concoction but i don't honestly think that the treasury department will go along with this the tim geithner will go along with this because the banks will go along with this and whether it's the republicans who won't anyway if there was a viable solution that said look refinancing has to happen banks have gone a good deal on their money they have not opened their doors they are not working with borrowers we see that in every corner in every county in every city throughout the country and if there was a legal requirement for what the banks are receiving there continues to be zero interest money now as well there has to be a certain percentage otherwise they're taxed more otherwise something happens to you know their very income their profitability whatever that actually in current acts a an economic kind of pain to them if they don't refinance only one way of doing it outside of a sort of congressional vote or congressional action if it came in came from that but that kind of an idea would never flow through the treasury department and be

his treasury department said, the secretary of the treasury does have the authority to choose the orderich to pay obligations of the united states. this is an official document from the department of treasury. we are aware of no statute or other basis to conclude that treasury is required to pay outstanding obligations in order which they were presented for payment unless it chooses to do so. and this president has not been willing to tell the american people that medicare recipients and the military will be paid as long as we receive sufficient money in the treasury. we have to solve this problem. i want to solve this problem. but there has been a failure of leadership from this president and all he's doing is demagoguing and scaring the american people. >> we'll take a quick break, come back with more of our roundtable in jojust a moment. >>> final moments with the roundtable and a review. david plouffe senior adviser to the president on this program talking about the key sticking point. will there be tax increases as part of this deal or not? this is what he said. >> what's clear, yo

>> listen, at the appropriate point, the treasury department will obviously lay out for the american people how this is going to operate. our focus right now is solving this problem. if we're not able to reach a deal, then treasury's going to have to report to the american people exactly how this is going to happen. >> chairman mullen is in afghanistan. he told our troops finite foogh there he didn't know the answer to when and where they would get paid. will the president insist that if there's a default, the troops will get paid? >> again, the treasury department -- by the way, whatever admiral mullen talked about, it's outrageous that here we are, 60 hours away from the united states of america potentially defaulting for the first time. and the reason we're here is that, particularly republicans in the house, but republicans generally had been unwilling to compromise. so, at the appropriate point, if we get to that point, the treasury department will lay out clearly for the american people, most importantly for investors, folks around the world, exactly what would happen if we defa

the reports i've seen, the treasury department takes a step back from the s&p. what are you hearing from sources? >> it's unclear if the president will release any kind of statement or come out on camera over the weekend. he is away at camp david. that doesn't mean he can't come back and appear on camera. but right now what we're hearing from source, it's treasury taking the lead on that. in fact, during the pushback that occurred before 2 clack this afternoon, i'm told that the white house was not involved in the push back and it was between treasury and s&p. and, john, we've seen republicans blasting, no surprise, president obama, the campaign has probably right themselves politically. how big of a problem is this moving forward? >> the s&p will move forward and saying that the agency should have stuck to where the united states should get in terms of a reduction deficit and republicans will say that's a political statement and economic statement. look, you can -- we only have one president. he's the incumbent up for re-election next year. let me cut the insta

treasury department show the figures released by the u.s. treasury department show the country of the united states currently has a total operating cash balance of seventy three point seven billion dollars this compares with apple's seventy six point four billion of cash reserves which has built up during a phenomenal half decade of strong sales of course most of their goods are well they're designed and innovated. in the united states but they're all manufactured in china but yes this brings up a number of interesting point stacy first of all fifty percent of all that was manufacturing capacity could be in the united states so instead of having seventy or eighty billion in cash they might only have ten or twenty billion. by law under the f.c.c. a company is not even allowed to have that much cash without paying a dividend so they're actually breaking the law on that front second of all this is actual cash apple's balance sheet it's not their money so call that's on the american government's balance sheet which is actually not hard cold cash

bills and to the treasury department redeem them say here give me the cash and this and that and the treasury department has no cash so it wouldn't be able to pay the so security fund it so those security fund couldn't be passing out the money the real reason that social security is on the table and this is the really important issue the real reason why social security is on the table is because of lobbying from wall street bankers two point seven trillion dollars two billion seven hundred. it's like two point seven i came to do the math it's a million times and millions you know it's really you know is a trillion dollars a billion a billion is a thousand million two point seven trillion dollars the wall street bankers are looking at that money going oh we have this money and we could be churning this money and we can just skim a little off the top and so they're trying to do a pinochet did in chile like forty years ago or thereabouts and privatized social security and the banks were make out like bandits and so they're leaning on the republicans and they're living on th

