he's here with former white house budget director peter orszag who will go head to head coming up in a moment. >> and imitation is the highest form of flattery. burger king has certainly been imitating mcdonald's recently and doing it again by going big into coffee. can anyone say the muskoka fay? will there be a new king of coffee? stay with us. that's coming up. (announcer) scottrade knows our clients trade and invest their own way. with scottrade's smart text, i can quickly understand my charts, and spend more time trading. their quick trade bar lets my account follow me online so i can react in real-time. plus, my local scottrade office is there to help. because they know i don't trade like everybody. i trade like me. i'm with scottrade. (announcer) scottrade. voted "best investment services company." >>> markets up 57 points just off the highs of the session right now, and we would point out if we close above 14,000, it would be the first time since february 1st that that has happened, and the last time we closed above 14,000 it had been five years. >> yeah. >> since we've been

leader eric cantor ahead of his public re-branding speech today and congressman elijah cummings and peter orszagnd frank bruni. up next, the top stories in the political playbook. first, weasel bright national weather person day. >> big holiday! >> what? >> balloons and everything. >> that's not true, is it? >> it is. national weatherman's day, february 5th, every year. >> wow. >> wonderful. wonderful support system i have here. good morning, everyone. we are watching a little bit of light snow across long island, new york city, coastal connecticut, not going to cause issues on the roads, dusting on the roads about a half-inch. new york city you can see it about a half inch. today is a good day for travel but new england is frigid. 2 in burlington and very cold in maine and new hampshire. the rest of the northeast is starting to warm up a little bit. above freezing today. and d.c. you could sneak up to 47 much warmer than you've been lately and a warming trend in the middle of the country. still cold in chicago but we're heading near 30 in chicago but look to your south, what a beautiful day. ka

that would be the larry summers paul krugman, peter or ak-- orszag, people like me, there is range there is variation, but essentially that the reason the economy is not growing is because people have had this huge shock to confidence. there's been financial disruption. the lack of spending and caution feeds on itself so i get a haircut less often so my barber spends less at the movies so there is less money at the movies. so the kid who sweeps up the movies gets let go from his job, so, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. and then dow it on a bigger scale, the government is cutting back, tax revenue does go down, it cuts back, then there's fewer cops on the street, fewer people spending. this kind of thing which is often referred to as keynesianism because after the great john maynard keynes came up with it says it's not a supply problem, it's not people made terrible mistakes or if they made terrible mistakes they are rectifiable. that is not the real issue. the real issue is you are in this downward spiral, if everybody cuts back that induces everybody else to cut back. government cuts b

this is what someone said about -- peter orszag, the former office of budget manager here in the obama white house, the ipab is the single biggest yielding of power since the creation of the federal reserve. that's an astonishing statement when you hear about it. that's why i'm so passionate about maintaining the decisionmaking power with patients and with their families and their doctor and not some bureaucratic board up here and also certainly not insurance companies. i agree with that. and i think that -- and i think the other comment that i've seen made, the independent payment advisory board puts important health care payment and policy decisions in the hands of an independent body that has far too little accountability. that's one of the things you may like it or not, but we in congress have been able to change these things. it will require a 60 votes in the senate to do it. quite frankly, with my good friends on the other side of the building here, you can't get 60 senators to agree whether the sun came up in the east. so the benchmark is very, very high. i want to finish -- mr.