jason furman on the economy. julianna goldman on the keystone pipeline. and we debate romney's strong words. we begin the program with former deputy secretary of state and president of the brookings institution and one of america's foremost experts on russia, strobe talbott. you know putin. what do you think his appetite is? is he going to go into eastern ukraine? >> his appetite is unstated. we should not kid ourselves into thinking that now that he has grabbed ukraine and made it part of the russian federation -- that is it. he gave a speech to parliament in moscow several days ago. it was full of lies. perhaps the single most important and ominous lie was where he said, "i have no desire whatsoever to destabilize ukraine." he has every desire to do that unless the time comes when ukraine is a state of russia once again. >> how effective is the response of the u.s. and the eu? what more can we do? >> i would say it is too soon to see how effective it has been. that hasn't changed russian behavior and is not going to change putin's own determination to h

jason furman on the economy. julianna goldman on the keystone pipeline.bate romney's strong words. we begin the program with former deputy secretary of state and president of the brookings institution and one of america's foremost experts on russia, strobe talbott. you know putin. what do you think his appetite is? is he going to go into eastern ukraine?

i have jason furman, the chairman of the president's council of economic advisors. cecilia munoz, the director of the domestic policy council, and gene sperling, the director of the economic council. each of my guests will have an opening statement and then we'll take questions related to budget matters. i'll try to direct traffic in that "q&a" session. i will -- in that question and answer session. on ll have comments ukraine, but if you could hold questions on those subjects not related to the budget until after we're done with q&a on the budget that will be terrific. and with that i turn it over to sylvia. >> thanks, jay. the president's 2015 budget, which we released earlier today, is basically a fiscal road map for accelerating economic growth, expanding opportunity and ensuring fiscal responsibility. it includes fully paid for investments in infrastructure, job training, preschool and pro-work tax cuts. at the same time it reduces deficits and strengthens our long-term fiscal outlook. through additional health care reforms, tax reform and by fixing our broken

you can catch al's full conversation with jason furman tonight at 9albott p.m. on bloomberg.it is 26 minutes past hour. you know what that means. it is time for on the markets. is a witching day. that is the expiration of certain futures and options contracts. tends to cost -- cause a little bouncing around in the market. hold hisould not level. we see that down. we will probably see more bouncing before the close. the against pc security software maker has fired its president and ceo steve in it as it struggles with the shift to -- steve bennett as it struggles with the ship to mobile devices. and we are also watching edison international. disclosedcompany has costs related to one of its nuclear plants in california. the plant has been closed since 2012 when it leaked radioactive water. reactors on the site, saying it would take regulators to long to decide if they could reactivate the plant. more "bottom line" after the break. >> welcome back to bloomberg's "bottom line." steel and four mark crumpton. happy friday, everybody. -- i am alix steel in for mark crumpton. recappi

jason furman on the economy. julianna goldman on the keystone pipeline.bate romney's strong words. we begin the program with former deputy secretary of state and president of the brookings institution and one of america's foremost experts on russia, strobe talbott. you know putin. what do you think his appetite is?

[applause] >> thank you to my jason furman. thank you, peter byner.we are almost at the signature cocktail time. we are very lucky to have from the afl-cio for our last session. we're going to try something a little bit different. we are going to have steve cummins and mark -- margaret carlson interview richard trumka at the same time. [applause] >> put you there. put margaret there. >> let's put you in the middle. >> i'm on the far left. >> it has been all of you -- all of you may be tired and you deserve a medal or mug or t-shirt for being with us for most of the day, but those who have been videoing this deserved to each. each.rve two i want to thank them for being with us today. [applause] margaret? >> it is great to be here with you. a real working man. apparently, the people i know have never really had a job where they work with their hands. i mean, i wouldn't know what to do. affinityhave as much with how hard it is. when i see a war on working people, which if you give the many benefits, they are basically lazy and will stop working. you give

jason furman on the economy. julianna goldman on the keystone pipeline.ebate romney's strong words. we begin the program with former deputy secretary of state and president of the brookings institution and one of america's foremost experts on russia, strobe talbott. you know putin. what do you think his appetite is?

tomorrow, we will have jason furman, they head of the u.s.dvisers. ♪ >> it is 56 past the hour and that means bloomberg television is on the markets. i'm scarlet fu. here's where things stand about half an hour into the u.s. trading day. the s&p 500 at a new record high, 18 81. nine out of 10 industry groups in the index are gaining. utilities are the only group that are declining. as for treasuries, some selling going on there with a 10 year yield now at 2.74%, a one-week high. jobless claims this morning came in better than anticipated. that puts us in a good position ahead of tomorrow's jobs report for the month of february. people are respecting a weather impact as well. the british parliament -- the british pound currently unchanged. shy of a four high versus the dollar. the bank of england keeping interest rates unchanged. in keeping with the currency, the euro is strengthening to a two-month high against the dollar. mario draghi, the ecb president, said inflation is expected to rise gradually. bets thatn some policymakers will introduc

presentationiefi of the president's budget presen director of the office of budget, sylvia burwell and jason furman, and cecilia munoz, the director of the policy and gene sperling, the director of the economic council. each guest has an opening statement and we will take questions related to budget matters. i will try to direct traffic in that question and answer section. i will have time for a few questions at the end on other subjects, ukraine obviously included, but if you could hold questions on those subjects not related to the budget until after we are down. i turn it over to sylvia burwell now. >> the president's budget that released is a fiscal road map for excel growth, opportunity and ensure fiscal responsibility. fully paid for investments in -- infrastructu infrastructures and preschools. the budget shows the president's funding priority at the 2015 levels that were agreed to in the deal. we believe they are not sufficient in 2015 and beyond. the budget includes an opportunity, growth and security initiative that is fully paid for. it is split between defense and non-defense and it pre

the white house issued a statement from jason furman saying in part, february 2014 was the 48th straight month >> suffice it to say, most of health policy really isn't health policy at all. it is essentially budget policy. and so the congress just docs on so many of the big issues and ends up putting together something that in the parliament of washington might be called a patch to maybe it's an extension. maybe it's called a stopgap. but the fact is it ducks the big issues and it repeatedly ducks the big issues, particularly on medicare when you're 10,000 people eligible for medicare every day. there is a very real cost attached with that. so now the challenge is to try to find a way to move beyond this fixation on budgeting. it would be one thing if it was sound budget policy, but so often we, as i've indicated, don't get a constructional kind of issues, and move beyond this sort of lurch one kind of budget calamity to another and come up with some principle budget policy. >> this weekend, senate finance committee chair ron wyden on the challenges facing medicare and hospitals saturday

for example, chief white house economist jason furman has said that working less to keep obamacare benefits -- quote -- "might be a better choice and a better option than what they had before." close quote. of course they don't have a choice to keep what ned before because -- to keep what they had before because they have been forced into obamacare. and if you don't buy the government-mandated insurance, then you're going to be fined by your friendly federal government. but think about it. the white house chief economist is celebrating the possibility of a dramatic decline in american work hours eufpltd remind mr. work hours. i would remind mr. furman america's labor force participation is already at an historic low, as low as it's been for 30 years. the percentage of people looking for work in america is at a 30-year low already and mr. furman is celebrating the further depressing impact of obamacare on work in america. all else being equal, a reduction in work hours means a reduction in economic growth; certainly means a reduction in income for the people working. and we know that a furth