The new route. Ceo of transcanada is here for a fox business exclusive. Even when they say its not it is always about money melissa first lets take a look at the days market headlines. Stocks bit it for the second straight day Senate Majority leader harry reid indicated that little progress has been made in recent fiscal iff talks. Big surprise there. So youre welcome, investors. The major intoday sees slid on the news and the dow fell 89 points. Shares of Green Mountain coffee are skyrocketing afterhours. The company solidly beat expectations for fiscal Fourth Quarter earnings, pointing to strong sales of its k cup coffee tea packs. Apple reportedly fired the manar behind apple maps. Iphone software has been widely panned for flaws and inaccuracies since its launch back in september. What you really want is an accurate map, so there you go. On to our top story tonight, president obama ups the ante on fiscal cliff pressure meeting with Small Business owners from all walks of live at the white house today. The Million Dollar question . What will be the real impact on Small Businesss . With me now, straight from that meeting in a fox business exclusive is the cofounder of book to the roots, an urban mushroom farm growing gourmet business. Wow i have to ask yyu a lot about that because i dont understand that. I will ask you first, what happened at the meeting . What did you guys talk about and what was the response you got. Yeah, thanks for having me on. It was anncredible opportunity. It was really fun room. Cool to see the energy andnd passion in the room. It was 15 Small Business owners along with the president and i think he asked us to share our stories and how we got to where we are today. He kind of explained a little bit about his vision for the economy and where he thinks it is going. And thoughts about what is top of mind for us about the economy. Melissa so what did you say and did you feel like he listened to you and was going to take action based on that . Yeah. Absolutely. It was really, he had a lot of his Top Administration there. Vice President Biden was there as well. They were all really kind of into everything were saying. Very actionable. It was fun to see back and forth t wasnt just him listening to 15 different people. He was engaged and asked questions. Melissa what did you ask him to do specifically . What did you say would help your business . One thing that helped us a lot incentives for Small Businesses to hire. Particularly for us we were able to use the jobs now program out in the bay area to get some of our first staff on board. It was to provide a story and face to impact some of these programs that can incentivize hiring for Small Businesses had. We wouldnt be here without it. Melissa so you got money for hiring new people . Or how did it work specifically for you . That was an Incentive Program to hire through certain job programs where people have been unemployed i believe for six months and had children as well. It was incentive to hire through there. It was a really strong program. I think it created over 200,000 jobs across the country. We were able to get a lot of our first employees there. Our story was sharing that story. Melissa yeah. Things that will have to be cut through this whole fiscal cliff thing i want to make sure that, support for Small Businesses. Melissa no, you dont want your thing to get cut. Th is the problem here. Nobody wants their special interest to get cut. Im sure you mentioned that. I dont think i understand your business. Back to the roots is an urban mushroom farm growing gourmet mushrooms and mushroom kits. What is a mushroom kit . A mushroom kit, when the boxes i have right here. Small little brown box. We use Recycled Coffee grounds from local cafes in the bay area. Collect all the coffee ground waste being thrown away bring it back to the urban farm turn it into the soil for these kits. Get a box like this, open it up and 10 days get first crop of gourmet mushrooms right out of the box. Inspiring people to grow their own food and realizing you dont need a green tmb or big backyard. That anyone can grow their own food. Take a waste stream growing own food. Melissa im sitting here in shock. You use coffee grounds to Grow Mushrooms. Yeah. Melissa are you profitable . Do you make money . We are even profitable since we started. We have 31 employees now. Were diverting 40,000 pounds a week of coffee ground wae for our partner peets coffee in the bay area. We sell our kits 2200 retailers, home depot, whole foods, nordstrom. Bed, bath beyond. Melissa that is amazing. How did youget on the president s list. Theyre telling me im out of time. How did you get invite what is your connection . We got a Young Entrepreneur Award through there. We were able to meet some of the people on the Business Council a year ago. Through them they have stayed in touch. We stayed in touch with them. I believe when president asked for Small Businesses that represent a lot of different industries, obviously mushroom farming being diverse they thought of us and invite us into the room. It was a big honor. Melissa thanks so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much. Melissa i had no idea that was business or industry. You learn something new every day. We appreciate it. I appreciate it. Melissa we have bart, another business owner, ceo of full contact in denver. Bart you were not invited to the white house. You do not Grow Mushrooms. Neithe melissa there is lot just went by there in that last interview that was kind of new information to me. Are you sad youre notin the mushroom business . He is profitable. He got invited to the white house. I had no idea that you could, you know, Grow Mushrooms in dirty, wet coffee grinds but hey. You kw, its a real fascinating business, the mushroom business. Being from colorado i wont comment on mushrooms or. Melissa yes, too easy. It is too easy of a joke. Melissa i mean, what do you