Robert Reich: Romney is the reverse Robin Hood

Berkeley professor and former labor secretary Robert Reich suggested Thursday that Mitt Romney's economic plan favored the wealthy at the expense of the poor.

"Romney has said repeatedly, he wants to cut taxes on the very wealthy," he said on MSNBC's The Last Word. "The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center here in Washington has done a computation of what Romney's taxes would do, and they've concluded that the typical millionaire or someone earning over $1 million gets $950,000 over a ten year period... I mean, this is absurd. At a time when we have a budget deficit and so many people in need in America, this is reverse Robin Hood."

Reich described so-called trickle down economics as "bunk." The economic theory is closely associated with former President Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party. According to the theory, if the wealthy are taxed less, then they will invest more into businesses, creating jobs for middle-class Americans.

"Almost all the gains of productivity over the last five year, six years have gone to the very top. What that means is the vast middle-class doesn't have purchasing power to keep the economy going. The President has proposed over and over again a variety of ways of dealing with this widening gap, this increasing inequality, and the Republicans on the Hill have simply said no."

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