not enough jobs. let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm chris matthews. in washington leading off tonight, the numbers game, what are we to make of the latest jobs number. the economy added 115,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate dropped another tenth of a point to 8.1%. "the new york times" columnist and nobel peace prize winner paul krugman says that things would be better if the

republicans got out of the way. he joins us. and dirty angry money. governor david switser does not like money and politics, and he is hoping to have a prairie fire out west. he will join us here. and plus, why do the gay republicans want to be in a political party that won't defend them? isn't that a fundamental question? if people don't like it, why are you there? we will ask congressman foley. and the secret service agent who covered jackie kennedy, clint hill, who is a great man will join us to tell us what he saw back in november of 1963. and let me finish tonight with overdue praise for the secret service. we begin with today's jobs report. paul krugman is a columnist for the "new york times" and author of the book "end this depression now" and john heilemann is an editor for "new york" magazine. and today, the jobs report was a mixed job report, and added to the payrolls were 115,000 jobs

and the rate dropped to 8.1%. which is the lowest rate since president obama took office, but economic forecasters were predicting bigger growth this month, and they saw the smallest gains. but in the overall picture, consistent jobs growth for some time now, and looking at the chart, and the recession started under the previous president, of course, w. as shown in the red has seen job gains for the past two years and the obama years are in blue. you can see the uptick there month by month. paul krugman, you are the ideal and you speak for what people would like to see as policy in the country and i will give you a minute or so and then john to respond to the political possibility of that. if you were in charge, there was no right wing opposition and no middle of the road opposition, but you as an economist saying what should be fiscal policy, and what kind of policy would you have run since coming to office being president obama, what would you have done if he could have done anything? >> well a lot more, stimulus,

and they hate the word now, but the stimulus should have been bigger and more sustained and above all, there should have been a continuing program of aid to state and local governments so they wouldn't be forced to cut their spending and forced to cut employment. we passed a landmark as of the latest jobs report. private sector employment is back to what it was when barack obama was sworn in as president, but the public sector has been falling such as schoolteachers, which is the biggest drag on the economy and wrong hitted. so we are not talking about stimulus, but talk about why are we doing the austerity that is preventing the full-fledged recovery. so if i could have waved the wand or been dictator for a day, i'd say let's have an adequate, sustained program to keep government spending up, keep people employed until the private sector is ready again. there's other stuff to talk about.

we should have had more housing mortgage relief and more federal policy from the federal reserve, but this is the time for the government to spend and not the time to be cutting back. if we could have done that and you can look at the numbers right now and say, if we had done that unemployment would be under 7% right now and in a much better situation and well on the way to being out of this whole thing. >> okay. that is if we had one party rule, john heilemann, but we don't. we have two parties vying for the party and checking each other for doing what they believe. and why not -- lay it out -- why is that not politically possible what mr. krugman said would have been ideal policy and much more expansionary fiscal policy and more aid to the state and local counties? >> well, chris, i don't think it's just that we have a two-party system. there are a fair number of conservative democrats in the house and the senate that would have quailed had barack obama had pushed for a bigger stimulus than he did. it is still an open question given the approval rating that he had coming into the office at

almost 70% and maybe above 70% whether he could have done something bigger. the political advisers thought that you could not get near the trillion dollar number although some economists that we know working for him and advocating for that number, and a political calculation was made and very hard to pass that bill at $800 billion which barely passed as you remember, and certainly it's the case that after that, there's been no appetite for that kind of expansion in fiscal policy. the republicans who are certainly steadfast against it, but a lot of to democrats who are not seeing an immediate payoff in terms of the jobs numbers and the economic picture are afraid to go that way. one of the biggest mistakes that barack obama made is to not set the expectations low at the very beginning of the administration and not talk about how long it would take to get out of the trough by raising expectations that the first stimulus would solve the problem, he created a problem down the line when it did not work more quickly. >> here is this morning, mr. romney and i want you to respond to mr. romney doing the political knee-jerk, and

relished he had a good night's sleep and up early and loaded for bear and here he is enjoying the bad numbers. let's watch. >> we should be seeing the numbers in the 500,000 jobs created per month. this is way, way off in what should happen in a normal recovery. it is a terrible and disappointing report this morning. clearly the american people are wondering why this recovery is not happening faster, and why it is taking years and years for the recovery to occur. >> there you go. respond to that. >> well, the last time we had a president who presided over 500,000 a month job numbers was a president by the name of bill clinton. this recovery is better than the recovery that george w. bush watched over, and since mr. romney wants to recapitulate bush policies, this is terrible. he is completely right that this is not what we wanted to see, but is romney proposing anything that would not make it worse? it is important to take a look

