captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> business news from the capital region. this is "washington business report" withbc7 national correspondent becca cooper. >> well, and thanks for joining us for a look at this week's business and fance news here in the washingn region. we are relieved the mayans looked to have been wrong. negotiations betwe president obama andohn boehner. what became of f all the stocks? -- all thsoe talks? capitohill setback in spite of better than expected grth

nunumbers. we have all that and more with our roundtable coming up. first, two big industries during the holiday season -- food and cabs. hans hess is the ner and founder of a burger chain t that started in washington but now has gone global. thank you for joining us. where do we start? elevation burger was the originalaby. let'start there. you grew up in california an you got a degree in physics and then a master's degreen theology. you and i i were talking before the show started. you he worked d just about everherere. whatat got youou to elevation burger? i i worked on the hill for about a year in 199and wrotote a paper abobout how microbes are

killing people. when i had the idea for elevation burgerin 2002, i said we have to do inorganic burger with no compromise. >> expensive by many standards. you have managed to make a cost effective. >> that was a concern of course but we did find ways to do it affoably. we have self-funded mt of it. >> what is the t trick to going global? you have two locatioions -- >> f five now. >> what took off? >> we e sawwe found a great frarancse partner r in the mide east. he really put h his heart and soul into developing the and. middleasrners loved american

brands. it is very compeing for them. >> it t was a local consulting group that helped you statart t franchise. you statarted with one location in falls church. >> i aays wanted to grow it. as i read and understood franchising, i i decided that was probably the way we could do it. >> what did you learn the hard way? whatere some mistakes you made e early on? >> do we have to tk about that? >> tell us about o or two big miststakes. >> we starteted franising when we had onetore. i think i would probably get to two or three beforee itarted franchisin again. it is going well. >> then you took your next step and your wife h been a heful

partner. internet company, you have partnered -- >> five years ago, my nephew and i opened envirocab. weook the same approach witith that. weanted to do something that wagoodod for the environment as wellll. we werthe first and largest for a ile all hybririd fle in the country. >> if there are 10 cabs lined up many tis the clients will seek out yours b because it is an envirocab. >> we did mething very unique. we were able to create differentiatation with your bra nd. at thbeginnnning when we put hybrids on the seet, it just resonated w with people. >> how are you splitting your

brand? to take on a whole different industries mightht not have been the smartest move. how to use but your time? >> i have a lot of help. my nephew is involved and other members of my family are involved. i have a lot of help to do it. i am a lti tasker for the mos part. cooks s we should tetell our audience -- >> you grew up in lifornia but not aealthy family it is not like you had a trust fund to back up on. >> we were veryortunate. my wife and i bought a house early in the 2000's. sold it for quite a bit more than we paid for it. > where you homeless? >> we sold one and moved into other r and parlayed thee

eaings into the business. >> once you were able to start growing, how did that help you in terms of what next steps needed to be? >> in 2007, they came to us and asked they could sell our deals. that was the role that they playayed in our business. they got our inial g group and we wked from there with them. w what are some of the thgs that need to bimproved in terms of the franchise system? >> f francnchising is aood system because e you can have a lot of uniformity and learn from each her paying nk that ultimately pduces a better product. you have to have franchisees' that willing too follow a s system >> have you ever had tkick a franchchisee out of the system? >> i don't think we kikick anybody

out yet. >> you say you were already here working on capito hill but you have talked about your ideal demographic -- highly educated and affluent. diyou look at starting and other markrket >> it made sent. i did a survey about 432 respondents. i did it on the streets o downtown washington, d.c., and thatat helped me to understand where the mamarkets was i would not have done it anywhere ee. >> did you wish you had a business degree? >> t the theology degree is fa more valuable. >> do you pray a lot at the end of the day >> a better understanding of god an people. >> hans hess, always interesting to me people like you.

thanks so much for joining us on "whington buness report." coming up, our rndtable.

>> welcome back. on number of the week, 2.15, e district of columbia's population growth. putting the distrt in second place nationwide for its growth rate behind only north dakota. the growth continues the trend

in recent yeaears, and the mar is welcoming the news saying it is a statement that people are voting with their feet and responding t to improvements in education, infrastructure, and city services. will have our roundtable right after the break. first, the federal hot minute. >> the business of government is going through a dynamic change driven by sequestration and other trends. there is no shortage of articl on research of the topic. the president of the professional services council urges the department of defense not to repeat the mistakes made in the early '90s when cut were made across the board and the work force was disproportionately impacted. he urges the cuts should now be more strategic.

the story on how it is having a negative impact on the profit of vendors selling to the fed's. therefore, it should be no surprise when you see the results of another survey put out by mamarket connections which shows how government contractors arare seekingevenue opportunities oututside the federal government..