the treasury department was. because it was -- it landed on their lap. before the president got on to marine one to go to camp david for the weekend we saw in the oval office he was meeting with secretary geithner, 3 p.m. eastern time or so before he got on the helicopter to go. you can bet they were discussing this. >> greta: did they try to act like it is no big deal? >> they were trying to downplay it. in fairness, standard and here's had -- standard & poor's had been signaling this could happen. after cutting the dell deal and getting the markets calmed a little today in part because the jobs numbers, which now we are not talking about, a bit of good news now eclipseed by bad news. -- they thought things would start turn the corner and bam they get hit with this >> greta: ed, thank you. joining us neil cavuto. how serious is this? >> it could be very serious. ed touched on the bigger issues. when you have a ratings agency, probably the premiere when it comes to sovereign debt, the debt of countries moody's rates higher or more of a bigger player. whe

financial powers that be as it were the treasury department and the federal reserve as well as the european people the european finance ministry is the european central bank and the european commission they took on these socialize all these bad debts they if you listen clean or explicitly current keep all the banks and so now the banks are bigger they are sicker they have bigger exposures so when you have another crisis it's going to be worse this is what happens when you kick the can down the road this is the position we're in now and our system of course as you know are transparent is now more regulated thank god frank i have one good example of that and i think you know not the only way that's out there saying this right now and yet we still have all the officials saying a very good a way that they have plans and they'll unveil it at some point in time and i think that they're worried right now because i want to thank you for joining us tonight. now when we return we have our when fate isn't of use that it i read it also ahead defense cuts that deal calls for commuters in the d.o.d.'s bu

agreed on a deal to increase the debt ceiling and the bill has been signed, we know that the treasury department is not going to default. the very first evidence we have of that came in the auction today and yesterday forus treasury bills. after all, the u.s. raises money by auctioning off bills and notes and bonds to investors and what's been happening recently is that for the short-term bills, investors have been demanding higher interest rates. yesterday there were two. three-month treasury bills and six-month bills. the extra interest costs more than six million and more than $11 million. as all of that up and the rates were far, far lower. if you add them up, we get more than 18 $1/2 million that's the cost to taxpayers and that money goes on to the deficit. the deficit increases by that amount and of course the money comes out of the pocks of u.s. taxpayers. wolf? >> thank you. lots of money involved here. how far does congresswoman gabrielle giffords have to go. sanjay gupta is standing by live. bl the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down toge

we are told led by the treasury department but the treasury wanted, was on the phone pushing back and saying there were mass errors and s&p moved forward anyway. >> you are a huge help to all net woshes. ed henry . the man of the hour, don chambers who is head of the s&p rating committee. john, good to have you. you heard the attacks from the white house that your math was off and missed two trillion worth of debt savings. why did you do what you did? >> we lowered the rating on the united states government from double a plus from triple a. movated by the political grid lock in washington, which makes us think that it is difficult for elected officials to put the fiscal profile of the u.s. government on a long-term sustainable path and part of the fiscal path itself. debt to gdp, the state and local and federal government and that of liquid assets 75 percent of the gdp . that will trend up over the next decade . unless we get additional fiscal measures than what we have on the table right now. >> so two trillion in rough cuts were not enough. four trillion would have been? >> if you g

when he was in the treasury department as chief economist, he was instrumental in pushing for some of obama's economic policies, which of course people are saying now a lot of those economic policies did not go far enough and the stimulus was not big enough back then. he helped push for those back then. you are sure to see him pushing a lot for obama's plans now. >> greta: those are plans that failed. >> it is hard to know what it would have been like without them. if it would have been worse. he was certainly promoting on ma's plans. the other twist of course is -- phaopl's plans. the other twist of course is because he has already been affirmed once in the senate, the administration is hoping he will breeze through this time around. >> greta: did the president consider anybody with which is experience -- with business experience? >> he does have the ceo of general electric who is an adviser to him on economic and job policy. he's got him. he's also got a former executive from jpmorgan as his chief of staff. those are people with real world experience. >> greta: those guys are at the

