steve: time for news by the numbers. first, $9. that s how much any united airlines passenger can now pay to get through security faster. i d do that for 9 bucks. next, $3. that s how much subway is charging for a 6-inch sandwich. the 6-inch sub select is the alternative to the popular 5-dollar-foot long. 8.6 million, that s how many people watched the season 3 premiere of duck dynasty with a and e. that s the most watched program in the network s history. gretchen: congratulations. do you keep coming up with excuses to why you can t exercise? want easy ways to blast your fat?
well despite the recent scrutiny on spending, president obama pushed for more of it in tuesday night s state of the union address. just so happened to fall on the same day as mardi gras. well next guest has started a campaign called show us your cuts. taking a bourbon street approach to the out-of-control spending now in progress in washington, d.c. joining us executive director of public notice. gretchen hamel. gretchen, welcome, you heard the president say we need to invest in this, that, and the other thing. investment is different from spending though, right? oh, no. it s no different at all. investment is just a good word, a good spin on what more spending is. and the president on mardi gras announced that he wanted 20 new programs and said it wasn t going to cost more than a dime. so let s take a look at some of the things the president proposed. these investments which you rightly point out which, of course, are spending. minimum wage increase from 7.25 to 9 bucks. expandi
economy. with high sky the national debt growing larger and larger additional spending will be difficult to get through congress. the white house may be making a strategic decision that there is no political benefit from focusing on debt and deficits. republicans say the plan to raise the federal minimum wage from 7.25 up to 9 bucks an hour will kill jobs just as the economy is struggling to add them. there are signs retail sales a big driver for the economy are sputtering. when you raise the price of employment guess what happens? you get less of it. at a time when american people are asking the questions where are the jobs why would we want to make it harder for them to hire people. advocates for the minimum wage say it will act as a
through the storm perhaps. that could be temporary hiring to fix up, clean up. gretchen: interesting. let s talk about something that the president proposed during the state of the union on tuesday night regarding minimum wage. he says he wants to raise it from 7.50 where it is now to $9 an hour. would that be a good or bad thing for the economy? well, when you talk to business owners right away they say a bad thing for the economy. as you continue to raise minimum wage, which was 5.15 back in 2007, so it really has grown expo centially, we ve had on the fox business network, small business owner, franchise owners who talk about the fact that a, they just won t be hiring as much. b, if they have to go from 7.25 up to 9 bucks, then the $9 employees will say, hey, how come this inexperienced young worker is making what i m making and i want a raise, too. there is a lot of things. not opening new locations would be another factor. so the big picture is that it will probably hurt bus
he did, he read the broiler plate script. the reason he s attractive is not just because of his background but he s offering something new in terms of a new republican immigration policy. he gave that the most passing of references last night. what s he for? the second class deal? he s now suggesting there should be a path to legalization. he s behind this deal but he s afraid to say it to his own base right now. let s go over this pattern. the republicans obviously are you lose the election you try to make yourself more cosmetically pleasing. but look at the way it s been here. rubio, cruz with the nastiness again today, boehner. this sort of soured look at the $9 an hour minimum wage. don t republicans know they re stepping back into the bear trap when they say we don t even want to pay a guy 9 bucks an hour. we re not going to give them $18,000 a year. that s too much. it puts them right back in the trap where mitt romney was