relief. aspercreme. checking top stories now, a new report says lance armstrong is about to admit to doping during his cycling career. "usa today" reports he will admit it to oprah winfrey in an interview on monday. he has vehementally denied using performance-enhancing drugs and has even sued people who said that he did. the flu epidemic continues to spread. cdc is reporting that 47 states are reporting widespread flu and two more children have died, bringing the total deaths this season up to 20. the number of reported u.s. cases has decreased, especially in the south. too soon to tell, though, if the season has actually peaked. thanks so much for watching today. i'll see you back here at the top.

hour. >> we have a lot to talk about. we really do. your "your bottom line" starts right now. >> thank you, randi and victor. see you at the top of the hour. suddenly, and maybe only for a moment, gun advocates and gun company investors are truly worried. good morning. i'm christine romans. a year marked with obsession of budgets and elections, 2013 is shaping up a little different. our leaders may actually do something to reign in gun violence. we don't know if this momentum will last, if congress will actually act. there's been a lot of talk of an executive order. this time at least feels different. this week, vice president biden held a series of task force meetings with various stakeholders in the gun debate, delivering a set of recommendations to the president based on that input as soon as tuesday. >> there's got to be some common ground here to not solve every problem, but diminish the

probability that what we've seen in these mass shootings would occur and diminish the probability that children are at risk in their schools. >> these meetings weren't just some photo-op. even the nra attended. after the meetings, it trashed the agenda as an attack on the second amendment. walmart, probably the biggest gun seller, was shamed, i guess, into showing up. retailer originally said executives couldn't attend. they had scheduling difficult s difficulties. ative course of criticism, they changed their mind and did show up with the attorney general. after gaining background earlier this month, gun stocks were under pressure again this week. that's right, investors are worried washington is actually going to do something. let's not forget that at its core selling guns in america is about making money. richard feldman is president of

t the, former nra lobbyist. will cain is a cnn contributor. do you think it will be concrete action? i know no one's mind was changed there. but is it the beginning of something different this time? >> well, clearly, the horrific events in newtown were a game changer. what concrete changes in the law are going to be really remains to be seen. as to the firearm industry, which i represented during the 1990s, regardless of anything that occurs in legislation, certainly the companies on the big boards, smith & wesson and ru ruger, they're going to be manufacturing. orders are back ordered for probably a year or more.

even if a couple of guns ended up being on a ban list, that's not going to have any impact on the bottom line of those companies. >> you know, will, americans support some kind of action on gun violence. 47% favor major restrictions, 43% favor minor restrictions. banning the sale of high capacity ammunition magazines, requiring background checks at gun shows. how can we talk about this, though? it nearly goes back to they're trying to take away our guns, from the patriotism from the second amendment. i'm reading directly from the kind of stuff that's going out. >> logic leads you there. >> wait, logic leads you there? >> yes. i'm going to tell you why. banning certain weapons would have very little impact on the bottom line of those manufacturers. i'm pessimistic, at the very

least skeptical, that any of these bans would have an impact on what you said, christine, impacting gun violence. most of the bans we talk about really serve no purpose. the bottom line is what we're talking about most of the time, semi automatics as are your guests, richard, probably knows more than i do, 67% of guns in this country are semi automatic. if you want to make a real fundal dent. >> that won't happen. >> that makes people very, very nervous. >> that won't happen. what can you do, anything? >> i think when you talk about a measure that might -- might carries a lot of weight here, have some positive impact and doesn't burden the second amendment right too strenuously, you're talking about possibly limiting background checks. >> do you support that? >> i would be open to those. you have to prove that evidence that it would have a positive impact. >> nra has deep pockets and doesn't even want to try to do the research to prove this

evidence. it spent millions in the 2012 election cycle. does this all come down to money? you were the lobbyist for the nra, right? when i talk about patriotism to paranoia, when you hear people talk about taking these guns away, there's a real -- a real deep, deep issue in america that the nra is playing right into. >> well, i think it was your governor in new york that played into it when he talked about the possible con tfiscation about t when you say people are paranoid about it, i don't think it's legitimate of what some elected officials are really discussing. >> you think they're stirring the fears among gun owners? >> it will be very interesting if governor cuomo decides to run for president how that's perceived in iowa and new

