but as we mentioned earlier in the program it's not sustainable because you're not going to have you need a lot more user is that you know a multiple of or have a much more and add generation when it comes to revenue is is facebook and i have to find another breakthrough in social networking to really match the expectations people have for this i.p.o. and further down the line i think that they will i mean right now eighty five percent of their revenue comes from advertisements. like you said you know there right now there's four hundred million people who are using facebook through their mobile phones and there's you know there's no ads being shown there and when they eventually you know they're working on it right now but you know people don't want to click on ads on their phones and you can't assume that the revenue stream from mobile phones is going to at all equal what's going on with the desktop computers in the past and at the same time you know most of the growth like you said earlier is coming from these developing nations where there's a lot less revenue coming in even from the ads they display jay what do you think about the business model that facebook has i mean to what do you i think everyone

would agree it's successful to this point but is when we look at public investors by i mean private investors in this company right now how much is it going to change i mean how much is the management going to change and investors obviously want to return on their in their in their own investment i mean how much pressure is likely to put on the management of facebook because they haven't had to face it before. i think google is the appropriate analogy there both companies have dual class share structures where management basically controls the votes and the public market shareholders have relatively limited control now with facebook. just like with google. founders that controlling shareholders. and paper are wealthy. in google's situation there hasn't been a mass exodus of top management even though they don't have to work for

a living. based upon that precedent i don't think there's going to be a dramatic difference with facebook. they certainly want the company to generate a lot of profits to so that when they sell the stock they can sell it at a high price but they don't have to worry all that much. pressure to meet this quarter's earnings tired that basically management is entrenched whether the public market shareholders like it or not ok peter would you think that's going to change because we have facebook made comments made compromises in the past to in favor of the user instead of profit be very open about that do you think that's going to change you think it's going to have to change. i think from this point forward when they do the i.p.o. in may everything changes i think the corporate culture changes you know all the key players are going to be multi-millionaires do they show up to work at the same

time do they work as hard nobody knows you know and they're also going to use a lot of this money that they raise to bring in more people you bring in fresh blood you know that can be good but it's also going to change the corporate culture of what they were working for him up to this point is going to change and we'll see how that plays a going forward but i'm not very optimistic gary what do you think about that i mean if you become a you know a multimillionaire overnight what kind of initiative is it going to be for you to go to work every day or maybe go out on your own and start your own company your own ideas i mean how much of is this a threat to the core corporate culture of facebook after the i.p.o. . well there's no doubt that the incentives for employees will have reduced one of the great attractions to the startup culture is the possibility in the person perspective of one day going i.p.o. and cashing out so at this point in time those employees are in a position whereby they've effectively generated the returns they once hoped when

they join the company and at this point in time it becomes very difficult for the management to keep that talent in place however if we look at the s one we see zuckerberg talk very extensively about the nation that the company and the reason i believe he's promoting that so heavily is he's trying to take attention away from profitability of the company itself and to meet quarterly earnings targets and in the forward here at least i'm going to be very popular with investors that he won't be popular with investors that he's going to behave that way i mean that it's ridiculous ok i mean how can you justify that when other people own the company. well i think that's the challenge in fact corporate governance is a very big issue we saw one of the pension funds come out just this morning and state that they have grave concerns over the fact that he has such an iron fisted

control over this company he's got very very substantial control over the direction in the future and indeed the earnings in the financials one thing to note however is he did send a signal to the market that he has very strong control over the financials he sent a statement by looking at the s. one the net income was one point zero zero zero billion it wasn't you know one million above or below that and i believe that was him sending a signal to the markets that he knows exactly how to grow the financials here both top and bottom line jay if i can go to you it seems to me it cuts both ways because i mean we have a very successful c.e.o. already i mean what he's twenty seven years old i mean i think a lot of you'd best years on the other on the other hand would say leave him alone let him do what he wants look what he's created i mean it cuts both ways in looking at how management will change. i think that's true however the

corporate culture in the us. is traumatically different than in russia. partly the laws are different partly the enforcement of the laws are different but also the corporate culture is a lot different to in terms of executives who loot the company who don't grow shareholder value lose a lot of social prestige. unfortunately that's not true in every country and i think that. is going to be very. loath to not. live up to expectations and best hers are saying hey you know we're counting on you to grow profits to keep this as a financially successful company i don't think he's going to use his voting control

