bipartisan support has turned into a family feud. this is "your money. on" paul ryan and patty murray agreeing on a deal. house republicans passed it thursday evening, and the senate is expected to do the same next week. it sets a spending limit and erases those steep across the board cuts next year and adds some other cuts. >> you can't get everything you want, but you can get things done if you focus on that common ground area. i'm not going to begrudge anybody who for one reason or another chooses not to vote for it. things aren't perfect, but we think this is a step in the right direction. >> republicans started whining about what republicans were giving into, and democrats started whining about what democrats were giving up. ken rogoff is a professor at harvard university and the former chief economist at imf,

and ryan is a cnn political analyst and a columnist for "the new yorker." family fudz over money can be brutal. i mean, this family feud over money is really, really starting to get interesting. this really caught my attention. here's what the house speaker said about outside conservative groups blasting this deal. >> they're using our members and they're using the american people for their own goals. this is ridiculous. if you are for more deficit reduction, are you for this agreement. >> is this little, i don't know, civil war breaking out in the republican party the newest threat to the -- to this government bipartisanship? >> well, i think what we saw this week -- that was an mazing moment. we saw john boehner basically taking control of the republican caucus for the first time since january 2011 when he became the speaker of the house. he basically -- look, the vote was huge. it was an overwhelming majority of republicans supported the bill, which is not the case in

these previous deals, so he basically, you know, after the government shutdown had the authority to say we tried it your way, we lost, you guys tanked our popularity, and now -- and now we're going to try it my way. this is probably one of the most significant moments of john boehner's speakership. >> you know, the democrats are fighting amongst themselves too over extending unemployment benefits. you know, that's not part of the budget deal. i want you to listen in to nancy pell owes where i. >> it's interesting to note that they rejected an employment -- this is so unconscionable. it's practically at the level of immoral to do. the people who work hard, play by the rules, lose their job through no fault of thin other are not able to get -- continue to get unemployment insurance check. >> so this is a question for ken rogoff, the economist. she's talking about morality, ken, but from an economics standpoint, you say it makes no sense to pull that back right now. that's not the deal right now.

it makes no sense to pull back that extended unemployment benefits for people who have been lock-term unemployed? >> this is not an ordinary recession. maybe in a short recession you say, okay, after a while you need to find a job, you need to start looking. there's a balance, but here there just aren't a lot of jobs still for a lot of people. >> why isn't it in that deal? i mean, why can't both sides agree on that? we saw in the jobs report -- we know if you are newly unemployed, if are you newly unemployed, you are having the best chance of getting a job in several years. if you are long-term unemployed, absolutely nothing has changed. those long-term unemployed are republicans and they're democrats too, you know? >> they are. i mean, it's a philosophical difference. feeling, well, if we give into this, it will last for ten years. we won't be able to pull it back. i think that's a big mistake. i think they should have extended unemployment insurance, and i can't explain the politics. it's not good. >> you explain the politics then. i'm going to hold you

accountable. >> i would like to know if ken agrees with this. they could have -- they have some short-term deficit reduction in this package, and i think most economists, ken, correct me if i'm wrong would say the problem is not the short-term deficit, it's the short-term deficit, and why not take that deficit reduction, the money up for that and put it into the unemployment benefits instead. it seems like that would have been a better deal. unfortunately, the politics are to get republicans to vote for this deal, john boehner had to be able to say that it reduced the deficit. >> but it's not transformational, ken ownering the deficit, is it? it's not transformational on the big structural problems, is it? >> no. they didn't do anything about tax reform, entitlement reform, building infrastructure, creating long-term changes. this is a small deal over the small common ground. >> it's good at least things keep moving. at least we're not going to shut down the government. we're not going to retract from

where the economy is going, but it's certainly much more like a truce on the western front, not, you know, big deal. >> here's my crystal ball. i look at my crystal ball, guys, and i see next year home prices continue to improve. i see the unemployment rate gets out of the 7% handle and down into the 6%'s, right? i think europe starts to heal a little bit, and i see no government shutdown, ryan? really, really are we going to put those battles behind snus. >> i agree the economy improving, the long-term deficit or the short-term deficit means less governing by -- from crisis to crisis and a little more reality-based government like we saw this week. >> healing? >> yeah. it is healing. there are a lot of things i would like to see, particularly we've turned to now stability, and now we have to do something about the long run for the future, and it's very paralyzed. the private sector is healing. >> all right. ken, nice to see both of you this weekend. thank you. president obama is calling on the sixiest man alive to push