hampshire. >> do you think the ban of assault weapons is something the nra could get behind? >> yesterday, earlier this week, really, at the white house, we support the independent firearm owners mandatory background checks at gun shows. because gun shows are very different. at a gun show you're selling to the public. just like a retail dealer. but any other firearm transaction is really a sale to someone you know, a friend, a relative, a co-worker or a neighbor. up until last month no one has even alleged that there's a problem with that kind of sale. it's all been limited at the show. and let's always remember the big picture. there are 500,000 guns stolen in this country every year. that's the problem. what we need to do is keep our eyes on the ball, which is ask in whose hands are the guns. >> that's the key, richard, is pointing out here.

i would probably support as well requiring background checks at gun shows. but, look, criminals that commit acts with guns, only 1% of those buy those at gun shows. that doesn't do anything for like me and richard selling a gun to each other. should we have a background check required in that kind of private sale? all of it might have some small positive impact. but it completely overlooks the fact that criminals do not care about rules. and criminals will break rules to get the weapons that they need. >> i'll make one point about the gun shows. imagine it was a car and you two were selling each other a car, transaction between two people. fine. imagine you're selling, richard, 200 cars. that's not a private sale anymore. that has become something that, you know, maybe needs a background check. that's what they'll be talking about. >> again, at a gun show and you're selling to the public, i think it makes perfect sense to put civilians in the same sense that are selling a gun collection as dealers at that

show. it makes sense to me. i think it makes sense to most gun owners. >> we'll have you back. you have such deep insight to the gun lobby, how it's changed from a sporting organization to a second amendment organization over the years. there's so many great ways to look at all of this. and, of course, will cain, we always love your insight. if you're happy with what's going on in washington, you must not watch this program each week, or any news for that matter. up next, how low the congressional approval rating is right now. and when was the last federal budget signed into law? a, 1994. b, 2001. c, 2009. d, last year. how does this thing work? oh, i like it! [ garth ] sven's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! woo-hoo!!! so that's ten security gators, right? put them on my spark card! why settle for less? testing hot tar... great businesses deserve great rewards! [ male announcer ] the spark business card from capital one. choose unlimited rewards with 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase, every day!

what's in your wallet? here's your invoice. and his new boss told him two things -- cook what you love, and save your money. joe doesn't know it yet, but he'll work his way up from busser to waiter to chef before opening a restaurant specializing in fish and game from the great northwest. he'll start investing early, he'll find some good people to help guide him, and he'll set money aside from his first day of work to his last, which isn't rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade.

humans. even when we cross our t's and dot our i's, we still run into problems. namely, other humans. which is why at liberty mutual insurance, auto policies come with new car replacement and accident forgiveness if you qualify. see what else comes standard at libertymutual.com. liberty mutual insurance.

responsibility. what's your policy? your congress is no longer working for you. wake up, washington! a budget would address a lot of those problems. last time congress passed one of those, april 29th, 2009. are you running out of patience? 3 1/2 years and still no budget. imagine america as the largest corporation. this is no way to run it. you, the shareholders, have lost faith. congressional approval stands at a measly 18%. little surprise considering the lack of big ideas coming from washington. missing are solutions to create

jobs, produce clean energy and educate our children. instead, we're left with one mini crisis after another. it's your political leaders playing chicken with your well-being. government's inaction is threatening an economy, desperate to recover. lawmakers avoided the fiscal cliff at the eleventh hour but there are three more cliffs and more answers. can government finally agree on sensible spending cuts and the budget, will america, the largest business in the world, be forced to shut down due to washingt washington's dysfunction? let me show you what our budget disaster looks like. a chart from the bipartisan policy center. this projects what will happen on february 15th, run out of money. $9 billion will come in that day. $52 billion in bills come due. if congress doesn't raise the