ink about everything he just said . He said that there was a very positive and exciting vibe in the room . Theyre exchanging ideas. The president is listening tohem. It is all very actionable. One thing i heard was, something everyone is saying heres the thing im getting from the government right now i like. This Incentive Program getting for hiring people and he doesnt want it to go away. Were all in that boatright now, right . Yeah. I mean i think, i think what i heard was, i like to know the makeup of 15 Small Businesses my guess, a lot of them were benefiting from certain Government Programs. And it is really interesting because im benefiting from very few Government Programs if any. I certainly wasnt invited. Melissa why do you think you were not invited . I mean probably because im not taking advantage of any special Government Programs. That is my guess. Melissa what im saying in all seriousness, he doesnt want his special Interest Program taken away. People dont want their taxes to go up. Were looking at this huge divide between our bills and what we have to pay and sort of no one wants to put something, everybody wants someone else to put money into that hole and fill it up but they want to keep, you know, their own thing off to the side. If you were at the white house what would have you told the president to do about the fiscal cliff crisis . Look. Listen. All these incentive prograas, like owe took advantage of, i never heard of that particular credit, right . In m mind all these credits and sort of incentives you create for entrepeneurs to do what entrepeneurs do is really pretty meaningless. Like changing around the deck chairs on the titanic. The real fundamental thing hear is the tax rates going up, okay . And, that is the real huge issue. Its going to decrease disposable income for patrons of Small Businesses. It will really hit Small Business owners very hard because most Small Business owners have passthrough entities like scorps and lccs. We get hit with sort of increased taxes we literally make choices between hiring new people and giving money to government. Now it is not a choice. We simply dont hire. So it, were getting hit on both side by this increased taxes. These incentives i dont think are really material in the long term. Melissa your taxes are going up. It will mean you have less money to invest in your business to buy equipment or to hire people. That is the bottom line. Bart, thank you. Our customers have less money. Melissa that is also important. Thank you so much for coming on the show. We always likeo see you. Thanks, melissa. Melissa and i will be growing mushrooms. Talk about taking a stand against the government. Look at this. Look at this house. The owner wouldnt budge and look what happened. Theres a road. It is going around his house cause he wouldnt move his house. We are going to get to the story in a bit. Talk about someone else taking a stand about the government and who is going to win. The fiscal cliff debacle, just when it seems like some movement was being made were hearing a new idea that could derail all of it, a hike in the federal gas tax. Were going to are we going to see higher prices as a result of this deal . With me now is senator jim inhofe. Welcome to the show, thanks so much for coming on. Nice to be with you, mole list is a. Melissa what do you think, a higher federal gas tax. This was getting a lot of buzz throughout the day today. Do you think it is a real possibility . No. Well, yeah it has a possibility but melissa, you have to keep in mind, theyre doing this because the only popular tax around is the gas tax. People assume that the money when they pay at the pump and goes into the Highway Trust Fund it will be used to build roads and bridges to maintain. That is popular thing. People think we need that. So to me it is deceptive to load the extravagance of the Obama Administration to be paid off by people paying a gas tax. Melissa yeah. They did it, probably didnt know this. They did it in 1990. Did in 1993. About a nickel increase each time. At that time almost doubled the gas tax. Melissa so incredibly gressive. Hits the exact people they talk about protecting and that democrats talk about protecting last election. It goes right after, it hits the middle class and lower income people the hardest of course because it is incredibly regressive. Let me ask you, i feel like today when i was hearing talk about trying to close this gap were looking under every oke for more money and more tax revenue. Doesnt seem like were cutting spending very much s that the right impression. Keep in mind, melissa. You and i know this. A lot of viewers might not know, we have 5. 3 trillion deficit because of one person, that is obama. He doesnt seem to change his behavioral patterns now so it is not getting any better. How could we his own budget come up with 5. 3 trillion in four years and then say, now we have to somehow find 1. 2 trillion for 10 years . Meantime he will continue to go ahe and increase the deficit. So i dont have any faith in it. Look, this morning i was on fox friends. I outlined a lot of alternatives we could do where we wouldnt have to raise taxes. One was, i already introduced legislation that would take care of that. We covered it at some length. But if you looked at what happened in the past, the best way to do this is get all these regulations out of the way so people can grow their own businesses. For everyone percent increase in everyone increase in thatas kennedy back in the 60s. He discovered that. That wasnt republican idea. Melissa youre talking about regulation. I know youre really focused on the epa so i dont want to runut of time without asking you. Well have the ceo of transcanada later talking about the xl pipeline. This is another thing we left to be resolved after the election. Do you think well see that full pipeline approved and put into place . What do you think . Well, i think