obamacare. maroon 5's adam levine who won the honest of sexiest man alive, in case you live under a rock, is one of several celebrities taking part in the tell a friend get covered campaign. they'll use their star power to boost enrollment on social media. give me 60 seconds on the clock. it's money time. >> taxpayers are now out of the car business. the government sold the last of its stake in general motors widdling a nearly $50 billion bailout down to a $10 billion loss. the sale closes the books on the 2009 auto bailout. buy a house, kill a tree. the average mortgage application now 500 pages long. five-times longer than just a few years ago. blame it on tougher disclosure requirements after the housing crash. want some stock with that movie popcorn? amc theaters is going public. some loyal customers will get a chance to buy shares at the same

price big investors do. turns out most americans are not ready for cell phones on airplanes. as u.s. regulators debate changing the law, a new poll finds 59% would prefer to keep cell phones silenced. health conscious consumers are ditching their diet drinks. spending on diet colas fell more than 7% in november compared with a year ago. up next, economic inequality is about much more than low wages. pop quiz, in which of these countries do citizens have the worst chance of climbing higher on the economic ladder than their parents did? the u.s., japan, germany, or australia? the answer next. [ male announcer ] if you stash tissues like a squirrel stashes nuts, you may be muddling through allergies. try zyrtec® liquid gels. nothing starts working faster than zyrtec® at relieving your allergy symptoms for 24 hours. zyrtec®. love the air.

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was the american dream a

myth? work as hard as you want, but there's a good chance you won't climb higher on the economic ladder than your parents did. it's easier to move up in most other developed countries -- japan, germany, australia, and all of the scandinavian nations. only united kingdom and -- have more mobility among developed nations. if you are employed and have a little savings, you are not under water in your house, things are getting better. even as the economy shows signs of strength, millions of americans are out of work. they're feeding their families with an unemployment check. those benefits expire at the end of the month. that's going to be a big deal for the 1.3 million people who are living on these emergency jobless benefits. host of "american public media's market place" is here with us this morning. nice to see you. s >> nice to see you. >> recent data showing things are getting better. >> yeah. >> at the same time we're talking about the expiration of these benefits, this 1.3 million.

look at the jobs. the signs of strength in the economy are clearly there, but then let's look at who is winning here. right? this low wage debate. at the same time you got people saying the economy is getting better, but most people don't feel it. you know, fast food workers say it's not them. you look at corporate profits. doing fantastic. worker pay moving sideways. what's happening here? >> here's the thing. actually if worker pay was moving sideways, we would be better off because real wages now, when you take inflation into consideration, are actually declining. you're not making any money if you are working in low wage jobs. you're not. even if there's not a lot of the inflation in this economy. real wages have declined over the years. what's going on? i don't know. we're stuck in a slow recession. you saw the chart. gdp growth at 3.6%. that's great, but it's going to be revised down, as it always is. we're adding jobs, but too slowly. gdp is growing too slowly. we're stuck. >> we've reset our expectations. we really have. >> that's exactly right. >> we really have. >> bar is in a different place, and i think everybody needs to get their mind around that. >> one of the things that's so frst rating about it when you talk about extending the

unemployment benefits, this is money that goes right into the economy, unemployment benefits, but you could really make -- >> we should explain why that is. >> low income people are more likely to spend that extra dollar, and that's what's going in this debate in washington as they decide not to include these benefits. >> yet, there is this fundamental idea you could think after six months. come on, we cannot be playing someone not to work. there's a fundamental american feeling that this can't go on forever, but then this economic argument that it can go on more, and that wouldn't be a bad thing. >> because this is the worst it's been in 80 years in this country, right? yes, we can't keep paying people not to work. can we pay people not to eat? as you said, people are paying for food with these unemployment benefits. that's what's really going on here. the reason it's not in the budget deal that was just taken care of in washington is because it costs $20 billion. you can see the economic argument, right? it's one of those poor issues between the parties. it's a really big problem. >> i want to show you one more thing. huge gains for stocks, and your listeners are talking about this. 52% have americans own stocks, but 10% of americans own 80% of