to go off and flights of fancy and say thank you shareholders public market shareholders you gave me some money. and i'm taking it and doing what i want with it you know you've got lots of employees as well that own shares and they care about the stock price they're not going to be happy if the company doesn't achieve financial goals that make public market investors willing to pay a high price you know peter it's very interesting in looking at the. background here he's not motivated by money at all i mean again it kind of cuts both ways doesn't it i mean he's more focused on the idea and money fortunately for him the idea has created a lot of money do you think is this streak is going to continue we should discontinue the way. well peter let's agree point he is proven time and time again

that he's never been about making money ironically that put him on the seventeenth richest person in the earth and you know but he's made it quite clear he's not about making money and i think that people are putting that concept on to him assuming that because now there are you know getting a part of facebook and as a public company that he's going to be trying to do what's in their best interest and he's never said that he would do that he's got about twenty percent of the voting control of the company but with that he's got the you know this preferred a preferred being common stock he's got the ability to put the board members in the ability to basically do whatever he wants now you got to ask yourself this age with this much money and the success he's had is he about making a bunch of people on wall street more money or is keeping this facebook concept as pristine as he has up until this point and i think it's going to be the latter what do you think what is going to be make while wall street even more richer is it going to be about innovation in going to web three point.

i think there's no doubt that innovation is his primary motivator here but with that said he also does have substantial pressures on him that were not there in the past as a private company now with the public company he will be scrutinized to a much greater extent and looking to the future what he's really got to figure out is how to monetize beyond the facebook platform looking to add revenues like google does on multiple other sites and historically they haven't done so well at that but there's no doubt that he's motivated to make facebook success beyond its own platform that's one of the reasons it's really the internet idea it's a user authentication platform right you're only. discussion here we'll see if the market says it likes the i.p.o. or not many thanks to my guests in philadelphia gainesville and in toronto and thanks to our viewers for watching us here already see next time and remember.

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stamps x. inferred tom harmon in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. santorum wins big last night but romney still has the money so is the race any different today or will the best story should say the wealthiest candidate still be the nominee in the end all the reaction to these stories and more with tonight's panel also we've learned time after time that government by gang never works yet that's exactly what lawmakers are resorting to to extend the payroll tax cut so why did these guys keep beating

a dead horse and for that nixon's war on drugs was and continues to be an utter failure so can the united states ever come to its senses and legalize marijuana. you need to know this there are bad nights and there are really bad nights and then there are nights like the one mitt romney had last night three states held caucuses and primaries tuesday night to pick a republican nominee for president clued in colorado missouri and minnesota and guess how many mitt romney won zero in fact it was a clean sweep for this guy rick santorum in missouri where no delegates were at stake santorum got fifty five percent of the vote with romney coming in second at twenty five percent and then in minnesota santorum cleaned up with forty five

percent vote while romney came in third behind ron paul with seventeen percent there was santorum relishing in his victory last night. and i was not just a victory for us but tonight was a victory for the voices of our party conservatives and tea party people who are out there every single day in the vineyards building the conservative movement in this country building the base of the republican party and building a voice for freedom in this land thank you apparently the conservative movement is being built in binion's i did not know about speaking of been years notice the guy standing behind santorum to his right yeah that's foster friess a mutual fund executive and leading contributors to santorum is red white and blue fund corporate super pac and he is like the other millionaires and billionaires who are now spending fortunes giving to romney's and gingrich's super pacs was the real

winner last night called a collection on investments. meanwhile there's one front runner turned loser mitt romney set in colorado where he was expecting to give a victory speech it's great to be in denver tonight a lot of stuff on the ground pretty cold but warm to be in this room and with so many friends here and i want to say thank you to you that the race is too close to call in colorado at this point but i'm pretty confident we'll come in number one and number two and number two it was santorum came out on top in colorado to beating romney forty eight to thirty five percent that's a state that romney won back in two thousand and eight so what does all this mean well it means conservatives can still play around with the idea of nominating someone who isn't a name to mitt romney for at least a few more weeks you know since this whole thing started last year it seems like everyone not named mitt romney has had their chance to be a front runner for michele bachmann to rick perry herman cain to newt gingrich to

rick santorum and now the cycle is coming around for a second time with newt gingrich again after he won south carolina and now rick santorum again after his three wins last night so where in the heck do things go from here we'll get to that in just a moment but in other news coming out of capitol hill it looks like negotiations to extend the payroll tax cut for one hundred sixty million americans have stalled with republicans refusing to raise taxes once again on millionaires and billionaires and in the house republicans yesterday a privilege that legislation to resurrect the keystone x.l. pipeline will discuss where they plan to stick that pipeline and just a moment for a run down on last night's elections plus the latest on capitol hill i want to turn it over to my panel laughlin mark a is an investigative reporter at the heritage foundation center for media and public policy and richard fowler is a democratic star strategist welcome to you both guys thanks for having me so let's

