first up tonight, cnbc's eamon javers joins me with the details. >> good evening, larry. the obama administration is saying now is not the time for austerity as the president unveiled his $3. billion budget for the fiscal year of 2013. take a look at some of the details of what's in that and you get a sense of where the president's coming from as he goes into this very delicate campaign starting with a 2013 estimated budget deficit of $901 billion. revenues will be up $1.5 trillion over ten years and the bush tax cuts, as you just said larry, those are set to expeer under the president's plan at the end of 2012 and the buffett rule, a 30% tax on income of $1 million or over is also included in this proposal today and of course, the president has been invoking warren buffett a lot on the campaign trail and he did it again today as he unveiled this budget. >> you've heard me say it. warren buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. >> that's not fair. it doesn't make sense at a time when we've got to pull together to get the country moving. >> larry, the key here in

let me send it now to my great colleague, eamon javers.s in tampa with the cnbc special report. >> thank you, larry. good evening, everybody. we have seen a hard fought and bitter campaign here in the republican presidential primary in the state of florida. we are now down to the last seconds here before polls close across the state of fla.

i'm eamon javers in washington. the fed's beige book report on current economic conditions finds that overall economic activity continued to increase at a modest to moderate pace in january and early february. when asked to describe the level of economic growth, new york was the only federal reserve district to characterize it as slower. most federal reserve districts reported a slight increase in hiring, the fed said, echoing chairman ben bernanke's comments on capitol hill this morning, six of the federal reserve's districts reported increasing hiring in manufacturing. and some reported difficulty in finding skilled or specialized workers. looking sector by sector, manufacturing continued to expand at a steady pace across the country, the fed said, with increased capital spending in seven of the fed's 12 districts. retail sales were higher than a year ago in the mid-atlantic and midwest and gains in auto sales reported in four districts. residential real estate activity increased modestly in most districts, the fe

let's go to eamon javers standing by with the political angle on this story. >> republicans definitelyhey have the home field advantage on the issue of higher gas prices going into election year for president barack obama. listen to newt gingrich earlier today he's promised dramatically lower gas prices if he is elected president. >> all i'm trying to do is get us back to a plea obama world, plenty of resources at low cost instead of scarce resources at high cost. part of my campaign this fall will be real simple. you want $2.50 a gallon with newt or you want $9 a gallon with obama? >> as for that obama administration, their options are kind of constrained here. one thing they have said or signalled that they are open to is going back to the strategic petroleum reserve, something they did last year but that carries some political risk and no guarantee it would do anything to keep prices down going into november and going into that crucial election month. now let's go over to courtney reagan for the rest of the story. >> the last two weeks, the average price for regular unleaded gasolin

we have to go to eamon javers with breaking news from washington, d.c. eamon, what do you got?st within the past couple of minutes google is confirming for me a report that was in politico a few minutes ago that they have hired the former republican congresswoman from new york as their new representative in the washington office here. it's a big move for google. she will replace alan davidson, a long-time figure at google who left there earlier last year. but susan molinari is a well-known washington insider. a veteran of the united states congress. she will now head up google's washington office in addition to other duties with the company. and the company gave us a statement here from david drum saying i'm excited about susan joining google. her enthusiasm will be a real asset to our team in the americas. and, guys, this is really a sign of google beefing up its lobbying operations here. they have spent more money in recent months than they have spent in the past. and, of course, they're one of the first issues that molinari will have to address is this issue of privacy which

. >> eamon javers, thank you very much. is it real tax reform, good tax reform or not? jared bernstein, former chief economist to joe biden and art lau laffert, chairman of laffert investments. this is the first tax on posal from the obama administration. what is the take on this plan? >> bringing the rate down has got to be wonderful. i would love to see it come down a lot further. the 12.5% that newt gingrich is proposing, i would be ecstatic. but your guy finally came through with something i like. lowered the rate. we haven't seen the broadening of the base yet and haven't seen what taxes are going to be on foreign profits which say killer there. but just dropping the rate is a good one. i like it. >> jared bernstein, it's marred. you're right. the lower tax rate is good. lower, lower tax rate would be even better. what's up with the foreign minimum tax business? this sounds like an attack against internationalism, and multinationalists and the business community. they hate this, the international community. >> kudos to art and a little less to you, larry. a little

