>> the president went on to say the gas prices are going back up becausdemand is back up. gornor romney says prices are spiking because of the president's green energy push. i'm david asman, welcome to forbes on fox. >> full house today. mike, is the president right? >> no, he's absolutely wrong. he showed how clueless he was about our energy policy. blaminghe stronger economy on higher gasoline prices misses the point of the reagan recovery where the economy boomed and gasone prices fell and the clinton recovery where gas prices fell. the president blocked the pipeline from canadahich is cost us a tremendous amount of jobs. he confiscate taxpayer dollars. >> rick unger a lot of

nservative critics of romney are concerned we didn't hear aboutolyndra. >> it's interesting because mike de compeing arguments. the problem is absolutely none of them have anything to do with the price of gasoline. look, you can argue if you like that the president's energy policies could have an impact down the road. i would tell you you're wrong but that's an argument we can have. e reality is that we see production up. there's no disputing it. you can give president bush credit if you like. none of that impacts on the current price of gasoline. talk to me in four years. if you don't lke the prices, that would be theime to say if you hadn't focused on green energy, maybe. >> the fact is president obama is taking credited for the fact we're puing more oil even thougheople say he doesn't deserve t on federal lands oil production is down. >> it's do on federal lands. production is up in the private sector and -- the argument has

been made the market sets prices. yes, the markets set prices but they tend to forget the middle east op cartel controls 40% of the oil supply. the president needs to focus on supply issues and during the great recession, gas was still $3 and $4 gallon. until grge w. bush lifted the moratorium on drilling inhe gulf, gas plunged by 30 cents and the -- now president obama said i agree with that. he said it is about supply. >> bill, is gas going up because of the president's policies or not? >> maybe because of the president's policies but the real question is is it because of his green policies. focus on one cause of driver anguish. the ethanol mandate. they're black jobs.

ethanol destroys the environment. i'm looking for a president candidate who oppose the boon doogal. >> john, i know rick disputes this and the president disputes this b according to a totally nonpartisan group, u.s. ergy information administration, total oil, gas and coal production in public areas plunged from 18 quad drillen btu -- excuse me, 21 billion btu to 18. that's a big drop, a 15% drop. we've seen less oil, coal, and gas production on public lands. >> maybe so but i would also say that's irrelevant. the problem with this discussion is we're talking about a national energy policy. we don't have national shoe policy or national compur policy or national policy for breakfast cereal but we get all three with ease. we're awash in oil arod the

world. oil is expensive because the doll is cheap. even if every oil producer in the world embargoed us, let's get out of national policy and let markets work. >> if we let mkets workill gas prices comeown? >> the problem is we're dependented onhe middle east foril. and president obama is a president of the united states, not the the of oc. in that case, he doesn't have much control over oil prices. and i have to agree with rick on this one. his green policy -- >> you happily agree with rick. so uncomfortable. his green policies may affect oil five or ten yearsrom now but right now, they're not. it's supply and demand ad gas prices go up and down acrdingly. we should reduce or depend dense on the middle east. >> it's not only the price.

victoria is on the mark, it's about foreign oil. in north dakota, huge deposits of gas and oil they're finding, you see the way we' able to get oil from shale through production mhods we didn't know existed 20 years ago, we could become energy sufficient. >> more from canada than any other country and they're not an enemy of hours. there is a huge difference between what president obama is doingnd what governor romney proposes. president obama wants to dictate energy picy fr the white house, which he's been a huge failure at doing. mney wants to putontrol back into the private marketplace and that's where it belongs. >> rick? >> it would be a more teresting to discussion t talk about th national breakfast cereal. >> we are not. >> i like that. >> as moderator, we're not going talk aboutreakfast scroll. >> lk, it is what its and i