get started so it's santorum won big as we just showed his big thunder foster friess was there behind him we've seen a lot of these guys really have they been at the victory speeches behind the candidates. but santorum is red white and blue fun pales in comparison to romney's restore future pac i think it's the red white and blue fund has spent two million dollars so far whereas restore a future romney spend nine times that over eighteen million dollars so here's what i said the millionaires and billionaires on the republican side they've chosen their person and that's mitt romney and i would be shocked if somehow they lose this race so i mean should i be shocked if romney's not the nominee at the end because about well i think that there's a bit of a declining marginal utility for these super pacs or for any any campaign spending period the underdogs i think tend to gain more from one more political ad or one

more political dollar than the front runners because name recognition is such a huge huge attribute for a candidate but i wanted to to note something that it's a big misconception these days after the citizens united supreme court decision that millionaires and billionaires have a larger influence now than they did before the supreme court decision and that's not just not true because he didn't actually apply to contributions to these third parties and groups from millionaires and billionaires it applied to contributions from corporations unions and nonprofit groups so millionaires and billionaires are free to give now just as they were free to give then their influence over the process hasn't increased in terms of their donations to these groups if they're only didn't specifically say we're here to help millionaires and billionaires but what it did was there was a limit of twenty five hundred dollars on what an individual can contribute to a campaign that has made this still exists exactly but now people can give way more than twenty five hundred dollars they can give a million dollars if they want through this third party support actually was created through citizens united people could still give that same amount to choose

third party political groups before citizens united big didn't lift any restrictions on us like you know they are. right third party citizens these third party followed a five to seven group could not endorse the candidate or they couldn't be supporting one candidate the super pac allows you to give to max out to a k. . like you know say willard mitt romney after you max out to him then you can go give another million dollars of the super pac that supports him and run attack ads against all of his competitors and. attack ads against president states and i think it's pretty clear that they've had a pretty large effect compared to two thousand and eight you know mitt romney ran something like thirteen thousand ads in florida mostly negative ads and they were most mostly funded by super pacs and already we've seen i think fifty percent of all the campaign spending this primary season done by these super pacs so you can say that they haven't had. before at forty six million i believe is how much all the third party groups in total have spent so far but look at the obama campaign so

far has already raised one hundred twenty five million dollars you're right we have to look at the obama campaign has raised one hundred twenty five million dollars with forty seven percent of those who have given us money have given under two hundred all these are every day americans middle class americans working class americans have given to this campaign they get twenty five dollars they've given ten dollars they're not millionaires and billionaires and all of them also abide by the limit so nobody's giving over twenty five hundred dollars of the package to the president i'm going to i'm citing those numbers was not to say that they he's benefited more more than other people or that his contributions were the same as anyone else's it was just me it was just to put into perspective the effect that these third party groups are having on the race and when you look at the dollar amounts it's far less than half of obama's campaign chest and we're just talking about his campaign not even the third party groups that are going to support him and as we found out today with a lot of the general election work that we're in or not in the general election yet once we have a republican candidate out there and everybody you know is going to stop hedging

their bets on newt gingrich or rick santorum if mitt romney is the guy and i mean that was my original question i mean do you think that mitt romney is going to be the guy because he has this money or because you know he's eventually just the best candidate yeah well i think certainly any questions of inevitability or were dashed on the rocks after the most. primaries and caucuses so i don't think anyone at this point is is saying that money is the only factor because if it were mitt romney would have come out on top in colorado well i want to i want to move on to these super pacs and i want to ask you a question here in a second richard but first i want to play this i want to play this out here this was from harry truman in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight at the democratic national convention so you can play that the reason is that i'm a credit card is that people's party and their party is the party has ended and then. before you respond to the. republican party the party of special interest now the reason why special interests

are special is because they have a lot of money and i would argue that citizens united has allowed these special interests to spend a lot of that money now president obama just came out and he said that he's going to adopt this super pac plan he's got is going to he's going to tell his supporters to not just donate to his campaign but to donate to priorities usa super pac is that the right decision or is is he going to be playing a game with special interest that alternately democrats are going to lose in the end they don't have the money that that you know the big donors are willing to spend but you know i think that there's a very interesting question i think is a lot of democrats pondering this question but the truth of the matter is is that what we've seen from mitt romney ron paul that santorum and i think that's awful that's all that's all i'm i think that's all i confuse sometimes it's always changing but the truth of the most of them is they've raised tons and tons and tons of money with these super pacs and the president has just raised money the traditional way through twenty five twenty five dollar contributions that is all but the simple fact is going into the general election going into november you're

