gene sperling, i'm going to bug you next week. be right back. >>> well, everything got squeezed a little bit today thanks to the white house being a little bit late, so we have to rap up. what is the oldest committee of congress? the answer is the house ways and means committee, of course, the one dealing with taxes is the oldest committee, right? quickly, i'll give you a shameless plug time. >> national women's history museum, go to the website, november 2011, we want to see everybody there. >> you guys had a great segment earlier about voting rights issue, we sat down with the assistant attorney general, story's out monday at roll call. >>> in the passing of steve jobs, american progress is hosting a conference next week on the next great american idea, great ideas of the past, and the future. >> my shameless plug, i don't want to say it's shameless, all my jewish friends out there and family, have an easy fast. see you back here on monday. coming up next, "jansing & co.," then at 1:00, "andrea mitchell reports." walmart have te

thanks for coming on the show tonight, gene sperling. with republicans on both ends of congress refusing to compromise, is there anything the white house can do to help the millions of american people who are out of work? >> well, i think the president can do exactly what he's doing which is make very clear that we are not satisfied with 9% unemployment. we're not satisfied with projections of weak economic growth. we have a plan that is strong as you were saying, as one that has been deserving of bipartisan support in the past and that we're ready to act, and the people are going to have to explain why they are willing to do nothing with so many people out of work, why they are willing to do nothing when we're projected to have this type of painful unemployment continue. >> mr. sperling, we're real minutes away from this vote. people are suffering, people are trying to put their -- make ends meet for their families. realistically, without dealing with any of this beltway crap, the republicans have said not one of them are going to vote

. >> gene sperling, director of the national economic council, thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> from the white house tonight >> tom: the lackluster labor report and fresh debt worries for europe combined to take the wind out of wall street's sails today. moody's put belgium open review for downgrade, while fitch cut its ratings on government i.o.u.'s from italy and spain and put portugal on watch for downgrade. the dow fell 20 points, the nasdaq lost 27 and the s&p 500 was down 9.5. trading volume ended the week lighter with 1.3 million shares moving on the big board and 2.1 on the nasdaq. but for the week, the dow traded higher in three sessions for an overall net gain of almost 2%. the nasdaq also gaining ground on the week up over 2.5%. and the s&p 500 echoing that weekly performance up over 2%. >> susie: for the third straight year, the federal government's annual deficit was more than $1 trillion dollars. the congressional budget office says fiscal year 2011 ended with an estimated deficit of $1.3 trillion. that's more than 8.5% of the overall u.s. economy. the deficit i

. >>> last night al sharpton asked gene sperling if the president's jobs bill contains any proposals aimed at helping americans who have a job but are still struggling. >> the president's proposal for cutting the payroll tax would mean that for a typical family making $50,000, they would get a $1500 tax cut. do you know what that means to the average family in terms of helping deal with rising food prices in terms of helping to deal with rising gas prices? it makes a huge difference. i don't understand how the republicans will vote no to this will spend next year explaining to people why they have $1500 less in their pockets because they had to say no to president obama. i don't know how they can explain to small businesses why there are much fewer customers buying their products and services, giving them the ability to hire more simply because they wanted to say no. i just have to be an optimist and believe that sanity will prevail and that it will not be acceptable for people to simply say no to president obama for plig reasons. >> lean forward with reverend al sharpton weekdays at

if you were obama and gene sperling was sitting in the white house, what would scare the heck out ofnow and next november? >> well, you are right. he's not going to get anything through congress. he's going to deal with high unemployment. the thing i would be scared of now is another banking crisis. it's triggered by a greece default or italian default. the banks own large amounts of sovereign debt. the minute one of these places goes down, especially if it goes down nastily, greece announces you are going to get 30 cents on the dollar back if -- french and german banks are under attack. you are exactly where you were in 2008 where you have to choose between letting the financial system go down or come in and look like you are friends with the fat cats on wall street. that's what they are afraid of, they will have to be put in that position again and it will show the institutions are too big to fail. >> the effort to bind up and reform wall street after bush left and obama came in, all that stuff around the time of t.a.r.p., the system with dodd/frank left us at the whim of the big s

if you were obama and gene sperling, his economic adviser sitting in the white house right now, what next november? >> well, you're right. he's not going to get anything through congress. so he's going to be dealing with a high unemployment rate no matter what happens. but the thing i would be scared of right now is another banking crisis, and it's triggered by a greece default, or even an italian default. i mean, that the banks own large amounts of sovereign debt, and the minute one of these places goes down, and especially if it goes down messily. if greece announces tomorrow that, you know, you're going to get 30 cents on the dollar back if, on greek government bonds. french banks, german banks come under attack. and they're interconnected with our banks. so you're back exactly where you were in 2008. where you have to choose between letting the financial system go down or come in looking like you're friends with the fat cats on wall street. if i had to guess, that's what they're afraid of. they're going to have to be put in that position again and it will show that these institut

with the director joining us, gene sperling.ate reaction when you heard 103,000 jobs created although the unemployment number, the rate at 9.1% not changed. what was it? >> when i looked at the numbers, the fact there was 137,000 private sector jobs created was significantly better than projected, but i also thought and i think the president, i know felt that it was small comfort because this isn't even in the ballpark of job growth that is strong enough to make a major difference in unemployment and to start bringing the long-term unemployed back to work and that's why he's made us his center piece this fall. his economic center piece, passing an american jobs act which as you know, top independent forecasters had suggested could lead to up to 1.9 million more jobs next year. up to 2% more growth next year. and it's why we've said to those who opposed this plan if you oppose the american jobs act, then it's imperative for you to put forward a plan that the same top forecasters would estimate would create as many jobs or make th

