your financial security depends on your job and americans are looking to washington for answers. welcome to "your $$$$$." president obama saying this week that he'll announce a new jobs initiative in september. john king is cnn's chief national correspondent. americans need help now. the president apparently is going to offer something next month. what's the delay? >> next month because the president says he wants to talk to his economic advisers. they're reaching out to ceos. the white house says this will not be a repackaging of things the president has put on the table. ali, you know those well. extending the payroll tax cut, which the administration says will not only put money in pockets, but hope to create jobs, extending unemployment insurance for people out there frustrated and can't find a job. there would be new proposals. the question is, what will they be. here's one question. we know some will involve spending. government spending. house republican leadership have said that's stimulus. we're not going down the stimulus road again. the administration says it will offset that spending with cuts 6 elsewhere, so the president believes he will have the high ground politically. we'll see from a policy standpoint what new ideas they put forward. the question is, even when the president has a new package after labor day, can he get it through a republican house? >> he's been sort of letting out dribs and drabs of ideas, some of which may work. here's what the white house says the initiative will likely include. some tax cuts. some infrastructure ideas. measures that target the long-term unemployed and struggling sectors. diane swank is the chief commit economist at mesereau financial. we know this uncertainty about the economy makes businesses hesitant to hire. as an economist, what do you think the president should do and the president and congress should do that would boost business confidence enough to business confidence enough to trigger hiring because we know businesses have some money? >> i think actually, at this stage of the game, the best thing that congress and the president can do is lay out the long-term plan for our fiscal solvency in the united states. that may leave some room for additional fiscal stimulus in the near term, but if we know what the long-term cuts are and the changes to the tax code will be over the next 10 to 15 year, we're in unchartered territory. businesses need to know what the path is. as long as they know that even if the path is rocky, they can deal with that. some level of certainty if they're given it. given some level, we'd see that confidence rise a little bit even if it's a tough road ahead. we know it will be. that's where i think we can have a biggest impact. everything else the president's talking about will only act on the margins. an economy only operating on the margin, that's important. >> it makes it easy to take political pot shots. some people want something that feels big and others think that anything big that comes out of washington is another stamp of big government. steven moore is the editorial writer for the "wall street journal. steven, is it realistic to think that if something happens that gives diane what she is suggesting, that businesses might actually start hiring? >> yeah, it is. except the only difference i have with diane a little bit is i think it matters a lot what that path is. one of the things, for example, that happened this week is that warren buffett had that famous piece in "new york times," talking about raising tax on the rich and president obama on his magical mystery tour this week has really picked up on that. i think the more the president talks about things like raising taxes on investment, i think that, diane, is kind of holding back the economy a little bit, and i wish the president would get off this kind of bearish message of raise taxes on the rich. let's get the entitlements under control. as we've talked about many times on this show, now is the time do really fix tax system once and for all. >> you and i agree on that. steve, you and i both agree on the idea that we need to fix the tax code and not just raising taxes only on the rich, although i'm more sympathetic to that than you are. i do think that revenues have to be part of the equation. it has to be a part of a more streamlined, better understanding tax code. a simpler tax code. broaden the tax base. we need to get these behavior distorting things out of the tax code for corporations so they can figure out how to plan going forward. >> there's one other thing the president can do right away. he could just call a time out on regulations. for example, you know, there's probably 100,000 jobs you could create almost overnight by allowing drilling in the gulf right now. this kind of black cloud of uncertainty about regulation is something we don't talk a lot about, but when i talk to businessmen and women, they say that's really -- >> we go back and forth on this. you have to take me out to lunch to explain this better to me. but the fact is ultimately. >> these guys still haven't gotten together for lunch. >> we're way beyond the thing that regulation is mainly not driving businesses. >> there would be a job. i think it's really sweet that diane and steven agree on these things because nobody in your town does and we need them to agree. is there any likelihood that any of the very smart conversation we're having on this tv show might get replicated in a room somewhere in washington and somebody might say, let's get this done. >> the conversations do happen. what it is, is then taking the plans and moving them into the political environment because everything just mentioned, drilling, bringing entitlement spending under control, taxes on the rich or a broader tax reform, every one has a powerful political constituency. is the president ready to cut medicare in a substantial way and anger his base, which thinks that is the best issues against the republicans next year? are the republicans ready to give the president a big big deal on tax reform if he gives them lower rates across the board? will they negotiate that in the short-term heading into a presidential election in which this president, look at the data, is back on his heels and the republicans know it. >> one thing i can tell you what almost complete certainty the republicans will not allow is another big stimulus plan. you mentioned this, ali, i don't think the republicans believe this works and are saying look, we tried this already. hasn't working well. so