the treasury department was. because it was -- it landed on their lap. before the president got on to marine one to go to camp david for the weekend we saw in the oval office he was meeting with secretary geithner, 3 p.m. eastern time or so before he got on the helicopter to go. you can bet they were discussing this. >> greta: did they try to act like it is no big deal? >> they were trying to downplay it. in fairness, standard and here's had -- standard & poor's had been signaling this could happen. after cutting the dell deal and getting the markets calmed a little today in part because the jobs numbers, which now we are not talking about, a bit of good news now eclipseed by bad news. -- they thought things would start turn the corner and bam they get hit with this >> greta: ed, thank you. joining us neil cavuto. how serious is this? >> it could be very serious. ed touched on the bigger issues. when you have a ratings agency, probably the premiere when it comes to sovereign debt, the debt of countries moody's rates higher or more of a bigger player. whe

s&p reportedly admitting to the treasury department their calculations were initially off by trillions. they presumably redid the math but still tonight issued the downgrade. does that tell us that this is about something other than the raw numbers that this is about processes as much as about figures? >> the stakes here are really high and that's why the obama administration pushed back so much. politicians can say that these ratings don't matter and people should ignore them, but clearly the reason they were pushing back is the stakes are high here and the reason they are high is that the ratings of the country have the potential to affect all kinds of other ratings here. some ratings agencies have said if there was a downgrade they may also lower the ratings of several states, they may also lower ratings of fannie and freddie, for instance, so the housing giants could find it more expensive to borrow in the market, so the ratings traditionally mean something and do affect pricing. this is unprecedented and we'll have to see on monday what happens in the market. it's possible investo

treasury department as the acting assistant secretary. he did the math and pointed out the debt is 8% points lower over 10 years which means the public debt is more stable. standard & poor's says they decided to go ahead anyway saying the decision wasn't based on the math but based on political gridlock over the debt ceiling vote. >> despite plans to cut more than 6,000 employees, networking giant cisco is wringing in the cash. the company reported better than expected earnings for its fourth quarter yesterday with $11.2 billion in revenue. analysts had expected the earnings to be slightly lower. the earnings report gave cisco share as 10% bump in after hours trading. >> that could help wall street when the opening bell rings. futures expected a bit higher. for more on that and news before the bell let's turn to courtney reagan. good morning. >> good morning. here we go again. you're going to want to strap yourselves in. it's shaping up to be a volatile day. now we're lower again. the markets yesterday erased tuesday's gains and then some

host: in the treasury department's it says that they go -- from the treasury department's web site -- who works in this world? why are these significant? guest: domestic finance is the job that i had from 1990 to 1993. there is a substantial and highly qualified, dedicated group of career professionals that work closely with the fed. they make recommendations to political appointees about what to do. this is a lot of expertise and mechanics built up over many decades. we are the biggest bar were in the world. we are the most creditworthy bar were in the world. the quality of the operations reflects all of that. host: who purchases t-bills? guest: mostly foreign governments and the like. the rest are purchased by individuals, abroad and at home. all sorts of different lenders and securities have reasons to own them. they are a risk free asset. if you want to buy something with a relatively low return and no down side, getting your interest payment back, everyone purchases united states bills of note. every other security of real- world is valued on the treasury's offer. host: from frid

the treasury department was. because it was -- it landed on their lap. before the president got on to marine one to go to camp david for the weekend we saw in the oval office he was meeting with secretary geithner, 3 p.m. eastern time or so before he got on the helicopter to go. you can bet they were discussing this. >> greta: did they try to act like it is no big deal? >> they were trying to downplay it. in fairness, standard and here's had -- standard & poor's had been signaling this could happen. after cutting the dell deal and getting the markets calmed a little today in part because the jobs numbers, which now we are not talking about, a bit of good news now eclipseed by bad news. -- they thought things would start turn the corner and bam they get hit with this >> greta: ed, thank you. joining us neil cavuto. how serious is this? >> it could be very serious. ed touched on the bigger issues. when you have a ratings agency, probably the premiere when it comes to sovereign debt, the debt of countries moody's rates higher or more of a bigger player. whe

s&p reportedly admitting to the treasury department their calculations were initially off by trillions. they presumably redid the math but still tonight issued the downgrade. does that tell us that this is about something other than the raw numbers that this is about processes as much as about figures? >> the stakes here are really high and that's why the obama administration pushed back so much. politicians can say that these ratings don't matter and people should ignore them, but clearly the reason they were pushing back is the stakes are high here and the reason they are high is that the ratings of the country have the potential to affect all kinds of other ratings here. some ratings agencies have said if there was a downgrade they may also lower the ratings of several states, they may also lower ratings of fannie and freddie, for instance, so the housing giants could find it more expensive to borrow in the market, so the ratings traditionally mean something and do affect pricing. this is unprecedent and we'll have to see on monday what happens in the market. it's possible investors

