he joins us live. we ll see you at the top of the hour. bill: getting word now that secretary of state hillary clinton will travel to cairo next week and part of that trip will involve not just meeting with the egyptians but also the opposition leaders in libya and tunisia. that will be an interesting meeting. it s just breaking right now during some testimony on the hill. while that s happening, you know the economy is, well, was bumping against the bottom, aren t we, martha? stocks now down below 200 points, now coming back a little bit. the trade decifit was enormous for this past month and that s weighing on the markets and the jobs number, not great. so it s off 193 for the dow 30 right now. i ll be working in the long run. after all, i ve been i ll be dealing with this kind of thing for the rest of my life. i guess it s that s really all i have to say. it s just been i don t
cens gentlemen imbalance and america s massive trade decifit with china. some of the questions we re asking today, what does the u.s. get out of this visit? mike emanuel is live at the white house on that story. mike. reporter: jenna, good morning. many americans will probably remember this visit of president hu jintao, the chinese leader, for him being pressed on human rights by president obama, although officials here at the white house do say the two leaders spent about half of their time on economic issues. last night s state dinner, of course, is the image many people will remember of this vip visit to the white house. there was talk earlier in the day of the need for china to boost the value of its currency and level the playing field so american companies can compete and concerns about intellectual property, american computer software and entertainment. in his toast last night mr. obama emphasized a spirit of cooperation. chinese and american people work together and create
then the democrats say okay, fine, we ll do that if you include jobless benefits and a few other kind of stimulus efforts inside this compromise. is it a fair trade, as an american looking at the compromise, they re doing in d.c., does that seem like a fair trade if that s the compromise we get? if we re talking about an extension of unemployment benefits for several months, i don t think that s actually a big number financially, and perhaps, that s why it might be palatable for republicans to accept that. i don t honestly think we re talking about major swing factors here to the character or the strength of the economic recovery. i kind of think it s going to be kind of slow and bumpy no matter what comes out of these negotiations. jenna: peter, despite what happens in d.c. to mike s point, what do you see for the next year? i think the economy growing at two, 2 1/2% a year, unemployment creeping up to 10 percent. until the president has addressed the trade decifit with china, wit
tax increases which will go into effect next year if they do nothing and number three, we somehow as a country have to repeal or replace parts of the health care reform bill, in particular, the $500 million in taxes that are coming due next year. jenna: that s a lot. that s an ambitious list, elaine. i want to get peter s thoughts on that. we re giving a lot of credit to the tax cuts that could expire next year. is it too much credit? i mean, if let s say for example there is the tax cuts extended and we re able to keep them, i mean, would that solve all of our problems in the economy? that seems a little overdone. no. repealing the tax cuts, raising taxes makes the situation worse. keeping the tax cuts in place doesn t make it better businesses need customers and in the case of small business, they don t have that $2 trillion in reserves in profits, they don t have enough capital. customers, we have to do something finally about the trade decifit with china
which was a problem in the bush administration and has gotten worse with clinton and the 8000 regional banks have toxic assets on their banks so small businesses, suppliers to people like ford and general motors can t get the credit they need to expand. in fact the big guys are loaning them money because the new york banks won t. so it s a trade decifit and the banks. but the president has to back off all this government regulation. i was at the national association of manufacturers yesterday, and i ve never heard such screamings, they certainly didn t complain about clinton the way they complained about this guy. it s not just health care and financial regulations, the regulators in washington are on steroids, they re into everybody s factory, everybody s workplace, to a level they ve gotten american business terrified and the only instinct they have is to move to china. jenna: quick thoughts from all of you on this, peter, start off with you, where are we in this recovery, really?