debt ceiling, congress has to decide which of these bills to pay. interest on the debt we already owe, that's $30 billion. irs refunds, about $7 billion. federal salaries, difficult tut military paychecks, medicare, medicaid bills, defense vendors need to be paid. unemployment checks need to get cut. food stamp debit cards need to be refilled. deficit piles up into national debt. i'm joined by senior political columnist of the daily beast and mayaguinness. maya, should the debt ceiling be the place to argue about spending cuts? >> in the past, the debt controlling has been used responsibly, to help us push for making changes to the budget when we're on an unsustainable course. can you kind of think of it as a speed bump. we would hit the debt ceiling,

be reminded we're borrowing too much. they would fight about raising it and then they would raise it. what happened last time, i think, was throwing cold water on to the system of how close we got to truly defaulting and the fact that that will lead to economic problems in the country and around the world. >> republicans almost gleeful that the debt ceiling will give them leverage to extract spending cuts. is this good policy or is it revenge? is it a speed bump, or is this somehow -- is it political? >> tees taes deeply political, cycle of revenge and recrimination. it's the definition of insanity, doing something over again and expect i expecting a different result. we got our aaa rating downgraded. in retro expect, they realized that grand bargain -- spending cuts, revenue increases and entitlement reform. the idea every time congress has set itself this artificial deadline, whatever it may beady

debt ceiling, super committee crisis, fiscal cliff, somehow they fail, they weasel out of it. we still have this looming, looming problem. it's deeply political. reality check for folks at home. refusing to raise the debt ceiling is about as fiscally responsible as not pay iing a credit card bill when it comes in. you hear some saying when you hold a hostage, you got to be willing to kill it. >> you are a fiscal hawk. you don't want to be operating without a budget, or a blueprint, for so long. what should this congress do? >> first, we have to focus on the area that has been ignored for the longest amount of time and we know needs to be addressed. we have to reform our health care systems and retirement systems. our nation's entitlement programs are unsustainable. we are truly jeopardizing people who depend on them by being

unwilling to make the necessary changes in a gradual and thoughtful way and they threaten the debt going forward. we need to get on top of those as quickly as possible as part of an overall comprehensive deal. more spending cuts have to be put in place. tax reform that raises revenue still needs to happen, something that will grow the can economy and increase our competitiveness, which the last round of revenue raising didn't do. we need to make the hard choices, which any expert would tell you need to be addressed but politicians just seem unwilling to work together in a bipartisan way, which is how this has to happen, to own up to those political choices. there's so much finger pointing, so much blame. >> stay where you are. washington's inaction may be slowing economic growth but your personal economy is also being deprived. what you're losing and how to get it back, next. 1942. [ all ] fort benning, georgia, in 1999. [ male announcer ] usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation

because it offers a superior level of protection and because usaa's commitment to serve the military, veterans, and their families is without equal. begin your legacy. get an auto-insurance quote. usaa. we know what it means to serve.

these mini cliffs are crises of congress' own making. while lawmakers are arguing

they're do iing so without a vision, we just discussed the debt ceiling. next is the sequester. that deadline is budget by march 27. meantime, the country is losing. losing jobs, struggling for economic growth, lagging in education. and we're also losing the ability to have civil conversation. it's either one extreme or the other. a decade of war overseas is giving way to budget wars at home. where is the vision for america amidst all this arguing? where is the purpose in our congress? the single-minded focus that america comes first, prosperity's important and has to include everyone. john avalon and maya mcginnis are back. john, two dirty words to some in washington -- consensus and bipartisanship. i want to show you something. these are laws passed by previous congresses, right? only 220 laws passed by the 112th congress from 2011 through 2012. 220 laws. the smallest number of new laws in decades. you might say congress is