the treasury department announced the latest totals today. with two months left in the federal fiscal year, the red ink is on pace to exceed last year's deficit of nearly $1.3 trillion. the record was more than $1.4 trillion in 2009. international forces have killed the taliban militants who shot down a u.s. helcopter on saturday. 38 u.s. and afghan troops died in that attack. today, the top u.s. commander in afghanistan marine general john allen said the insurgents died in an air strike on monday. >> we tracked them, as we would in the aftermath of any operation, and we dealt with them with a kinetic strike. and in the aftermath of that, we have achieved certainty that they in fact were killed in that strike. >> sreenivasan: separately, nato troops got into firefights with afghan police in two parts of the country overnight. four afghan officers were killed. the circumstances were under investigation. missiles fired by u.s. drone aircraft have killed at least 20 militants in pakistan's northwest. pakistani intelligence officials reported the

he dignified a rating system that was a already hit which the treasury department as >>> i love this country deeply. indeed, the only thing that you love more is the living christ! >> texas republican governor rick perry at a prayer a semblance last week in houston's reliant stadium rallied a crowd of 30,000 evangelical christians it was planned a year ago with governor perry helping organize it and serve as the public face of the rally. the evangelical christians and the born-again christians together constitute, get this, 26% of the national electorate. the evangelical christian share alone of the national vote in 2010's midterm was 30%. so rick perry is now in, and his star is rising. he's only 3 points behind the front-runner, former massachusetts governor mitt romney. ram knee is polling at 21%. perry 18%. perry's strength, get this, texas is booming and perry has been governor of texas for lever years. he assumed the governorship when it was vacated by george w. bush when w became president. as governor, perry balanced the state budget and has been reelected governor three time

the treasury department was the number at 1.12 daughters. this year's deficit is unfazed as he ushers amounts of $1.29 trillion. analysts say it will fall short of the record 1.41 trillion a dozen and. >>> state officials met today to discuss how to implement a new $150 fire protection be. ask engadget tells us, this new breed is tempting many residents to be aware. >> reporter: is a rural area where we often see loughner is. should they pay as sure for fire protection? it will charge homeowners a $150 the. >> anyone who lives in about whether the state. >> reporter: is intended to raise about $50 million this year for calfire, money there faces cuts. >> is the state's -- the state has long been looking for stable funding boys grow a fire protection. >> reporter: duffel bags? and what they are paying for fire protection already? >> the 150 feet down like feet is ill-conceived because there's overlap -- fee is ill- conceived because there's overlap. >> she is is the president and publisher of the quake and tinier. the whole matter is congrega

the inspectors general of the treasury department and federal reserve have reported favorably on the efforts to stand up to the agency. we are already at work strengthening the consumer financial market and working towards a market where consumers can readily see prices and risks and compare products to make the choices that they believe are best for them. we have taken input from thousands of individual consumers and mortgage lenders and brokers on how to simplify federal mortgage disclosures and make them less burdensome. we are launching the bargain for supervising the largest banks and their affiliates. we are taking our first consumer complaints about credit cards and set up a strong office of surface member affairs reaching out to military families and looking to address the unique financial challenges they face. to fulfill the mandate is to bush by congress, we have hired an expert staff from the private, public and nonprofit sectors striving to build an agency that is smart, effective and balanced. at this efp, we've been building into the agency dna come extensive outreach t

. >> at the head of the treasury department. at the head of the american central bank. and among the ceo suites of the currently aaa rated financial institutions and i guess the question i would posit to the two of you is of the board rooms at the big banks, treasury department, federal reserve and the white house, does anybody have any understanding, because my experience has been there's absolute total ignorance to even a willingness to have this conversation, to, can either of you report a conversation that goes to the threat of war, the reality of the risk of this level of perpetuated unfairness and distortion in any society going back to rome, and until you square the system either through debt restructuring or some more violent means, it will fester. in other words, you have to go through it, as you were just saying? does the president get this? >> i don't know if he gets this. my instinct says he doesn't, but -- and the evidence of that is the people he put in charge of the treasury, of the rest of the system. you know, when there's an accident or an error in a h

