♪ >> here is a look at the latest numbers 15% of the vote, mitt romney, the projected winner by the associated press is leading with 42%. newt gingrich's in second place with 25%. ron paul has 20%. rick santorum 20%. in a few minutes we expect newt gingrich's to arrive to speak with his supporters. the former house speaker has been campaigning since wednesday. he is running second in the numbers in the nevada caucuses. while we wait to hear from him, here is an update ipod on jobs from today's washington journal. host: what to the numbers tell us about the economy? guest: before i get into the report, i thought it might be useful to highlight the outline of the economic framework. by doing that, it will help to give some perspective to answering any questions that come up, looking at issues. basically, a lot of -- over a lot of time, the performance of the u.s. economy can be depicted as a trend line that is moving higher. that represents u.s. gdp growth averaging about 2% per year. we have a trend going like this. without getting into the technical ins and outs, basically we call this potential cheaply. economists agree that fluctuations that occur around that are the results of fluctuations in aggregate demand. we have the economy going up and we have fluctuations around that because of changes in demand. sometimes the economy is above full employment. one credit was easy, housing prices were going up, the economy was booming. people could get home equity loans, increased demand to get above full employment gdp. you can do it because people can work overtime, factories could push harder. essentially, firms are competing for scarce resources. wages go up in that circumstance. factories can push harder. essentially, firms are competing for scarce resources. wages go up in that circumstance. prices go up. you get higher inflation. host: we are well below the full employment rate. the latest numbers have the unemployment rate at 8.3%. that is down from 8.5% in december. guest: sometimes we are below the trend line or full employment gdp. that is because of negative shocks to demand. we have the financial crisis where credit froze up. businesses could not grow. housing prices went down dramatically. people felt less wealthy. they demanded less goods and services. unemployment went up. it has improved recently. people felt less secure about their jobs. there was less spending. the fall in demand lead to recession. we're well below but a substantial margin. the economy is now about 7% below where full employment gdp would come in. during the recession, we saw the unemployment rate go up very high. recently, we have had an extended time of private sector growth. the most recent numbers showed the unemployment rate at 8.3%. expectations were that there would be 120,000 to 150,000 jobs created. it came in more like 250,000 jobs created. that was good news. host: we are talking with georgetown adjutant economic professor robert feldman. we're going to change the phone lines a little bit for this segment. ent. if your employer, give us a call. if you are looking for a job -- if you are employed, and give us a call. if you are looking for a job, if you have stopped looking. why were these numbers such a surprise? guest: these numbers are hard to predict. this is not the first instance where surprises have come in better or worse than expected. some contributing factors may have been that the weather was better in january. that helped with the construction industry. one surprise was that the services industry picked up. we recently have strong performance in the automobile industry. all of these have not been built into people's projections before the numbers cannot. host: the weather can play into the jobs report? guest: it can for the factors that are a weather-sensitive. it takes into account certain seasonal aspects. during the winter, you would expect construction to be not as strong as in warmer weather. this winter has not been as bad or harsh as it normally is. that makes it easier for construction activity to take place. host: not everybody was so excited about the numbers. some are expressing concern about the numbers. this is congressman brady from texas yesterday. [video clip] >> these numbers are encouraging. the unemployment rate going down slightly is as well. i have to caution you. it masks an underlying weakness in our economy. fewer americans are participating in the workforce than in 28 years. labor force. his summation -- the labor force participation rate has not been this low since march of 1983. the labor market is not recovering fast enough, considering how depressed it has been. host: your thoughts on his concerns? guest: is some good news in the numbers. there is also bad news for the labor market. the good news is employment grew more than expected. the rise in employment was broad-based. it was not limited to one or two sectors. it occurred across a range of sectors in the economy. the other good news is we saw the unemployment rate fall to 8.3%. the weaker aspects of the labor market are also there. one is the number of people that have been employed for extended periods of time is at historical highs. we have 5.5 million people that have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks. the average length of time somebody is unemployed is approaching 40 weeks. as people become more detached from the labour market, they lose their skills. it makes it harder to find a job it makes it more difficult on the economy when the skills are deteriorating. that is one week point to the numbers we are seeing. -- that is one weak point to the numbers we're seeing. host: tom is on the line. caller: i and self-employed. if the private sector is left to grow, it will take care of the problem. the jobs bill was never needed. we could keep going like this. guest: let me make a couple of points. this is why i tried to wait out the broad framework in the first place. when the economy is at full employment and the government is trying to expand, it is competing for resources with the private sector. wages go up. you can get inflation as a result. interest rates go up. that hurts investment. that leads to changes. government expansion can hurt the economy. it is crowding out the private sector and not allowing it to grow as much as it might otherwise be. in the circumstances we are in now where the economy is below will gdp, the government is not crowding out the private sector. the more restraint the government shows in the near term, that is causing a further reduction in demand that can help keep us below full employment gdp rather than