don't know why we have to change the message. discussing reality is not satisfying in an election year to certain sides. the reality is the green policy of the obama adminisation, maybe you like it, maybe you don't. i happen to think it's necessary but it's -- >> it's not working. >> it's too early to know if it's working. >> hold on. you want reality? here's reality. the president spent $4 billion on 36 wind farms. the government claimed to have 7,200 jobs that resulted from this. the "wall street journal" went to the wind farms and found 300 farms. the governme is overstating the amount of jobs. >> wait, wait. we're talking about -- we've been trying een energy since before the carter administration and it's not delivering the energy power this cuntry needs to live and trive and basically

grow. what we're talking about is again and again, it's supply issues. the fact is when we signal to the markets that we're going to increase oil supply time and again, you see gasone prices dropping. that's the issue. >> yeah, supply andend. thank you, gang. >> i have a lot of similar political freedoms that we started discussing. he has a lot of great ideas. it was reallyood. >> lindsay's right. neil has great ideas when it comes to covering politics. it's not about red or blue with neil, 's about green. you can see this monday on "fox business," neil's covering the final presidential debate from boca raton, florida, 8:00 p.m. eastern to midnight. next, from the record high gas prices we talked about to sticker shock at the supermarket. sure feels like inflation, doesn't it? but did the government just deny

we have any inflation problem at all in america? we report, you decide. when we .

>> you know better thannybody. consumer prices seeing the biggest two month jump in four years. prices on just about everything going up but the government says inflation is so tame, it's actually giving seniors one of the smallest increases to their social security checks since the automatic hikes started in 175.

you say this is proof washington is denying we have an inplaying problem. >> the irony is 1975 is when the government started touting inflation th knocks outood and energy prices though the government has loads of inflation measures but trumpetedded this one. food costs across the country were rising at te highest rate since 1984. the average americans are feeling it when median household north carolina -- income is down and savings is nominal. >> the government adds everything, the apple computers and everything and some prices coming down and it equals out to small inflation but gasoline is up 93%, peanut butter up 36%, college textbooks up 24%. hospital services up 2, uncooked ground beef up 18%. i mean these things add up.

these are things we can't avoid buying. >> sure. you can't avoid buying those and meanwhile we're not seeing inflation in was. you're talking about all these puts and we're trying to assess how the average household spends money. the answer is in some sectors like food, we are seeing rising prices. is it inflation? complexity in commodities? we'll see it erode, especially food, because of the slowdown in europe and china. i'm not concerned about inflation now. you have some smartconomists saying we could be looking at deflation. it's n clear we have solid inflation. >> it's not complicated to a lot of people who look at things -- t just food, hospital services up 25%, airfare 16, auto insurance up 16%, prescription drugs up about 15 -- it feels like inflation to me. >> yeah.

it's not complicateat all. what is complicated is cpi, an artificial number you can make low or high. >> consumer price index. >> consumer price index. if we measured cpi the way we d in the 70s we would have high inflation. they used to measure the dollar in terms of gold. the dollar has faln, 250th of an ounce in 2001. that is inflation, it' not if, it is now. >> shepard: what. >> garbage in, garbage out. >> they're n playing with the stats. since the 70s we've used this index. you can complain about the index but i don't think you can make a case there's a government conspiracy unless you're jack welch. 's not conspiracy, it is what it is. >> don't beat up on jack.

>> i will in a heartbeat. the -- look, there are prices that are going up. prices going down. what i would love to do, rather than focus on it, take a look at the impact that the drought had on foodrices and maybe even look at what might be behind that. >> you can say that, we're not excluding it but stick to the is subject. some prices have nothing to do with the drought at all. you add it up and it adds up to inflation. >> i go by the wife budget index. th budget for shopping in my household is going up every single weeso we can do the same amount of food shopping. i would imagine that i'm probably not tt different from many other families in the country where incomes are falling or staying the same and the cost of buyingroceries -- you're right, in my house, we n'tive without appart burt. that's happening across the

country. >> there are other things like government services, going way up. >> buses, subways, tolls,xtra tas. there is inflation. it does take money out of people's pockets. >> the government is not manipulating the data. it doesn't need to. seniors, y're not key to peanut butter and medicine. throin the kitchen sink and ipad. you seniors are getoo much ou of your social security benefits. >>ll right. that's got to be the last word. a new buyout plan of public workers is ramping up. is it going to bring the burden on taxpayers down? first, forget the fiscal cliff. why the healthcare law might have you putting the cork back into that bubbly this new year. that's coming upt.