stocks. this is why stock markets don't influence the gee bait over low wages in the america. >> the dow jones is not the economy. we need to separate those two things. what happens when the stock market rises? those people who are in the markets, even people on the lower end of the income spectrum, right, people who do have pensions and might have some savings and if they do, then it's a mutual funds, and the mutual funds are in the stock market. everybody begins to feel better, but still, it's not enough. it's -- that's not reality. that's not economic reality. >> american public media's "marketplace." >> you don't get a do-over with your child's education, and the latest international rankings show american students are slipping by one of america's leading education stories that says test results, they don't matter. next. [ male announcer ] at his current pace, bob will retire when he's 153, which would be fine if bob were a vampire. but he's not. ♪ he's an architect with two kids and a mortgage. luckily, he found someone

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are u.s. students prepared for the jobs of the future? let's examine the evidence. first, put on your rose-colored glasses for a moment for the optimistic view. the jobs of the future require college degrees, and americans have them. 42% of americans between the aejz of 25 and 64 do have a college degree. that makes the u.s. the fifth most educated in the world behind russia, canada, israel, and japan. now, broken glasses. what's going wrong? the rankings, these global rankings measure the skills of 15-year-old students around the world. america's 15-year-olds are under-performing. they are average in reading. 24th out of 65 in advanced countries and cities. 28th in city science and below average in math. 36th place. america's rankings fell in all three of those subjects from three years earlier. diane ravage is one of the leading education historians in america. she's a professor at new york university, and she's the aught over of a new book "reign of error."

the hoax of the privatization movement and the danger to america's public schools. she says u.s. students were never at the top of the class. >> there have been these international tests now for 50 years, and when the first one was given, we came in dead last, and in the intervening 50 years, we came out first economically, so the scores don't predict anything about your economy. what they really show is how much tests -- how much you get kids drilled in testing, and that's why the very test centric nations in the far east and east asia have the highest scores because they have a test, test, test culture. snoo maybe you disagree that there's a crisis in public school education. >> i do. there is not a crisis. our public schools are doing an incredible job considering that almost 25% of the kids in this country live in dire poverty. >> this is a poverty story, not a testing story? >> absolutely. if we look at child poverty, we're number one in the -- in amongst all the advanced nations. we have the highest level of child poverty. if you look at the scores, the

low scores are the scores of the kids in poverty. if we really wanted to raise test scores, we wouldn't be testing more and more and more. we would be raising up the kids who are in poverty. >> i think most agree. i certainly think that most important factor for a student to succeed is the quality of the teacher at the front of that room. that person is so important. >> there's something even more important. >> what? >> it's their home life. study after study has shown teachers are important. the most important element inside school, but what happens outside school is even more important. whether the children come to school healthy or whether they come to school at all, whether they attend regularly. that accounts for more, way more than the quality of the teacher. i think that's important too. >> how do we support that teacher? >> well, to begin with the burnout rate is close to 50% within five years. part of that is because we have exceptionally low standards for allowing people to teach. there are many states where you can teach with an on-line degree. >> should we raise those standards? >> absolutely. we should have much higher standards. people should have a professional preparation before they become teachers, and once

they're teachers, they should be supported. this is what happens in all of the countries who we look at and say this is a great school system, whether it's in asia or in europe. they're supporting their teachers. they're not firing their teachers. they're not judging them by test scores or children. >> coming up, a year ago a $20 billion private equity firm pledged to get out of the gun business. now some newtown parents are frustrated. >> i hope they would just hold their promise and not let the victims of sandy hook down. >> why hasn't the company that made the weapon used at newtown been sold, as was the promise? that's next. e announcer ] if you can clear a crowd but not your nasal congestion, you may be muddling through allergies. try zyrtec-d®. powerful relief of nasal congestion and other allergy symptoms -- all in one pill. zyrtec-d®. at the pharmacy counter.