create jobs. the other thing relevant to this aspect is the analysis. you can look at surveys done by the federation of independent aboutsses where they aske the most important problem. the single most important problem they are facing is the lack of sales. there is insufficient demand. the second point is if the government is spending more money on projects like fixing roads and schools that would otherwise need to be repaired anyway and if they were not, it would be passing the costs on to future generations, it hires a private firm. that firm earns more profits than it otherwise would. the workers earn more income than they would otherwise. they are going to spend money at restaurants and other leisure activities. by the government increasing spending, it is creating more private sector jobs. it is not getting in the way a private sector jobs. shows jobs graph growth. it also has the government jobs that you were talking about. there were 14,000 jobs lost in the government sector over the past month. on the employed line, jared is from wisconsin. caller: the gentleman describes the perfect economic theory of business. however, alan greenspan kept interest rates below because he saw no wage pressure. wage pressures would have prevented the bubble from occurring in housing. what was not discussed is the millions of undocumented workers coming across the border for work in this country of low wages. the cows are out of the barn. we will dig out of the mess slowly. we have to have a comprehensive immigration policy that is effective to prevent bubbles like this in the future. host: talk about his concerns about people coming in across the border illegally to take jobs. guest: i am not a lawyer or making judgments on the legal side. in terms of the economics, the effect that will have on jobs and the unemployment rate, that very much depends on whether legal american workers would be willing to take those jobs that illegal immigrants are taking. if they are doing work that other americans would not take, it is not going to have a big impact on job creation. if they were doing jobs americans would be willing to take, it would have a bigger impact on the labour market and unemployment. host: anthony is on the line from titusville, fla. caller: this stopped looking for work number, i do not know where they came up with that. that means you have run out of unemployment. it does not mean you have stopped looking for work. there is a negative aspect to the way they put that. host: are you currently looking for work? caller: i am a full-time student. the industry and i am in -- the industry that i am and requires a degree. i have been in the industry for over 20 years and never had to have a degree. i moved up to a systems analyst and held the position for several years. i was laid off when my company moved to the factory to mexico. host: do these numbers encourage you? caller: smoke and mirrors. the numbers mean nothing. what the professors have been teaching for 20 years has not worked well because of the situation we are in now. we can rethink economics and the models they use. >> return now to las vegas where newt gingrich has arrived to make remarks. >> we thought that instead of the standard rally we would start by saying there is one story that came out today that i want to put to rest for the next few months. i am a candidate for president of the united states. we will go to tampa. we have over 160,000 donors, 97% of whom have given less than $250. we have an obligation to stand up for them. we will leave on monday to go to denver and then to minneapolis and then four cities in ohio. we will continue to campaign all the way to tampa. several things have clarified themselves. i care very deeply about helping the poorest americans. i believe that the declaration commitment toce's pursue happiness extends to the poorest of americans. when of the challenges to conservatism is to turn the safety net into a trampoline to give people an opportunity to earn a living, have a decent future. i am not comfortable with allowing people to languish in the safety net. i think that is a fundamental difference between the two of us. i believe his proposal for indexing the minimum wage is a bad idea which will increase unemployment. every evidence we have shows it would do that. nevada has 32% teenage unemployment. the country that has 43% black teenage unemployment, maybe you should not suggest a capricious increase of a minimum-wage which kills jobs. there are some big differences in evolving in this campaign. i also believe the vast majority of republicans are going to want an alternative to a massachusetts moderate who has given his career in pro- abortion, pro-tax increase and who ranked third from the bottom in creating jobs as governor. our commitment is to seek to find a series of victories which, by the end of texas, will leave us at parity with governor romney. to see if we cannot actually win the nomination. tonight he will do well. this is one of his best states. it is a heavily mormon state. i think we have early returns. we do not know how it is going to end up. last time ron paul was in second place. he has a substantial advantage in a caucus state. i will do better than john mccain did three years ago. we will get some delegates. we are happy to be competing here. we are going to move on to compete in maine, minnesota, colorado. a early voting has began in ohio and arizona. we will compete later in arizona and michigan and to want to super tuesday and beyond that. i wanted to say that so you could relax. every primary day the romney headquarters in boston says the rumor they believe i will withdraw, which is their fantasy. i am not going to withdraw. i am happy where we are. i think the contrast between governor romney and me is going to get wider and wider. i look forward to opportunities to debate him and draw the contrast and to compete for votes. >> >> what kind of conversations have taken place? >> we got together for a practical reason. i was surprised by the degree to which the establishment has closed ranks and made clear that they are desperate over the prospect of a gingrich presidency. i was surprised by george soros that he was happy with obama or romney because it did not make much difference in policy. i was surprised that the new york times article on the romney campaign's decision that they had to destroy newt gingrich. we said if this is the objective reality, the entire establishment will be against us. wall street money will be amazing. the campaign will be based on things that are not true. howard to define the campaign