively simple and offering this sweeping change.

BELCHER: Well, frankly, this is what -- I think this is what we'd rather be talking about because it is -- it is fundamentally wrong on the economics but it also is wrong when you look at the values of it. At a time when middle class America is shrinking, and a time where this country was built on the ideals of shared responsibility, shared sacrifice, what the Republicans are saying is let's move our responsibility and accountability from the wealthiest Americans and place that squarely on the backs of the middle class.

And whether you're looking at -- you see an in-polling or other public polling at a time where 60 or 70 percent of Americans are saying, you know, let's raise taxes on the middle class, Republicans are saying, no, let's not raise taxes on the middle class. Let's lower their taxes. I think that's a place where Democrats want the battle to be.

COOPER: Ari, do -- how do you respond to that?

FLEISCHER: Well, the purpose of the tax code should be to raise the revenue so the government can pay its bills. Where we've gotten off track is the tax code has become so riddled with redistributionist programs and sacred cows that everybody is scratching everybody else's back, and the country has gotten its back broken with debt.

We need a new tax code that actually gets rid of so much of this muddle and focuses instead on helping people to make money and get a job and have economic growth. And we are so far off that track.

You know I remember when Bill Clinton ran in 1992. He ran on a middle class tax cut. Never defined it. He ran on end welfare as we know it. Never said how. And established him as a different kind of Democrat without defining those policies.

What you're hearing in this year's debate is that Republicans are really the party of fundamental change and President Obama is the one who really is defending the status quo that brought us the current economy and the current tax mess that we have. That's a great debate to be in.

COOPER: It's interesting, I mean, you're basically -- Cornell, he's basically using, it seems flip, of what the last election was saying that this is a change election but the change now favors the Republican.

BELCHER: And I love it. And I think it's going to be a really hard sell for Republicans to explain to Americans how, in fact, doubling down on the policies that got us down in this mess, you know, cutting away regulations on big corporations, you know, gutting environmental, you know, how these policies -- you know, cutting taxes even further for the wealthy and at the same time the middle class wants taxed be for rich people.

How these policies of the Bush era in fact represent change. I got to tell you, it's a debate we relish having because that doesn't represent change at all. It is exactly doubling down on the mess that got us in this problem in the first place.

COOPER: I want to show you there's a new -- there's a new CBS/ "New York Times" poll showing Herman Cain in the lead by four points over Mitt Romney. Rick Perry has dropped to fifth place. Obviously national polls, you know, don't necessarily tell us a lot about a race that could hinge on early states.

But it's interesting especially -- I want to play for our viewers who haven't seen it, this rather interesting Herman Cain Web video that a lot of people are talking about. The man you see on it is his chief of staff. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK BLOCK, HERMAN CAIN CAMPAIGN: I really believe that Herman Cain will put united back in the United States of America. And if I didn't believe that I wouldn't be here. We've run a campaign like nobody's ever seen. But then America's never seen a candidate like Herman Cain.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: What do you make of that, Cornell?

BELCHER: Best ad ever. Best ad ever.

COOPER: Was that a mistake or --

BELCHER: Look, I got to feel that Ari and I are going to be in complete agreement on this one. You know that ad is -- that ad tells me this.