he would be going to be showing up to a gunfight with a knife if he is not using the united law to his benefit we don't necessarily agree with citizens united law but we know that in order for us to beat the republicans and possibly change the law or change a majorities in the house in the senate we have to use this law to our benefit. for their truth we can change how the supreme court first we can guarantee with the next term president obama will see another supreme court justice retirement but i think you know congress can pass laws a lot sort of change how this record interprets citizens united which of the matter is though is the president can show up to a gunfight with a knife and if he does not endorse or design embrace super pacs that's he's going to put them so the situation to himself and to you know bracing super pacs though is the just the latest example in a long line of the president on his promises so whether it was a promise to accept public financing in the two thousand and eight campaign which he then went back on when he realized he could raise so much more money without it

and ended up raising nearly ten times as much as he would have been able to with public financing or whether it's saying i don't have lobbyists donating to my campaign well in fact we found out today that ron klein former congressman now a lobbyist for spirit airlines had it has given bottled at least two hundred thousand dollars there as it has made a ton of money back but just came out the other day from those you know they're giving tons of money back but on top of that i think what we've seen from the president is he's realized that he has to beat back the entire republican establishment to beat back the all these big oil of the big oil's of this world over the course. i mean or for him to do that he has to find more and more middle class americans to get and that's why he did not take public he did not say publicly because he realized i could raise more than that and that's that was the real issue here is that he feels that it is now in his strategic interests to go back on that promise that he made and it's just the latest in a long line of examples of him do it maybe i think he's got some options with some executive orders that issue to get some disclosure and maybe get around that but we'll talk about it after the break why republicans resurrecting the keystone x.l.

pipeline it looks like another hostage scenario is in the works on capitol hill. we just put a picture of me when i was like nine. i need years old to tell the truth. i'm a contestant i am a total get a friend that i love traveling hip hop is a planned trip. but it was kind of a yesterday. i'm very proud of the role without you she has played. the. odds.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom are welcome to the big picture. welcome back joining me on the panel laughlin mark a investigative reporter at the heritage foundation center for media and public

policy and richard butler democratic strategist all right let's get back to it so at the end of the month the payroll tax cut expires meaning one hundred sixty million working americans could be hit with a tax increase and so far we've got the negotiations have stalled out for the same reasons that they stalled out in december democrats want to pay for it by proposing a tiny let you know tiny surtax on people who make over a million bucks you know republicans most of whom have signed grover norquist pledge to not raise taxes on anybody or saying no absolutely not chief economist at moody's mark zandi said quote not extending these programs will deliver a significant blow to the still tentative economy so when it comes either helping the when it comes to helping the economy one hundred sixty million americans or protecting millionaires and billionaires from a tiny tax increase why are the republicans choosing the millionaires and billionaires in this in this issue well i think the fact that this tax cut you know went down to two percent in december of two thousand and ten and we saw no no

market improvement in the economy whatsoever we did you will see one no improvement on the balance of consecutive job growth in the private sector is improvement i'm just a little bit maybe didn't keep up with the with new entrants into that well what i mean a lot of one million while we see meanwhile we see a declining labor force people leaving the job market because they're so discouraged by the weak economy so it is not. by any means been the real the real question that we have to ask ourselves here is that when the republicans passed the bush tax cuts in early two thousand they didn't ask they don't look for a pay for they didn't care about finding a paper but now all of a sudden when we want to tax cut for the middle class and working class americans they are scurrying washington to pay was the deficit back then was it seven eight point zero not just about oh you're right you're right we had a surplus before we had george w. bush and then we had a recession oh no no no no no no no we were never on paid i had actually ended during the recession and i'm a lousy whatnot that reason for not only was an op ed for it had to be passed

through reconciliation and it had a ten year expiration date because of how much it would add to the deficit that year in terms of bills passed at the reconciliation adding to the deficit i'd say both parties are guilty of that there are no more i mean how can you argue that someone who would say that raising taxes during a recession is a bad idea how can you argue that letting this tax cut expire is fine for the economy i don't think i am all for lower taxes in every way shape or i want to make millionaires pay their fair share to pay because that would be raising taxes and i'm for lower taxes my point is if if you want to lower the payroll tax i think that's a good idea granted you run into all sorts of issues with paying for social security which is you know already in the red well that it's not it's why raising the cap at the point is that this needs to be paid for one way or another democrats want to raise taxes to pay for it republicans want to cut other programs to pay here's where republicans how republicans want to pay for it they want to freeze pay on federal employees.