the president's going to have to come up with some new idea. he's not going to get a big spending package through this house. >> he might get some tax cuts. it's marginal. come on. >> it's becoming more important in europe. that's part of the -- partly because of the political structure of the euro zone, but here in the united states, we've got rick perry saying that if fed chairman ben bernanke does anything, it will be treasonous. should we at least be keeping the fed around as an option for helping us out? >> it's not only the option, but one of our only options. the fed is having to bear the burden on holding this economy together and to not understand what role the fed is playing in averting a double redecent -- a depression in the first place. the role that it played in stemming much of what was a worse crisis than the great depression. i think it's a very dangerous road to walk down to cut the fed off entirely and i don't want to go into, as much i don't like a lot of people in washington, i'm not threatening them. there's something very wrong with that. >> i like you all, so the only thing i'm going to threaten with you is that you're going to have to wait there a few minutes. i want to continue this discuss with you. the very important discussion of jobs. what if the president and congress put the same urgency behind job creation as they did with solving the debt ceiling and why aren't they doing that? we're going to talk about it with this great panel when we come back. ♪ [ mrs. davis ] i want to find a way to break through. to make science as exciting as a video game. i need to reach peter, who's falling behind. and push janet who's 6 chapters ahead. ♪ [ male announcer ] with interactive learning solutions from dell, mrs. davis can make education a little more personal. so every student feels like her only student. dell. the power to do more. [ male announcer ] they'll see you...before you see them. cops are cracking down on drinking and riding. drive sober, or get pulled over. energy is being produced to power our lives. while energy developement comes with some risk, north america's natural gas producers are committed to safely and responsibly providing decades of cleaner burning energy for our country, drilling thousands of feet below fresh water sources within self contained well systems and using state of the art monitoring technologies, rigorous practices help ensure our operations are safe and clean for our communities and the environment we are america's natural gas. if you ask the american public what the most important economic issue facing the country today, the answer is very clear. a recent poll shows that nearly half of americans say unemployment is the most important issue followed by the deficit, which is by the way, less than 30%. so for folks who make the case that the deficit and debt is the most important issue to americans as far as they see it, most important economic issue still is jobs. what's it going to take for washington to tackle the jobs crisis with similar urgency that we saw around the debt ceiling. obviously, we know there isn't a job creation deadline, so we can't fake it, but it seems washington gets more effective when backed into a corner. >> i think for the last three months, all we've been debating is the deficit and debt issue. i agree with americans who say jobs is jobs number one. by the way, these are related, ali, because if you get more people to work and paying taxes -- >> smaller deficit. >> i had a piece in the journal this week that showed that actually the number of millionaires fell by half from 2000 to 2009 in this recession. what that meant is the tax payments by these rich people collapsed. we got to get the economy moving so we can get tax revenues back to we can lower the deficit. >> this is funny. we're all kind of on the same page about this. we'd like more tax revenue. probably like some to pay less tax, but we'd like it to be applied more fairly. we know that the president inherited a bad economy when he took office, but even the president this week told wolf blitzer he realizes regardless of who created the mess, the american people are looking to him to lead them out of it. >> people understand this was the worst since the great depression, but they say, look, he's the president. we think he has good intentions, but we're impatient and we want to see things move faster. >> john, the unemployment rate. 9.1%. we are not creating jobs as quickly as we'd like. but there is a little light at the end of the tunnel. bottom line is can the president win reelection with this situation on his hands? >> can he? yes. will he, if you go back world war ii, the data tells you no, but again, the data didn't tell us we'd have our first african-american president or the tea party would come out of nowhere. the data isn't always helpful. it's a very, very steep hill for an incumbent president, consumer confidence diving. people are looking around for signs of hope, and they don't see it. >> unless, john, unless he doesn't have an opponent who has a better plan. >> sometimes, it comes down to a choice, but often, it comes down to a referendum and people say you promised us something you didn't deliver, we're going to try something new, even if something new looks a little risky. people say, why can't these politicians get along? the people bear some reasonability to this. in 2010, they sent in a new republican majority who said the opposite. they sent in a majority that is the exact opposite. the government is the problem. this isn't just ugly politics. this is a competition with some big ideas. >> that's a good point, john. >> they're fighting about big things and the american people sent them here. >> which is why later on, fareed zakaria is going to make the case that a parliamentary system will work better. >> no, no, i like the brawl. >> diane, you said something to me a week or two weeks ago that has stuck in my mind. particularly clearly when michele bachmann said that if she is elected president, she'll make gas $2 a gallon. you said something, you said if there were these silver bullets, someone would have shot them will have. already. how realistic is it from an economic perspective that the president can have this type of control over growth? or even influence over economic growth and job creation? >> i guess she must be advocating for some kind of socialized subsidized system -- >> or a big recession. those are the two i see. >> or a depression, actually. we have a very weak economy and look at where