obviously we should but you still have the far left is going to be pulling on the president on any input he would have. Lets ke in mind, that pipeline by the way goes through my state of oklahoma. Melissa yes. A big intersection is in oklahoma. I have a dog in that fight. That is something absoluly no reason not to see all the way through yet he is will be fighting it. I dont know how that will turn out. Would i say this though. The one thing we know will continue to increase because you might recall before the election i came up with the eight increases in regulations that he was going to do after the election. Now to do ts he had to violate a law because there is law that says every six months you have to come out with the cost in terms of jobs and money of new regulations. And that was due the 31st of october. He just, you know, flagrantly disobeyed the law so people didnt know. Now were looking at these huge things coming on us, im talking about, the, youve seen the whole list. Melissa i hear you. It is agonizing. No, i hear you. Senator, thank you so much for coming on the show. We appreciate your time. Thank you, melissa. Melissa here is our money question of the day, should a higher federal gas tax be part of a fiscal cliff compromise . We want to hear what you think. Like us on facebook. Co facebook. Com melissafrancisfox or follow me on twitter twitter, melissaafrancis where almost no one liked the tax. Fuel gauge report tod, oil fell more than half a percent settling at 87. 18 a barrel. Six u. S. Senators are asking Justice Department to launch a probe of west coast oil refineries. Remember we told you about this story. Recent analysis, refineries were operating earlier this year despite public reports they were shut down. The reported closures were blamed for hike in west quote gas prices a spike in prices in october and may. We brought you that story. Irans government is reportedly looking to slash the outlook for oil revenues. Irans budget the next fiscal year may lower expected oil sales by 110 million per day. Sanctions reduced irans oil exports by 35 since 2011. Next on money, watch out ipad minis. One of the hottes gifts this Holiday Season may be assault rifles. How black friday is giving a huge bang to gun sales next. Egypts new president faces biggest challenge to his power yet. Hundreds of thousands of protesters rallying against his rule. One man who met with morsi is here to tell us if his days in office could be numbered. More money and money to Grow Mushrooms from coffee grounds coming up. You stl think youre colder than me . Nah. Don tell me. Tell tiny [ce crackling ] [ knuckles cracking ] and who are you supposed to be, backup . Handle it. What you looking at . Ha catlike reflexes. Whoa [ male announcer ] the coors light sier bullet pint. Its bigger. Its resealable. Its still the coldest. Dont you do i dont you do it [ male announcer ] frost brewed coors light. The worlds most refreshing beer . Melissa so gun sales blow the roof off black friday. Get this. One gun and ammo store in texas saw their sales skyrocket 400 from a regular friday. From an average of 20,000, 78,000. What a day. Patrick woods is the director of operations and development with spring guns and ammo. He is here to tell us all about it. Patrick, welcome back to the show. Thanks so much for coming on. You know, you had a fantastic friday but youre not alone. I mean the stats are really ovwhelming. When you look at the background checks of the fbi, they said they feeled 154,873 calls, a 20 increase, from last years black fridayhich was an alltime record last year. What is it about black friday . Is it, is it spending thanksgiving with your family that makes you want to go out and get a gun . What is it about black friday that gets people to the store to buy guns . I think it is a mix of things really. You know, black friday coincides pretty well right now with the reelection of president obama. So that is on a lot of folks in the gun industrys mind. You get into the normal Holiday Season on top of discounts available. I would honestly say that one of the largest factors involved is the president ial election. Melissa why is that . Does it make people feel violent . Im kidding. You feel like, you feel like your gun rights will be taken away and you need to get one when you can . Do you think that is it realistic . Do you think that can happen . He mentioned during the second president ial debate he had interest in reintroducing the clinton ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines that concerns people a little bit. That is what we saw sold on black friday. Melissa a year ago, according to the fbi, theyre fielding background check calls, they also set a record on black friday. It was not like it was unique to this year. A year ago they werent anticipating election . Is it beginning, i live in new york city. Im ignorant about these things. Is it beginning of hunting season . Is it Something Else you can say or it just a great christmas gift. You know, honestly a year ago people werent concerned with a second term reelection. You know, there is a lot of concern right now, there is lot going around about, there is no third term coming up. So anything that will happen will hpen now. I can only attribute it to that. There is no other way, now in our stores, specifically, last year we didnt do nearly what did he did this year. We doubled what we did last year this year. Melissa yeah. While it w a terrific year last year, even more so this year. Melissa what is your bestseller . What is really flyg off the shelves so to speak at your store . Brought with me today an example of ar15 type weapon. This one has optic. And has suppresor on it. Class 3 items like suppose source are biggest sellers in the store right now. Along with bulk ammo. A lot of people buying ammunition by the case. Melissa what, weapon like that. A weapon like, that, what do you need that for . Well this