failing, it's not governing. it can't pass half the laws that were passed by the congress before it. others look at the number and say, hey, we're not going to pass laws, run up debts and deficits and operate business as usual. they see that as a victory. what do you think? >> that number says to me we've got a divide, dysfunctional congress. that's not a libertarian idea of not doing anything in the national interest. we have urgent challenges that we're not facing as a country. it is a direct result of the polarization of parties and makes compromise more difficult it achieve than ever. if people are angry at washington, d.c., the division and dysfunction, it's the polarization of congress. >> there's a short-term focus, our debt needs a long-term focus. they have not been able to do that. can you look at the short term and the long term? should they be, can they really look at both at the same time? >> well, that's right. the focus is always on the next political cycle and not the next generational cycle. and as we were talking about before with entitlements, you

know, where seniors will say you're trying to take away our benefits instead of recognizing we need to strengthen these programs so that seniors who depend on them have them, what are we also ignoring? we're ignoring the next generation in this country, right? and i know that part of what i care about for all this is my kids and the kids in this country and the fact that we don't have a vision that's keeping the economy strong and preserving it and not handing them a set of unpaid bills for the next generation of workers and children in this country. so i hope that's the kind of thing that can help bring the country together. when it comes to tough choices, that's the easiest time for the two parties to break apart and the easiest time to break each other. the most important time to work together to give them some political cover as they make hard choices that if we don't make them we'll sacrifice the country for our being irresponsible. >> maya's right. the problem with debt is that it's generational theft. that's one way to think about the moral underpinnings of the argument. to get anything done, you know, we need to find, both parties

need to take on their own base. i think first of all president obama needs to play nixon in china on the issue of debt and specifically on entitlement reform. he has to take on activist groups in his own base to get something done in the national interest. likewise, republicans need to reconnect the idea of fiscal conservatism with fiscal responsibility again. they've totally forgotten that revenues are any part of the equation. it's disingenuous and doesn't work as maths. >> can we talk about mission in i talked about where is the discussion on education reform, the discussion about global competition, where's the real discussion about energy and our energy future? instead it's budget wars. you will hear from some people, maya, whoill say, look, the budget wars embody our big visions and how they aren't unified. are we sacrificing sort of our direction and our standing in the world? maybe this sounds overly dramatic. are we sacrificing that by focusing -- not even operating with a budget? >> right. it does feel like an incredibly important moment and not

dramatic to put it that way. when you think about what we need to do, what we should be doing is thinking with how you put if place a big, comprehensive and gradual debt deal that will get control of all sides of budget and use this opportunity to rethink our priorities. we spend so much money from the federal government on consumption instead of investment. or seniors instead of children, just as examples. we should be going through the budget as we make changes and really think through that and think how do we raise revenues in a global environment that allows us to be competitive. i fear we're not going to do that. we'll be -- just getting a budget deal in place would be a good first step. and until we do, i think it's kind of the sand and the wheels of tackling some of these other issues -- energy, immigration, education, competitiveness. all of these are sort of frozen out because we're paralyzed because of our fiscal situation right now. >> and there are those who say the discussion about gun violence, there are groups who think the discussion about gun

violence they wary is taking some of the momentum away from the other conversations. there's not enough oxygen in washington to handle it at the same time. john allon, maya mcginnis, have a great weekend. coming up, congress has ignor ignored, ignored the housing market. it may be the best thing that ever happened to buyers and sellers. with the spark cash card from capital one, olaf gets great rewards for his small business! pizza! [ garth ] olaf's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! helium delivery. put it on my spark card! [ pop! ] [ garth ] why settle for less? great businesses deserve great rewards! awesome!!! [ male announcer ] the spark business card from capital one. choose unlimited rewards with 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase, every day! what's in your wallet?

your congress is so preoccupied with the budget crises of its own making, no one here has probably noticed that the housing market is slowly recovering. new foreclosure filings, the lowest level since december of 2006. existing home sales at the highest level in three years. new home sales the strongest in two. and prices are coming back. the s&p case schiller index rising five months in a row. what's happening? super low mortgage rates, courtesy of the federal reserve, not congress. they're luring buyers back. and buying looks more attractive when rental prices have climbed 12 quarters in a row.