not just at the united states, but overseas, because the republican prescription is for big government spending cuts, and they are claiming that will create lots of jobs. we are getting those in europe. take a look at ireland. take a look at spain where they are getting exactly what the republicans say we should do, and those are catastrophes, right? >> well, the catastrophes, you did not mention the netherlands and the problem in europe rebelled against the slow-growth the republicans layer it up saying we will cut the spending and then want it both ways and cut the programs that affect the poor people, and the british labor party guy said to me over there, and said the right wingers and guys like romney believe that the best way to get poor people to work is to cut them and the best way for rich people to work hard ser to give them harder and why to be better for the rich people, but if you screw the poor people, they will be whipped into action somehow. >> right.

if you look for a logical explanation, you won't find it, but what you will ask is who are the masters or whose interests are the party serving and it is clear that the republican party given a choice between what actually makes sense economically and redistributes income from the poor to the rich, reverse robinhood, you know what they will choose. so it is frustrating for somebody in my position, but it is more frustrating for the 3.9 million people out of work for more than a year, but we have had an acid test of economic doctrines and look at what has happened in europe and the austerity problems have worked and look at the south korea who have had effective stimulus programs. we have had an acid test, and the keynesian doctrine has been overwhelmingly confirmed by experience. and if we end the depression now, and end it fast in 18

months if we did the right thing but nobody believes it. >> but what about john heilemann's question, how do you sell the deficit, and get to 1.6 or 1.9 and the american people will see two to one spending over revenues a and this is world war ii without the rationing, without the bond sales. can you sustain it politically? >> the people tend to think about the next news cycle and not how it plays out. the best political strategy is the one that delivers the best result. and in terms of the short cycle last fall, obama made a bid for more economic support which wasn't enacted and didn't expect it, but he went birg than people expect and bolder and i was happy and surprised it was good, but apparently the political team were saying the numbers will scare people, but turns out that it was not that

way at all and the public welcomed the prospect that obama was trying to do something. he needs to stand up for what he thinks is right. he needs to say, this is the right thing to do. and then he has to do a truman and say, this is the do-nothing congress standing in the way of giving you people jobs. >> the name of the book is "end this depression now." paul krugman, everybody reads you as the ideal, and the question is how close can we get to the ideal. and john heilemann, i wish that we had more time for you tonight and we do miss you and maybe one of the best guests and maybe one of the two or three favorite guests here, and i won't say who the other ones are. and dirty angry money, and citizens united open the floodga floodgates and david switser does not like it. and it is dirty and angry money and he is determined to get corporate money banned from politics. let's see how he's going to do it. governor switzer from montana, up next. this is "hardball." ♪ patching your board with duct tape ♪ ♪ so hit free-credit-score-dot-com ♪ ♪ find out what credit's about ♪ ♪ or else you could be headed for a credit wipeout ♪

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welcome back to "hardball."

as part of the series "dirty angry money" we are looking at the influence of the super pacs and the money they have on our electoral system. the center of opposition to a case seems to be the state of montana. in december its supreme court upheld a 1912 law out there. that is essentially a direct defiance of the supreme court citizens united decision. the montana law bars corporate spending in elections. well, yesterday brian sweitzer of montana and his republican lieutenant governor threw their support behind an initiative that would make it state policy to ban corporate money in politics. he said companies bribing their way into government has got to stop. welcome. tell us how you, along with your

republican lieutenant governor have the power to challenge this new supreme court ruling that has dirtied up politics? >> we have the power because we're citizens of the united states of america. because in montana we have initiative 166, stand with montanaens. we're simply saying corpses are not people. corpse corporations shouldn't be allowed to bribe their way into our state capital or washington, d.c. there's something perverse about this. in 17977, he said the corrupt foreign americans act -- we have a m a monopoly on bribery? corporations spend money in elections to get something. they get something which means lower taxes or less regulation. you can't describe it any other way. me as a shareholder, i don't dislike corporations but if i were to ask my corporate ceo why

were we giving money in that last election? he'd have to say because we want to get something. >> by the way, i thought this through this afternoon with our producers. if this is really to make more money for people, in other words, get the right politicians in, you might as well get a tax deduction for it. if it's in your business interest to buy a politician, that's just the cost the doing business. perhaps that's carrying it to absurdity. we've been looking at numbers. something to help you make your case, perhaps, something like 46 people/organizations are providing the lion's share of this money. it's a few people, the koch brothers, adelson.