oil prices still are. they're still very high and nowhere near $2 a gallon on gasoline. i find it, it's just intellectual inconsistency for me, so i can't even comment on it. >> i've never seen diane actually speechless about it. steven, we have, let's just agree -- >> sometimes it's better not to say anything. >> it's clear as john said, we have differences in opinion about how we're going to get there, but actually, i think the american people are going to say, that's too bad for you. you have to get something done. we can't just plant people from different parties in washington to get nothing done for a two-year period. so what's it going to take to break this and come to the agreement that if more people are unemployed, we start to get economic growth and cutting that deficit. what, from your perspective, will it take? >> i think john really nailed it. i think these are big philosophical differences between these two parties and are represented by the conservatives who have totally different views about what to do. i guess what i'm saying is that i'm not so sure that the next 18 months is going to bring big solutions to these problems, because they see the world in a totally different way. that's why i think the 2012 election going to be huge because it's going to be a debate about everything we've been debating for months, about whether the government should have a bigger role. whether we should do a big tax cut and get back to reagan gnn m oppics. i think this, you know, we'll see what the super committee comes up with. i think that's the last sort of hope for a bipartisan agreement. >> these markets doing what they're doing and people's 401(k)s doing what they're doing, they're impatient. >> no question about it. >> they have every reason to be. the one piece of hope is that everybody's talking about the same thing and although we don't agree on it, all of us can have overlap and we have intellectual differences in terms of what we think is right, but we can agree on this show, they can agree when they try behind closed doors. >> you're right. >> you guys are optimistic. thanks for being here. i know from watching tv, you're all very busy, so thanks a lot. diane swannen, chief economist for mesirow, steven moore, and john king. coming up next, why rick perry has a problem with ben bernanke and why the king of coffee is taking a direct shot at washington, d.c. politics. i'll explain, next. 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[ male announcer ] they'll see you...before you see them. cops are cracking down on drinking and riding. drive sober, or get pulled over. welcome back to "your $$$$$." let's talk politics and your money. it seems that we do that a lot. will kahne and roland martin, both cnn contributors. don't be fooled, they don't agree on anything. also with us, mark preston. guys, good to see you. it is not completely clear, but i think the texas governor and republican presidential candidate, rick perry, may have threatened to beat up ben bernanke. listen. >> if this guy prints more money between now and the election, i don't know what y'all would do to him in iowa, but we'd -- we would treat him pretty ugly down in texas. i mean, printing more money. to play politics at this particular time in american history is almost treasonous in my opinion. >> okay, so i got -- mark, you're from massachusetts. right? i wonder if you're going to do this. you just sit this one out. i got two texans here. roland and will. i'd stay out of texas if i were ben bernanke. rick perry's fellow gop hopeful, rick santorum, who's said a few inflammatory things at times, joined president obama and others in calling the comments irresponsible. your thoughts or is that just how you folks in texas talk? >> it is how we talk. i've been saying this for months. we're going through a monetary contraction and we should print money. that being said, there is an intelligent opinion that is the opposite of me that thinks we shouldn't print money. >> for instance, ron paul, who has written five books on the issue. >> rick perry attempted to here, but didn't have an intelligent conversation. he is putting an issue out front. i think listeners should understand. that's the role of the fed and begin to understand that monetary policy effects our monetary policy really affects our economic environment. certainly, rick perry didn't do that in an artful way, but it's something we should be talking about. >> i know for once, roland is not going to say something bad about a republican, because rick perry is a fellow aggie. >> actually, that's incorrect. first of all, that wasn't an intelligent conversation and i'm quite sure when rick perry goes to the folks he wants to give money to his campaign, those bankers on wall street, those petrochemical companies in texas, who depended on those credit lines from those various investment banks, i'm sure they will say, no, thank god ben bernanke did what he did. it's also amazing that the policies of ben bernanke, who's frankly following a pillar of conservatism. milton freed friedman, and this is a fundamental problem here. you know, rick perry wants to throw out these crazy kind of comments that sure, gets a reaction, but if you ask these people, what does the federal reserve do? they couldn't even answer the question. we have a financial crisis globally and we don't need people popping off, sounding like an arrogant texas cowboy, who wants to be president. have some sense and talk with common sense, not more cowboy talk, governor perry. >> i have never heard roland speak ill of a fellow aggie. you're not even acknowledging -- >> no, i have. >> were you a cheerleader? >> first of all, at texas a & m, we have yell leaders, but at your school, you have charlie leaders, but but you're a t stamp, so that's what i would expect, will. >> mark, let's have a nontexan conversation. you've been around rick perry this week. he hasn't backed off. >> no, he actually brought it up himself. he said the president was lecturing him. he was speak to business and political leaders. and he wouldn't back down. now, what's interesting that is that this has kind of clouded his whole message this week which was just about the economy. he was talking about the economy in very macro terms and taking a lot of credit for the jobs he's created in texas. now, ali, you and i spoke this past week several times that has come into question. is rick perry really responsible for all the jobs down in texas? i'll leave that to the three of you to figure that out. >> once y