>> the fiscal cliff, it's not only thing ready to whack americans come january 1st. lots of faxes and -- taxes and fees will smack us as well. you say this could hold back a full recovery. how 0 so? there. >> these taxes are real, scheduled to go in effect after the election. they really hit seniors mos you talk about who is dependent on medical devices, the tax on those companies wi go up and

theyass that along to consumers. you're going tsee increased prices in medical devices. niors are dependent on medical devices. we're putting a -- changing how much you can take- dedt from taxes on medical expenses. you'll be able to dedu less. >> flexible spending accounts. i has to do with flexible spending and tax deductions. they get hit too. these areeal sneaky taxes that we don't need to see right now. certainly not in this srt of fragile stage of semi recovery. >> rick, i talked to small business people a guy who owns 40 appleby's has three projects on hold because he's not going to be able to pay for full-time employees. it's cutting back on the ability to expand business. >> i'm not sure owning 40

applebys counts as a small business. >> a lot of small business people say it prevent them from hiring and spending. >> small business people express concern but if you push and ask them the right questions, you find they still don't understand the law. look, i have to -- >> it's hard to understand. >> i understand it. i very muc disagree with victoria. first of all if you want to take the tax on medical equipment, it's not hitting seniors, you mit complain it's hitting you because mecare is going to pick up the bill for most of those equipment costs. .9% of medicare tax on people rning more than $250,000, you know what? our economy has survived much more. >> small business owners -- yes, 're not hiri because of health reform. nine out of ten econists with the national business economist

survey says health reform is slowing and hiring is swing down in the country. mandate tax is big, why hire other worker if you have to pay a mandate tax, face.r.s. probes and pay accounting fees which crowd out the capital needed to create jobs. >> now that we admit it is a tax, that's one of the biggest things hurting small businesses right now. >> i thin all the knee jerk tax haters on this panel can think about something fundamental about government finance. if te government wrecks the econy by being b, it doesn't matter where i pays with a tax hike or your credit card. >> the fact is it matters a lot to small businesses, my of whom are up at night trying to think how to pay for it. >> 2.3% tax on medical device makers is a jobs killer. ettes one of our highest paying industries and many companies are puttingff openin new

plants and hiring more people. the wages paid in this industry are about 15% higher than the average wages in the country and it's killing the r & d and it's very bad for the economy. >> not only bad for the economy but bad for people woredbout invasionsrom that particular industry. they're going to have to pay for the new tax. >> well, yeah. what we'll see is that those jobs will go overseas. if you're interested in a medical device company, maybe the united states isn't the best place to do it. i agree. the jobsssue is real. it's just aax on hiring. >> quick last word, rick. >> this is the kind you have stuff that gets people confused. no it's not going to send jobs overseas. tax is on sales taking place here. we need to understand this law better. >> hold up that cup that you've got in front. prouto be a bleeding heart liberal. >> disappointing profits this earning season by google but yum

and -- find out which other

we're back with a stocks ready to get a pop from strong profit report. emack eco labs. >> they're selling like gang busters wa to make oil, food services, healthcare, water, cleaner and safer. stock is up, earnings power is behind this one. >> bill, do you like it? >> it has a clean balance sheet

but i think 30 times earnings is a lot for dishwasher detergent industry. >> chart industries is full of gas. >> they make high pressure tanks and the asian energy market is hot. >> it's a momentum stock, buy it on the dip. >> that's it for forbes on fox. have a wonderful weekend. keep it right here, with continue with cashing in. >> saving taxpayers by making governnt workers an offer they can'tefries. one state looking to buy out public employees if they retire early. the majority of states drowning in pension debt, is this how to cut cost and save taxpayer money? i'm tracy byrnes, welme to cashing in. r crew this week, wayne rogers, jonathan hoenig and melissa, also christianorsy.