forward. the debt ceiling is certainly a big issue for those of you at the white house and also for the american public, but there s a lot of other issues, like the labor market, like the housing market, like how to deal with fannie mae and freddie mac. so once we get this debt ceiling issue resolved, what s your plan for the year? well, you know, i think you raised several of the key points. the issue is not and should not be the debt ceiling. that s a very dangerous thing to play with. the issue should be the budget. and i think the president and congress and the american people recognize that our long run fiscal challenges have got to be addressed and i think when the president s budget coming out in a couple of weeks, you ll see he s not afraid to make tough choices ansome on some of these budget issues. i hope we will not conflate arguments about the budget with playing games with the full faith and credit of the u.s. government, but beyond the budget discussion, i think the n
is not raised and creates a mess, who gets blamed, chris? probably the government at large and certainly what is going on right now, gregg, the president is working hard, the president and democrats in congress are working hard to make sure the republicans get the preponderance of that blame and saying it is not even negotiatable. this is irresponsible position to hold that you wouldn t increase the debt ceiling and this is just totally beyond the pale and republicans though are pushing back. as i pointed out and saying wait a minute, this is what you told us about the tarp bailouts. this is what you told us about the stimulus. we heard this a bunch of times. you re sort of like the boy who cried wolf. you tell us it will be a disaster every time. maybe we don t believe you this time. gregg: politics is the art of leverage or better put, the art of extortion. that is my word. so what could the republicans get out of this thing? well, what they want and, this depends on how they go
first default in u.s. history. officials say it could produce an even worse recession than the one we re climbing out of. the issue is not and should not be the debt ceiling. that s a very dangerous thing to play with. the issue should be the budget. and i think the president and congress and the american people recognize that our long-run fiscal challenges have got on the addressed. got to be addressed. reporter: new house speaker john boehner said lawmakers are going to have to deal with the debt ceiling, quote, like adults, but he made clear yesterday republicans want a commitment to cut spending in exchange for raising it. if house is going to move an increase in the debt limit, i think we have a responsibility to cut spending and to make changes in the process by which we spend the american people s money. i think it would be irresponsible to try to deal with a debt limit without taking corrective action so that we re
of his economic team, a few new members. the most important names to know coming out of all of that is gene sperling, the man that was sitting to the president s left with the glasses on, you see him right there on your screen, he s going to be head of the council of economic advisers, replacing larry summers. he s sometimes known as gene the machine, just as a side note. he did work under the clinton white house. and some say this is really signaling the president s move more towards the center by bringing in a few other people from the clinton administration and trying to diversify a little bit of some of his advisers and his cabinet as well. gregg: all right, so from the economy and jobs to an incredible story. this could have been a horrific tragedy, 2 tons of speedy metal aim fog a crew of construction workers, but one state trooper stepped in, all of it caught on camera. here it is. check out this dash cam footage, oklahoma state trooper, trailing a suspected drunk driver in a pi
falling. we re still seeing a lot of discouraged workers. that number keeps going up. and that s part of the reason why we re seeing the unemployment rate go down. if you re unemployed or unemployed for an average of a bit over eight months, our viewers really want to know why are we still here, why is it still like this in this economy? look, we were in the deepest hole since 1929, so some people are exiting the labor force discouraged, but in any given month, we ve had several months where the labor force increased and people came back in. that wasn t the only factor. there was substantial job growth was one of the main reasons pulling the unemployment rate down, so we are still here in the sense of holding steady. we re clearly making progress. as i say, it was the biggest job creating year from the last four years in 2010, and these numbers are from december, so they predate the tax deal incentives. the president is out in