it's like a horror story when 17 families ran the country. it's getting back to that. >> it's even worse than that. i'm not anti-corporation. i'm a shareholder like a lot of american is. if you own a family corporation, you might say we might want to get involved in politics, too. we have an extra $5,000 or $10,000. you are a biking. if you compare yourself to big pharma, military defense contractors, you can't catch up. it's a couple of dozens multinational corporations that will decide our elections. by the way, these multinational corporations are also owned by foreign nationals. are we saying if you were a resident of germany or japan or iran that now you get to have a role in american elections? come on. nobody's accepting that. >> let me ask about how you're going to do this. it seems to me we're looking

down the road to probably the worst amount of spending in american tlis, on both sides. you have a negative advertisement that has no signature on it in many cases. it's totally negative in almost every dace. the democrats will trash romney. terrible things they say. nobody wants to vote. my question is, you have a 1912 law. what do you do now? is roberts thinking he may have made a mistake? i've heard this rumor they're embarrassed by this series of decisions that's added up to this mayhem. >> they ought to be embarrassed by this. on the ballot in montana, the ballot says corporations can't bribe these elections. this ballot will direct our

congressional delegation to support a constitutional amendment that simply says the corporations are not people and that they cannot bribe politicians. montana maybe has to go first again. we went first in 2012. we understand in montana when corporations do when they own an entire state. if we can get that prairie fire started in montana when people hear about this in other states, they will demand from their congressional members to pass a constitutional amendment to make our elections clean again. otherwise foreigners by investing in american corporations will be involved in our elections. corporations will be able to bribe members of congress, to get whatever tax and regulatory treatment they want. this is not the american way. this is not what made this country great.

we want americans to stand up. we'll start right here in montana, thank you very much. >> it's think it's amazing the point you've made. the fact that we can go to jail for bribing mexican officials but you can do it here, under the law. thanks, bryan schwartzer. does newt gingrich still think mitt romney is a liar? that was the word again and again. ox steakhouse in kansasy where we switched their steaks with walmart's choice premium steak. ♪ this is really good. like what i grew up with. only one out of five steaks is good enough to be called walmart choice premium beef. can i let you in on a secret? you're eating a walmart steak. no kidding. noooo! i promise. it's very tender. you could almost cut it with a fork. it is delicious! we need to start buying those at walmart. walmart usda choice premium steaks. try it. tell us what you think about it on facebook. it's 100% guaranteed.

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back to "hardball." now for the side show. now that newt gingrich is preparing himself for the torture of endorsing mitt romney, people are waiting to see if he'll take back some of his romney bashing from the primary season. let's take a look at one of those zingers from just a few

months back and how newt danced around it in just an interview last night. >> i have to ask you, are you calling mitt romney a liar? >> yes. >> you still believe mitt romney is a liar? >> i still believe the romney campaign said things that weren't train. >> forget about the campaign. is mitt romney a liar. >> the govern said things that at times weren't true. >> your answer is yes? >> i also believe compared to barack obama i would trust mitt romney 100 times over. >> wow. for newt gingrich, lying is a matter of degree. actually he said all that. have you forgotten the michele bachmann campaign? here's a reminder. >> what people recognize is that there's a fear the united states is in an unstoppable decline. they see the rise of china, and the soviet union. >> that old bug-a-boy about

forgetting the cold war in the soviet union that ceased to exist over 20 years ago. sheer she is reminiscing with david brody early this week. >> you ran an impeccable campaign. >> thank you. we were almost mistake-free. i apologized and we move beyond. >> bachmann said her and john wayne both came from waterloo. not realing that john wayne was john wayne gacy. there's a bear in the woods. for some people the bear is easy to see. others don't see it at all. some people say the bear is tame.

others say it's vicious and dangerous. since no one can really be sure who's right, isn't it smart to be as strong as the bear, if there is a bear? >> powerful ad. last month, vermont's democratic governor discovered there were bears in the woods as well. four of them in fact. peter shumlin was chased by one of the bears he found in his backyard. his republican challenger couldn't resist a reagan three-back. >> there's a bear in the woods. for most people in vermont, the bear is easy to see. why can't governor shumlin see any of the them?

isn't it smart to look out for bears since there are bears? >> i think the reagan one was better. sorry. that's "hardball" for you. coming up next, "your business" with j.j. ramberg. ♪ now i'm a geologist at chevron, and i get to help science teachers. it has four servo motors and a wireless microcontroller. over the last three years we've put nearly 100 million dollars into american education. that's thousands of kids learning to love science. ♪ isn't that cool? and that's pretty cool. ♪ [ son ] mom, computer's broke! where's i.t. mom? she quit. [ male announcer ] even with technology -- it's all you. that's why you've got us. get up to $200 dollars off select computers. staples that was easy. yeah, but the feeling wasn't always mutual. i should be arrested for crimes against potted plant-kind.

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