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Pool Report: VP in D.C. August 25, 2010

August 25, 2010
Pool Report #2:
Pool traveled with VPOTUS to Pete's New Haven Style Apizza, the one in Tenleytown. Reminder that POTUS mentioned the Columbia Heights location in a speech last year.
Departed WH at 11:04, arrived at Pete's at 11:17.
Co-pooler Steve Thomma sending transcript of remarks.
As VPOTUS entered the mostly empty restaurant for the Middle Class Task Force roundtable, he walked through the kitchen, just out of earshot, to meet the employees.
Pooler couldn't make out the exchanges, but did hear a lot of "Hey, man, what's your name?" and "How ya doin', man?"
As VPOTUS sat down at the table, he asked the small group if he could take his suit coat off "because I plan to eat some pizza at some point."
At this point, co-owner Joel Mehr said he eats pizza every day, prompting VPOTUS to respond: "So do I. Just about."
He did order two pizzas -- one plain, one pepperoni -- to go back to the WH.
After his remarks, VPOTUS went around the table for introductions a second time, explaining that he did not have the card his staff gave him with him.
Damon Blacklock, a police officer trainee from Baltimore, introduced himself to VPOTUS who leaned over to Mehr to say: "He looks like it, doesn't he. He's in shape. Looks like he just got out of boot camp."
When Annapolis nurse practitioner Kathy Ogle introduced herself, Biden interrupted, saying "if they are any angels in Heaven, they're all nurses."
At beginning of roundtable discussion, Mehr told Biden that he and his co-owners have two stores and are getting ready to open a third (great news for lovers of good pizza).
Biden asked Mehr "how in God's name did you get credit?"
Mehr said he went to 20 banks before finding a local one in DC that would give him a loan.
Pool was escorted out shortly after roundtable began.
Random Rahm sighting: As pool van headed back to the White House sans motorcade, pool spotted Rahm walking out of a home near National Cathedral. At a quick glimpse, the chief of staff appeared to be getting ready to do some biking as agents were seen securing bikes to black SUVs.
Pool Report #1:
Vice President Joe Biden argued for extending some tax cuts and against extending tax cuts for the wealthy during a meeting with small business owners in Washington.
Biden met with the small group at Pete's New Haven Style Apizza on Wisconsin Avenue.
He said the tax cuts now set to expire on Dec. 31 should be extended for 98 percent of Americans. "At the end of this year the tax cuts… are set to expire," Biden said. "We believe that middle class…should continue to get the tax cut."
"Our colleagues on the other side think we should extend the whole tax cut, to the people who are in the top 2 percent," he said.
"To extend those tax cuts costs $700 billion over 10 years at a time when we are worried about the economy, when long term we have to be worried about deficits," he said.
Biden said that 50 percent of those tax cuts would go to people with average incomes of $8.2 million, costing a total of $350 billion over 10 years.
He said tax cuts are better given to people "who are going to go out and spend it. They're going to come in and buy a pizza, they're going to go buy a car, they're going to pay their electric bill, they're going to make a payment to send their kid to school, they're going to buy school clothes…They're the people who need the money."
By contrast, he said, it's wrong to give tax cuts to "people making over a million bucks a year. …They're spending all they're going to spend anyway. Giving somebody in that top percentage bracket, giving them another $250,000 tax cut, they're not going to spend that. They're not going to stimulate the economy."
He said he did not begrudge the wealthy. "I'm glad they're super wealthy," he said. "I hope one of my grandkids makes that kind of money, so when he puts me in a home I get a window with a view."
He also disputed Republican arguments that small businesses would be hurt all the tax cuts are not extended.
"Not 3 percent of the small businesses in America would benefit one single solitary penny from extending that …tax cut," he said. "So this is just a bunch of malarkey."
He also criticized Republicans in the Senate for blocking a proposal to aide small businesses, noting that the Obama administration and Congress want to cut taxes more.
"We've cut taxes 8 times on small businesses and we're not done yet," he said.

Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC
1010 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Suite 705
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-1880
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com
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