but let's bring in eamon javers. he has more on who the real winner is. eamon?ng, guys. well, the big question after last night is was the real winner of last night's caucuses here at 1600 pennsylvania avenue, barack obama? heading into a general election against a republican opponent, perhaps mitt romney if he emerges from this gop field, who doesn't have the kind of support that we thought earlier in the year he might have. the big winner, of course, last night on the republican side was rick santorum, sweeping minnesota and also two other states across the board. that's something that we did not expect to see from rick santorum. but does it indicate that, in fact, mitt romney has kind of a tepid support among the republican party faithful that might lead to an enthusiasm gap going into the general election? guys, that's what the obama machine in chicago and here in washington is really hoping right now. >> all right. eamon, we've got super tuesday coming up pretty soon, right? >> reporter: yeah. super tuesday coming up in early march. the romney campaign is p

and eamon javers is on that trail. hey, eamon. >> hey, tyler.you're the president of the united states, high gas prices are a political problem heading into an election year. the president was talking about that in a speech last week. and he invoked the specter. >> just like last year, the single biggest thing causing oil to spike right now is instability in the middle east. this time around iran. when uncertainty increases, speculative trading on wall street increases. and that drives prices up even more. >> now, the problem with blaming excessive speculation in the oil market for high gas prices though can be a very difficult thi thing to prove. the last time it was in 2008 the government conducted this report looking to see whether they could find excessive speculation was driving up prices. they found that, no, it was basically the fundamentals of the oil market that were to blame. so what else does the obama administration have up its sleeve? on friday treasury secretary tim geithner suggested the administration's open to using this strateg

eamon javers is in tampa with some names. hey, eamon. >> reporter: hey, tyler. makes me wonder why i'm not wearing short sleeves in tampa. it's about 80 degrees here. you're right, mitt romney had a big night last night. but right after that we got our first chance to take a look at some of the boldfaced names of the financial universe supporting romney's super pac. that's the unconnected to the political action committee run by outsiders financing a lot of television ads and campaign activity on behalf of mitt romney. take a look at some of these names. gives you a sense of who's behind the romney effort. starting with a couple of folks from bain capital partners together they gave $750,000. and phil singer, hedge fund $1 million from him. also $1 million from julian robertson. another $1 million from robert mercer. and more boldfaced names as you dive into this financial disclosure report, you see mark an dreeson, the founder of net skap posting up $50,000. the outspoken real estate investor from chicago also po ponied up $50,000. the miami dolphins owner. and

our eamon javers was at the meeting and joins us from the north lawn with the details. >> reporter: the administration is calling it a framework for business tax reform. not a very detailed plan, but the big headline here is that the obama administration would like to lower the corporate tax rate to about 28% from 35%, where it stands today. they would do that by expanding the base, closing a lot of loopholes. and because of that, we can start to get a feel for some of the winners and losers sector by sector here starting with the winners. the administration putting out a set of numbers just today showing who would benefit under this sector by sector. again, the construction industry now pays a 31% effective rate. they would benefit. wholesale and retail trade at 31% effective rate today, they would benefit by going down to 28%. and services at 29%, they would benefit. but, of course, for every winner there are going to be some losers here. we have some of those as well. sector by sector, utilities at 14%. they would see a bump up. mining at 18% would see a bump up. leasing and transpor

eamon javers is live at the white house. good morning. >> good morning.ficial unveiling of the president's new tax plan. we don't know everything that's going to be in there. but let's take a look at shop of the details we do have. starting with the headlines, and a big one of lowering the corporate tax rate to 28%. an effective rate, the obama administration says of just about 25% for manufacturing firms. the plan would eliminate dozens and dozens of tax loop holes in order to do that, it would establish a new minimum tax on foreign earnings and it would make tax filing simpler for small businesses who struggle with the complexity of the tax code. this plan would reportedly raise about $250 billion in new revenue over ten years. but exactly whose ox is getting gored here isn't exactly clear until we see the details of which loop holes they're going to close. we're expecting that news or some piece of it from trishry secretary tim geithner who is going to be briefing reporters in about half an hour. >> and eamon, the treasury secretary has also said that