roundtablble is back with the university of maryland's peter morici, and jill aitoro from t the -- fromhingngton busine ."urnal , you had a thought had >> ratherll happen sooner .han later ththe republicans wi not bite a because the president has for theed himself .epublicans toto take a pr hit better taking it now had somebody will have to blink. -- now. .> somebody will have tolink i want to talk about an executive order from the president on cybersecurity. some democrats in congress say much teeth have .ithoucongressional action >> obama admdmitted that in the .tate the union .ybersecurity is a huge issue to pass has been trying that provides terms of how cybersecurity is handled and put .arameters out there >> what th are looking for theg the many things president cannot offer, ave tordcompanies , and more sharing between government and the areate sector, but they really looking for protection from liabilities >> the problem is ty want go through, and basically the private companies concern is should they help identy anment , or provide dataa, they do .ot want to be held liable to m

joining me now, one of our favorite economists peter morici. thanks a lot. welcome, peter.someone ten bucks you would bewaring a bow tie. i appreciate you being there today. >> they should have taken the other side of that debt. dennis: they should have. $100. i feel this could help the economy. what do you say? >> absolutely. people spend money basis of how wealthy they are, not just how much income. during the great recession, people spent less, now the reverse is happening. this is great for car sales. dennis: pepsico ten billion. gm five 1/2 billion they bought straight back from the government. mastercard at $2 billion. is this saying these big companies feel like their stocks are truly undervalued? that investors are kind of missing a major point? >> you have to remember that stock values really haven't gone up in the last decade. we're arou the peaks at 2000. so there is a sense that stock values are not high enough. but also the companies that are very profitable and efficient doing the right things often don't have enough new places to invest their money in this ve

economist peter morici managed part of the federal budget and knows first-hand,000 this gets done. weome back to the show, peter. >> nice to be with you. sandra: you wrote an article today, very controversial article, saying president obama is blackmailing taxpayers. explain. >> well, he simply singling out things that frighten taxpayers. long lines at airports. absence of meat inspectors and so forth. take meat inspectors. we can keep all the meat inspectors on the job and cut the department of agriculture by 10%. the department of agriculture has the largest cadre of research economists in the world. i think the world could use fewer economists short term so we can get chicken at the safeway. >> and i read throug our article here and, you're saying that this is such a big threat that you're saying whether a second recession occurs is already baked in the cake. is that directly a result of sequestration if indeed this happens? >> absolutely not. there has been real science that the economy is slowing in the fourth quarter and will continue into the first quarter. whether we go nega

peter morici and dr. lee van nokia cure from louisiana sleeve period of time. the from the beginning the math never added up, right. >> no it never really added up. health insurae will be much more expensive. employers will let go, pay the penalty and have their employees into the state exchanges and buy their own insurance. in some places that's what the employees want. restaurants that have a lot of young wait staff and so forth, they don't want to be forced to buy health insurance. melissa: lee, is this a surprise to you? or is it a surprise you that the number keeps moving? >> no, it's not a surprise this would happen and the problem with these exchanges, i have a friend who is an executive at, at a health insurance company and they're just pulling their hair out because they're so heavily regulated, these exchanges, it's making the products so expensive, that they don't even know who is going to be able to afford . and like we said, if you have guaranteed issue, with no preexisting condition, you can just wait until you're sick, pay the penalty and wait un

and you know, peter morici wrote something interesting yesterday saying that he's essentially blackmailing. he's not labelling really what the choices are for the american people right now. cuts are necessary. he's threatening this is going to kill education. this is going to kill defense. i mean the way he's speaking, stuart, it's quite alarming really. because these aren't the only options that are on the table. stuart: precisely right. charles? charles: i think they know we're in trouble already. you know, fourth quarter gdp was a bust. consumer confidence is down. jobs, unemployment rate is going up. i think they know. all i think he's trying to do right now is establish a blameless position. in other words -- stuart: he's saying you let these spending cuts happen, the economy goes in the tank, and it is the republicans fault. charles: it is going down anyway. they see that. they can see that it's going down. they understand it's going down. and now he's just -- all of this is a smokescreen because if he really cared, when they did this fiscal cliff deal, why did hollywood get 430 mill

gton us today i is our expert morici,t, peter economist at thuniverty of marynd. and o reporters s that specialized in this area. darren samuelsohn @ polititicand mak. gentlen, welme. tim, i am going to start with you. republican counter rom house andweek he armedembers of services committee. what proposal entailed? >> there are a tonn of proposals out there, not sure how many have gained traction. threpublicans announced a a plan sequestration until the through rucing federal work force by 10% for attrition. that means for every three for employees left, only one would be hired. also proposed a payreeze.ional at w will make up about85 push off defefense and sequestered u until the end of t the year. >> that was not one that w put out there by house republicacan but when i got lots of attention in this town. youou talk about federal jobs,, that has real impact. that has care the democrcrats io action? >> not really,he democrats are loophololes,orporate tax breaks for oil industry, things that perhaps dead on arrival with the republicans. will changeblicans losses