>> we havepent recent weeks looking for a holiday g gift from

capitol hill. automatic spending cuts due to kick in in a matter of days but we do not have a bomb of coal to shshow for these talks. two of our favorites -- professor peter momorici from the univsity of maryland and jo boak reporter from "the fisc times." i of always been a big believer in capital hill. i used to work ere. i think there are good people trying to do o good things but there is harard to find much good coming o out of f capitol hill these days. whato you make of everythingng falling aparart? >> the president will not look at spending cuts, and neither wi a lot of the democratic caucus and mr. boehner cannot get the cats s in line. you have radicals on t the right and the leleft.

that is why we are in the mess we're in. >> i remember well peace tal. what does it have to doo with the fiscal cliff? they came very close to a deal between arafat and president clinton and it all fell apart when they realized he did not have the power in the street to sell a deal. it looks like john boehner does not have power instry to sell a deal. >> anything they get thrhrough the house will have to beone with democrats. not just with republicans cause we saw the caucus is divided on a lot of these issues that require a compromise. john boehner got endorsements on this plan. grover norquist dropped his tax opposition. boehner himself said many in

his caucus were worried about primaries. >> grover norquist ds not have the power. essentially, he started to backpedadal on the meaning of the edge. it is absole nonsense. those conservaves do not owe their allegiance to grovover norquist. >> did he create something that he can no longer control? the power of the original tax plededge seems to ill resonate with many of these members. >> there are plenty of people who picked up that banner. i t think there is a commitnt to that pledge that goes fa beyond grover norquist. >> those conservative members of congress have a mandate just the way president obama does. so does speaker boehner.

whenr. obabama comes down pennsylvania anue and does something he hasas never been inclined to do, put together aa coalition in the middle of whatever moderate democrats and republblicans he confined, get off his high horse about spending, and make those compromisises that he needs to make, he is not going to win. that in i itself would empower speaker boehner which would be to his advantage. mr. oba needs to start acting like the president of the united states if he wanants to resolve this. >> you do come down awful har on the psident. any criticis for republicans? >> if you go back five years, i was quite critical of f present bush when n he came up short. i have not worked on any

republican campaign. i have criticism not so much for spear boehner because he is in a very tough position. last night i saiwould you vote for t these two bills? absolutely. youave to compromise. > speaker boehner has said he is the most optimistic guy in town but i think he is the most -- he may not be well liked nationwide but people in washington know him, like him, and realize he is in a tough spot. what doehe do to get somethg and move it forward? >> it is like being the quarterback for the redskins before rg3. you are the got-o guy but no one thought you could stay around long. there has been a lot of speculation that he might have to leaveve the speakership.

but ththere is no one to replace keken. >> who is going to cave? what group ofepublicans are going to disassociate with them and join with the democrats -- >> the question is noonger who is going to cave, but what pressures are necesessary. >> alan blinder from princeton -- >> and a very good democrat. >>e made the point that he does not see the situation changing that much once we go over the cliff because w already know what the stakes are. the bibig questions whether how the market will react and whetheher we will get that reaction. >> as an economist, i cannot let that go by bending. i am quite certain --

>> i have no personal animosity towards the president, but do not think there is any confident a economist who would tell him other than the really right wing guys that subtracting $600 billion from aggregate demand overnight a $500 billion tax increase and a hundrdred billion dollars becaususe of the budget act wod not thrust ththe economy into recessionon. if he really believes that it would ha no consequence and has already been factored in, it might be time for him to take up gardening. >> he believes it will have consequent. if this goes on for three weeks he says we are headed toward a recession. >> take us behind the scenes. water you h hearing from both sides customer who is trying to save all thi before january 1?

>> i am hearing aot off pessssimism right now because obviouy the hope t that ststarted last week was squandered and now you have republicans saying will come back when we are needed and democrats saying you need to come back to the table. >> the democrats have not b been very busy over at the senat they have been very happy to watch mr. boehner sweat. harry reid to be working with senate republicans w are more moderate. >> or ing in daniel day lewis. >> i want to talk about the nrara quickly. on the fiscal cliff, this is friday but the markets did not star pretty. is the business community getting what they deserve?

>> actually, a lot of the ceo's have been active in washington trying to broker a deal. that have been verery active and very piscivorous -- >> but a deal on their terms. >> actually not. the ceo's tend to be me morate because they arare just so bloody well feet. if you are jamie dimon, you u can say i can afford to pay more taxes. those guys do n not get affected by these tax hikes quite like the rest of us do. their army of accountants and taxx lawyers prohibit them from paying taxes. >> do you u feel like they are contributing or hurting? >> wdo not have an autocratic government. a lot of these ceo's are used to giving orders and having those orders followed. >> we finally heard friday from the national rifle associatition

-- the gun industry. will they keep all of the freedoms that they have now? >> it is very weird when the nra is calling for a lotf spending atat aime when we areaving a debate about fiscal contraction. >> the nra saying gu don't kill people. is that going to fly? >> a lot o things need to be fixed. we need to get aomatic weapons of the people's han. we need to do something about the mentally ill. also i think we need to talk about the stability of our rhetoric and what goes on on the internet and so forth. people are jt too blunt.. >> peter morici, josh boak, alalways a pleasure. that is it

>> on behalf all of us here at the "shington business reportrt," we want to wish you a veryerry christmas andappy new year. we hope you'll join us in 2013. you always have find ways to find us on the internet. thanks for joining us. i'rebecca cooper.