so much about treasuries already. >> the white house is not taking this lying down, and the treasury departmentaking issue with the s&p's rating, right? do they have a leg on which to stand on when they try to make this argument? >> one senior official told me last night it's amateur hour at s&p. it's easier for the administration to make that -- those arguments than to try to discredit s&p because of how badly the ratings agencies did in the financial crisis in 2007-2008. so many bad calls that they m e made. the fourth was over the computation for the amount of discretionary spending and what's going to take place under this deal. about 1:30 yesterday standard & poor's sent over their plan to downgrade to the treasury. treasury looked at it. career officials said, wait a minute, you've done the math wrong. there was several hours of limbo there. finally, s&p came back with a different rationale, which was more political in nature saying the political dysfunction is why we are downgrading, and the administration teeed off on that last night. >> let's look at what the dow did. having its worst

reporter: there was a behind the scenes struggle yesterday afternoon and evening where the treasury department was trying to point out to s&p look you have a math error and you have overcounted two trillion in debt that the white house believed was overstating the problem. at the end of the night, official s&p still moved forward with the downgrade. i think the first impact for the president is the fact when you look at the morning papers, that you know, decent jobs report yesterday it want great but there was job growth, better than wall street was expecting. that's the second or third story. the first story of course much bigger type, is the downgrade. the president can't catch a break when he gets a jobs report that is overshadowed. the reason why the administration was fighting furiously to push-back on s&p yesterday afternoon and evening is they though it is going to be a stain on his presidency. something that will follow him to the history books the first president to have this happen on his watch. obviously it will follow him into november 2012 and be part of the republican campaign ad

brings a lot of experience to the table both as an academic and through his service in the treasury department of this administration, the labor department of the clinton administration. his expertise in the labor market is particularly relevant as we focus on the need to grow the economy and increase job creation. so he looked for the best possible choice and found him in dr. krueger. >> do you believe that he'll bring new ideas to the table? >> i believe that he's an excellent economist and a dynamic economist with a lot of experience, and will be an important member of the economic team, yes. >> and on the president's job speech, he shared with us that it will be next week. what day is it going to be? >> we don't have a date to announce. i will repeat what the president said, that you can expect it next week, but i don't have a date or location to give to you today. >> what is the reason for not telling us when it's going to be? >> it could be because we haven't finally decided. [laughter.] and when we have an announcement to make, we'll make it. that would be the -- >> heated debate? >> no

s&p has been under fire from lawmakers, investors and the treasury department ever since it downgraded the u.s.' aaa credit rating. >>> heart disease is the number one killer in women. two out of three women who die suddenly from the disease didn't have symptoms. but a simple test could change that and prove to be a lifesaver. ann lines is checking in with her cardiologist, she's taking charge after her husband suffered a heart attack in june. making sure she's not tenext. >> i don't want to be left in the dark. >> reporter: in addition to having her blood pressure and close roll checked, she's getting a look checked for heart disease. as a diabetic, ann knows she's at high risk for a heart attack. but dr. lumberg says many women whose doctors tell them they're at low risk may not be. >> we've seen people told they're low risk and in the emergency having heart attacks. >> reporter: that's because doctors do not test for fear of overtreating people. >> we've learned that the cost of the screening and the cost of the medication is small compared to the number of events prevented. so it's

he had worked previously for the treasury department. and this is the man that the president wants to head up the council of economic advisers. it is pending congressional approval, so it doesn't happen right away, but this is a man that the president wants to put in front of the country to talk about what is our plan for the economy coming up. so what can we expect, what are some of the new ideas? alan krueger -- alan krueger might bring to the table? we're going to be talking about that later on in the show, just moments from now, what are some of the new ideas about jobs, especially when it comes to putting the country before the party, as the president just mentioned, as we get into this post-labor day period, and wonder what's next for the economy, what does the president have in store. a whole bunch of topics to explore in just a few moments. >>> well, the president also mentioned some storm recovery still happening, another big story for us today, we're so glad you're with us everybody, i'm jenna lee. gregg: i'm gregg jarrett in f

and given that, i would like once again to address the failure by the treasury department to respond to repeated requests i've made over the past week about treasury short-term cash position and the failure of every member of the so-called fsoc to provide congress with information about their contingency plans in the event there is a ratings downgrade on the u.s. debt in the future. does treasury still think it will run out of cash by midnight tonight? i've been given only limited information. treasury continues to say we will run out of cash today and will not be able to pay our bills the same date they estimated way back in may. treasury won't show me, the ranking member of the senate finance committee, how they are arrest raoeufrg at that estimate -- arriving at that estimate. i have not been informed, congress has not been informed and americans counting on timely social security payments have not been informed. almost every member of the fsoc including treasury and federal reserve refused to provide me with information. even if the debt limit is raised there is no assurance we wo