your holiday bills in january or february versus march or as someone said to me today-might mean it s a little bit later before i get turned one at macies and and say say your card is declined. i think we don t know yet because there is that lag time. logically because of the credit card cycle. i never noticed that before. you re right, people don t pay cash when they go and don t see it until later on, but if they see they re getting a smaller credit card bill or debit card, that is deducted, but does that have any psychological effect? something is happening because we have seen a pickup in this activity. what we re seeing is sentiments. if the gas prices were higher i shudder to think what that would look like. there s a psychological effect to it. and also if you re in a rural area or commute a lot or lower income, there is a more immediate impact. so definitely an upside there. we talked about it last time. sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. dropping gas prices
extending tax cuts, um, for everyone but the wealthy top brackets, and so we had a fiscal cliff debate and fight on capitol hill where american taxpayers across the country paying their holiday bills were anxiously waiting to see what congress would do, and ultimately everyone but the top earners saw their tax cuts restored. and we went right into a debate about gun control and immigration reform. so it s true that the president has not talked about growth or the economy in a very long time. given this new data, though, and given the fact that we saw an anticipation of these sequestered cuts that the congress passed a long time ago and have the opportunity to undo but haven t yet and are set to go into effect on march 1, in anticipation of those cuts that really hit at defense spending we saw a big shrink in defense jobs, and that is going to continue, um, when we see the sequester go into effect in march. and it s going to hit domestic
receding or does he say american is signals something other than thorough retreat from the world which is how it looks. bret: we have the address tomorrow, but the state of the union in a couple of weeks away, what is the biggest challenge? we are in a real threat to our security at home and overseas but we are in a fiscal crisis. we are at odds, we have a president and a republican party not speaking to each other, we are headed, again, to the edge of the default. we have to come up with a solution to that. americans are weary of the aspirational calls for unity they hear from president at state of the union addresses and inaugural addresses but everyone is paying holiday bills worried their taxes could go up. they know that congress is broken. they know the congress is paralyzed. they know president obama was complicity in that.
the surge just in time for an election year. and scientists find earth s evil twin far, far away. the size is right, but strange life might sizzle on this american morning. captions by vitac www.vitac.com all right. good morning, everyone. it is wednesday, december 21st. i m christine romans along with my friend ali velshi. i have to tell you. i m excited of the news of the new planet. it s different. not a political log jam. not pay rolle troll tax plan. new planets! we ll tell you all about it this morning. love it. other space cases. washington first. washington s dysfunction could mean less money in your pay cze paycheck yesterday. rejecting the payroll tax cut. and president obama during a surprise visit to the briefing room raled against this. the house republicans referred to what they re doing as high stakes poker. he s right about the stakes, but this is not poker. this is not a game. this shouldn t be politics as usual. kate bolduan live in w
good morning to you. it is tuesday, december the 20th. i m ali velshi joined again by alina cho this morning. good morning. good morning to you. so glad you re with us and up first, the u.s. keeping an eye out for advancing troops and any other threatening moves after the death of a dictator in north korea. north korean media show the images of kim jong-il s body laid out in a glass coffin. his third son and successor, kim jong un, paying respects. and live for us in seoul, south korea, anna, good morning. the south korean government sending its condolences along with a dose of what some are calling christian mystery diplomacy. what s that all about? reporter: that is right, alina. the sense of condolence, the official wording from the south korean government. this is a real thorn in relations because relations between the two countries hit rock bottom of late. it s worst of the relationships for years. offering sympathies certainly seems to be an act of south korea reach