gene sperling joins me today from the white house. >> i want to start off with good news. we were talking retail sales, americans still spending, and we have the strike team of investors. 17 out of 20 say that a double dip recession is not inevitable. there's a lot more optimism than you might expect from those guys. are things really getting better? >> well, i think we've had some better numbers this week, in the last eight, ten days, than we've expected. but let's not kid ourselves. things are not nearly good enough. you know, erin, we have, you know, historic long-term unemployment challenges in our country. truly a crisis of long-term unemployment. we still have the blue chip projecting only 2% growth for next year and unemployment at 9%. and when you have even physical it was a small risk of a double dip recession or even projections, that growth could stay weak and unemployment could stay this high, it's just imperative that we take action to ensure this recovery takes hold and that we get stronger job growth over the next 12 or 18 months. >> i wanted to ask you some

here is what the white house top economic advisor, gene sperling, had to say. >> better than expected, not nearly what we need. the president, as you heard him say yesterday, does not believe there's any excuse or reason that anyone in washington should be sitting on their hands and doing nothing. >> reporter: so to that point, moving forward, thomas, we will continue to see president obama try to turn up the heat on republicans to pass his jobs bill. we saw that yesterday when he held that news conference and warned that the economy could slip back into another recession if the jobs bill isn't passed. he's really been traveling around the country doing this, trying to turn up the heat, taking on a more combative tone, it's not clear if it's working, though, because republicans have accused the president of playing politics with this issue. >> kristen welker at the white house, kristen, thanks. jerad bernstein is an msnbc contributor and former chief economist for vice president joe biden. let's get straight to it. there is good news, 137,000 private sector jobs added, last month's ze

three the people around him, chief of staff, bill daley, an official at jpmorgan chase, gene sperling has past ties to wall street and goldman sachs, jacob lieu, past ties to citigroup. do you worry your guy could be a symbol, a target of their frustration? >> all i can tell you is that, if i hear the testimonials of people on wall street correctly, they don't agree with that. there's a great deal of unhappiness amongst some quarters on wall street about the financial reforms the president fought for and issed amentstering to try to prevent the kind of crisis we had before and hole these institutions accountable for what we do. if people care about these issues, and if they're looking for a president who identifies with the struggles of everyday people and the struggle of the middle class and is working for an economy in which the middle class is growing and not shrinking, we're going to do very well with those voters. we should. >> david axelrod, appreciate your time. >> good to be with you. >>> shouldn't weicalliment a politician, give him a big hooray when he's honest? a truth from

and bruce reid and gene sperling, two key advisers in the clinton white house now work for the obamaand they are both ones who in the past have talked about the importance of acting with the executive branch when the legislature wasn't there for them. >> and one of the other things that these small measures seem to have in common with some of the things, you mentioned school uniforms, of course, a part of the triangulation strategy as well from the mid-'90s, a lot of these initiatives, they don't seem to be all that controversial either. >> well, in the clinton area, they were very centrist and they weren't always economic programs, but i think you're right. and what we're seeing now are not necessarily centrist, they are, in fact, a little more populist, certainly the tone that president obama has taken. but, no, they are not ones that are going to, if some cases, even draw a ton of attention. they're very popular, they test well. people in the states like them, but mostly importantly, they are very relatable thickngs. are very concrete initiatives that people understand, that hit t

i mean, you know, i do -- i agree with gene sperling, the country is facing an incredibly critical momenta cannot afford at the moment is inaction. there has to be some sort of collective action, and the public is saying this. the numbers show that the public wants their politicians on both sides, on the republican side and the democratic side to compromise in order to get some kind of growth stimulus program going into the economy. and here we have politicians from the republican side saying we can't support things we had earlier supported. it doesn't make any sense. >> i think he might be caught on that point. if anyone's listening, really looking. >> no, i was going to say -- and on the herman cain front, we're going to get excerpts from republicans in iowa this morning who are saying that he's -- they're saying he's obviously ill-equipped to be president because he just keeps making these statements, the electric fence, he comes back and gitmo he falls back, abortion he says something, he comes back. he's always talking about how he's being misunderstood. and as one radio host out the

at the at the end there, gene sperling was telling you about the run after the government shut down, medicaid because the republicans basically wanted to end the guarantee of health care to poor people and just cut a check to the states. and i wouldn't do it. and i did say to dick armey, who is basically at that point, he and newt gingrich and tom delay were in the oval office with the democrats, with. and i did say to dick armey when he was getting very macho with me, that he would have -- i told him, you've got to understand, i don't care if i go to 5% on the polls. you have to give somebody else to sit behind that desk before you get this done. and so, all the democrats were thrilled. you know, our liberal base always thinks the president is going to cave. just like the conservatives are always afraid the republicans are going to cave. so anyway, we had this meeting and then they left. the meeting was adjourned and the democrats hung around afterwards. they were all so happy and al gore and then looked at me and said you know, that was really great what you said, but he said i thi