points today, closing at 14,776. it was well over 15,000 already. what s your assessment if there s no resolution of this debt ceiling issue in the next few days? can we anticipate further declines? absolutely. the problem is the financial market, although they think the armageddon scenario where we actually default on our debt and stop government payments is not the most likely outcome, it s possible but not probable, they have to start pricing in the risk. they also have to start dealing with the reality of the actual cost to the economy the longer the government is shut down. not only are government workers furloughed, there s a spillover effect, cab drivers, retail workers, restaurants outside there s a place in kentucky where they have 3,000 irs workers that are out of work and no one s going to the restaurants in the area, and they are quite concerned about that. i talked to the president of the chamber of commerce there.
from speaker boehner was exemption for members of congress. and what he means by that in plain english is that in exchange for funding the government, house republicans want to basically get rid of health care for all their employees, or more accurately, cut all their secretaries pay. no, really, that s what s going on. their latest gamete is to attach what s called the vitter amendment to the government funding bill, the one that just passed out of the house again. and what that amendment does is get rid of government payments of health care of members of congress and their staff. now, this won t matter that much for members of congress. they re good because nearly all of them are rich. according to the center for responsive politics, almost half of them are millionaires. but it s another story altogether for their staffers, who will see their current employer contribution to health care costs taken away from them for no reason. at one point today at a caucus meeting this is amazin
as we pointed out last night, president obama does not even want to describe the terror attack in boston as an act of jihad. so there is strong motivation for the left-wing media to tell you the terror attack was the action of self-contained zealots. more facts: tsarnaevs received welfare both federal and state for many years. and it was easy for them to get government payments. why? because it s easy for everybody to get them. the obama administration has flooded the entitlement market with cash. frauds out of control. tax money flows without much supervision. obviously this whole case needs to be investigated thoroughly, all the abuses that have taken place need to be rectified. summing up, these two brothers had access to no money. let s find out where the money came from, that financed their terror spree. that s the memo. now for the top story
have to pass something called a continuing resolution to extend government payments. i don t think the president having just suffered a reversal on the sequester wants to get into a confrontation, so he d rather negotiated than confront. the economy is not quite as solid as a lot of people think. most people are very worried about the economy. the president s approval rating is down to 45, 46%. the only reason the unemployment number fell last friday, jamie, was a bunch of people left the labor force. we have three million fewer jobs today than we did when president obama took office in 2009. so the unemployment rate is lower only because fewer people are working. in a couple of polls that we took a look at this morning, my producers and i, and eric as well. the congressional approval rating has dipped so much that it s pretty close to the approval rating of chavez. it s pretty serious. remember. it s always been bad. it was bad last year, and you
and there is no question what professor fuller is saying is right. there will be job losses. if you re in the d.c. area, you re going to be hit. that s an area where the government spends a lot of money. and if you re in the defense business or selling a lot of education services or something to the government, you ll be hit, as well. but i do take issue, though, when people say that all small businesses will be hit, i take issue with the fact that some small businesses aren t planning ahead. you re right, we ve known this is going to be coming and the small guys that i know have diversified themselves a little bit. so i don t want to sound unsympathetic, but if your business is built entirely around the u.s. government and you re just getting government payments for what you re doing and that s your only customer, i question whether you re really doing the right thing and being smart when you re running your business. . you should be diversified. so what should these people be doing