for the average american so they get to choose to they want soros -approved candidates or a conservative? we spent the last four days of laying out a campaign for the next few months. we see we can communicate through the clutter and be able to draw designs -- decisively for the american people. reagan had this challenge with john conley. we have had a past republican campaigns in which the establishment had massive financial advantages. reagan lost five straight primaries. i am comfortable that when you come down to it, a pro-abortion, pro tax increase candidate of the establishment is not going to do very well. i am happy to have that debate with governor romney. i will debate him one on one anywhere he is willing to stand up and explain his record without the the things he used in florida. >> everybody will get a chance. >> there are reports [unintelligible] [inaudible] >> said if i dropped out he would support governor romney. i have said the choice of obama and romney is no choice. driving forceary is the survival of the united states and israel in the face of a nuclear weapon. compared to barack obama, virtually anybody is a better candidate. that does not bother me at all. >> you seem to be looking past february and aiming at super tuesday. how much of your focus is going to be on super tuesday states? can you lay out what the next month will mean? >> one of the things some of you, as you keep score, do not follow me is that we are a national system in terms of information flow. if i am hannity or one of the networks or even in the new york times, it reaches the whole country. i run a campaign which twice has may be the front-runner and i suspect will be again by texas. next week we are in colorado, minnesota, ohio and then washington. i think the following monday we start in california. we are going to be all over the place. we intend to compete in every single state in the country. you can count on us being competitive in every single state. >> nancy pelosi said she stands behind obama. with their fellow catholics. >> meaning the archbishop, the hierarchy, every bishop, every priest, those are her fellow catholics? you might ask the archbishop how he thinks the term fellow catholic applies to him. let me go back for a second. the obama administration has declared war on religious freedom in this country. people need to understand that. this is a decision so totally outrageous and an elite -- radical secular ideology that the hierarchy will oppose it. it has nothing to do with the details. it has to do with whether the government can tell a religious institution you must give up your religious beliefs. that is what obamacare has come to mean. the right of a politician and bureaucrat to tell you you may no longer worship the way you want unless you pay a penalty for doing so. i think the average american will be repulsed by the arrogance and the bigotry of the obama administration. >> have you considered voters are not buying what you're selling? you have been on the ballot in five states. you also talk about the debates but you have had 18 of them and you have been considered to done well. it is not showing up in the polls. >> i am not going to defend the outcome in a state where i was outspent five to one. you understand that the idea of taking a state where the other guy spend five times as much money and many of his ads were false, that maybe that is not an accurate measure. i was ahead by 12 points. i was a had about one week ago. in a few more weeks i will be ahead ago. >> is that ignoring the reality of the campaign? he has gone negative and is working. >> he has gone negative and it is working. what i am asserting is that i do not believe the american people will approve of a campaign which suppresses turnout. it is amazing, if you look at florida, every county had an increase to turn out. every county carried by romney had a decrease to turn out. if the only way romney when's it's depressing turnout, how is he going to do that in the fall? if he can only outspent five to one, how will that apply against obama? i suggest there are underlying factors and i am happy to continue campaigning and i am amazed that the media is desperate for subscribing and excuse to ask me to quit. >> can you be successful with mitt romney in your head the way he is right now? >> first of all, i am not sure if mitt romney is in my head. that is an interesting analysis on your part. with a psychiatric degree, that will give you a chance to get new clients. there is a clear contrast. the clear contrast is important. over time we are going to drive home that contrast in a way which will be to his disadvantage. i think the american people want somebody who is genuinely conservative, prepared to change washington. take his one comment this week about not caring about the poor. we know it was a mistake just like his comment about liking to fire people. a conservative who cares about the poor, a conservative who cares about every american, a conservative who says why don't we rethink the safety net so it becomes a trampoline. it is jack kemp. a range of people who have been working on these ideas. ronnie's comments are a sign he does not understand conservative philosophy. that is important for republicans and conservatives to think about. nominating one more moderate like 1996, like 2008, i do not think that is a good future for the republican party. i do not think it is a good future for the country. >> [inaudible] >> go back and look at the second debate. i have never had a person stand next to me and be as dishonest as he was. look at what he said. you had larry sabato writing romney was being factually false. i did not have any mechanisms to turn to somebody who is being dishonest as a candidate for president. if you cannot tell the truth, which is a charge that has been made by mccain, fred thompson, huckabee. how can the country expect you to leave as president? i was stunned. i make no bones about this. in the second floor debate i had nothing to say because i had never seen a person who i thought of a serious candidate be that fundamentally dishonest. it was blatant and deliberate. i do not want to tell you now. you have to give us a few trade secrets. >> [inaudible] >> this is a state he won last time. we will do better than mccain last time. >> and news reports suggest you had a greater involvement with freddie mac. >> i have not seen the reports. i will be happy to look at them. >> you said you are ashamed of the negativity. have you engaged in any negativity? are you willing to commit to give up any negativity? >> you cannot disarm in a world w