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gunned down in newtown, connecticut. since that tragedy, fear of tougher gun laws has led to a run on guns. smith & wesson shares are up more than 40% this year. fellow gunmaker stun brewinger, those shares on the stock market up more than 60%. based on how well gunmakers are doing it would be hard to believe the biggest gunmaker in the country is having trouble to find a buyer. poppy harlow joins us now. a year ago a $20 billion private equity company said it's getting out of the gun business. it was an emotional moment where you heard a company saying that it wanted to get out of that business. bring us up-to-date. >> a company that is very private. i mean, you never hear publicly from these private equity firms. their goal is the pursuit of profits. when you hear a company come out and say they are going to sell a highly profitable business, well, something has changed, but one year later that sale hasn't been made, and we wanted to know why. >> i'm here today to try to

remind them of the promise they made and that they're letting my son, jesse, down. >> neil heslan wants answers from one of new york's biggest private equity firms. one year ago his son, jesse, was murdered at sandy hook elementary. heslan says they haven't yet kept its promise. >> if it was something they weren't going to honor or stand behind, it shouldn't have been made. >> it owns freedom group, the country's largest gunmaker. its brands include bushmaster, which manufactured the weapon used in the massacre in newtown. just days after the shooting they pledged to sell freedom group, calling the tragedy a water shed event, but one year later there is been no sale. >> if someone else buys freedom group, does that change anything? >> i don't think it's going to change the gun violence issue. i can't see that it would change

the operation of the freedom group. >> then why do you want to see a sale? >> because it's what -- i just want to see them carry through with what their pledge. >> reporter: at the same time cerberus has a responsibility to investors to not sell at a fire sale price. ramel covers the gun industry on wall street. >> why do you think cerberus hasn't sold freedom group yet? >> i think cerberus is facing a difficulty in finding buyers willing to take on the regulatory risk associated with the transaction. over the next three years the obama administration could certainly pursue further gun control legislation. >> reporter: in a statement to c cnn ceerus says we cannot comprehend the losses suffered by the families and friends of those killed by the unthinkable crimes committed that day. >> a source familiar with the situation says the national conversation on guns has complicated the planned sale of

freedom group. there were a number of interested parties, but by early fall those leads had fallen away. today we're told there is no interested buyer on the table, leaving cerberus exploring alternatives. >> reporter: one possibility, bring in others to take a stake in freedom group and then buy out investors who want to get out of the firearms maker. they would be walking away from a very profitable business. freedom group sales are expected to top $1.25 billion this year, up nearly 40% from a year ago. >> the entire firearms industry has seen record sales and profitability this we're in the wake of the newtown shootings. >> reporter: despite those profits, several public pension funds have dropped their shares in gun companies. that includes the california state teachers retirement system, which turned out to be an investor in bushmaster. >> i was devastated when we realized that we had this investment in our portfolio. >> reporter: but one year later calstrs still has the same $600

million invested in cerberus funds that hold freedom group. >> we believe they've made good faith efforts to try and sell the company, but it's been a very tough year. we're unrelenting in our view that they should sell this company, so we'll keep the pressure on them. we'll keep engaging them. we're very long-term investors, and we don't go away. >> reporter: neil heslan says he won't go away either, but he will keep fighting in memory of his son. >> he was a character. he just loved life to the fullest. >> well, analysts say freedom group is valued at more than $1 billion. that makes the field of possible buyers pretty narrow. even smith & wesson would likely have to take on debt to make that deal happen. as for neil heslan, because this is very personal to him, he says, you know, i understand the business of it. i just want answers. i want them to come out and talk to me and answer my questions about why this hasn't happened yet. >> we'll keep following it. i would like to say that the families have asked that people commit random acts of kindness,

so maybe that's -- feeling so impotent about the money behind the gun industry, i guess maybe let's lead with the message of the random acts of kindness. thank you very much, poppy harlow. >> you got it. thank you for watching "your money." have a great weekend, everybody. hello. welcome to the cnn nudz room. i'm martin savidge in for frederica wit fieldfield. >> i'm anna cabrera live from kol yol the community here trying to cope with another school shooting. police here trying to figure out what motivated an 18-year-old student to take a gun into arap hoe high school behind me and open fire in the hallway.