and that's what this debate is all about. this is what's at stake for millions of americans. this is why it matters to people. it matters a heck of a lot. and i'm asking the american people to keep their stories coming. tell us what $40 means to you. if you tweet it, use the hash tag $40. call, tweet, write your congressman, write your senators, tell them, do not let up until this thing gets done, don't let taxes go up on 160 million working americans, don't let millions of americans who are out there looking for work right now and the economy is starting to improve but they don't have a job yet, don't leave them without a lifeline in items of cutting off their unemployment insurance. when a plane is finally lifting up off the ground you don't ease up on the throttle, the keep the throttle on full, you keep going, and our plane is up there, but we're not at cruising altitude yet. [laughter] >> after all, extending the tax cut and the unemployment insurance is the least of what we should be doing for working americans. it's just a start. we need to rebuild an economy where middle class folks can focus on more than just getting by. and folks who want to get in the middle class have those ladders to get into the middle class. we've got to rebuild an economy where the middle class thrives and more americans have a chance to earn their way into it. an economy built to last. yesterday, i released a blueprint for how we get there. it's a blueprint for an economy built on new american manufacturing. and new american energy sources, and new skills and education for american workers. and a new focus on the values that are the bedrock of this country. values like fairness. and responsibility. for all and from all. we're going to be better off if we start building that economy right now. and we can do it, because we've done it before. we have a common challenge. it's time for us to meet it with a common purpose. and to show a sense of seriousness that's equal to the task. so on behalf of all the hard working americans standing behind me, i want to thank you for helping to tell your story and tell the story of why this is so important. and i just want everybody all across the country to keep the pressure up so that we get this done. it is going to make our economy stronger. and it's going to put us in a position where we can start really rebuilding on behalf of not just this generation, but future generations. thank you very much, everybody. [applause] >> god bless you. god bless america. >> martha: was the president talking about the extension of the payroll tax cut that he would like to see done, as he says, it's the least of what we should be doing right now. according to reports of this morning, house republicans are really on board with extending this payroll tax cut, without any spending offsets. remember that was the big debate late last year, about passing this into the new year, getting a two-month extension and now we have to see if we get the payroll tax cut extension throughout the rest of the year. interesting comment from the president as well about gas prices. that's going to be a big issue. one of our big stories today steve moore from the "wall street journal" is going to join us with reaction to this, all coming up a bit later on "happening now". funny how things work out. the president just mentioned this. we did say this was one of the big stories but they are words that no person wants to hear, $4 gasoline. that could put the brakes on our economic recovery. but there's a lot to look at with this story. we're glad you're with us everybody, i'm jenna lee. jon: i'm jon scott, we are here in the fox news room and "happening now", it's a slow onset illness, gas prices climbing for weeks. you probably noticed. they're at the heist levels ever recorded for this time of year. jenna: the national average hitting 3.31 a gallon, 38 cents more than a year ago. that was before the arab spring, the jap knees tsunami. a lot happened last year, a lot of factors when we look at comparisons. some of the experts say it could top $4 in most places by memorial day. jon: adam shapiro with the fox business network, what is going on with the gas prices? >> there are a great many things going on but simply, a lot of refineries have been pulled out of production for the last couple of months but really, over the last two years. here in the northeast, the refineries producing gas are down almost 50 percent. that at the same time that we see oil prices, as the president said, going up. but demand for gasoline in the united states is going down. so you have less gasoline being produced, you have new regulations causing the refineries to come off line, awe as -- but as people head to the pump, they are expecting, economists will see a rise in unleaded 50 cents as we move towards memorial, the peak around $4 a gallon. here in the northeast where much more refining capacity is now offline, we could be approaching, some are saying, five add gallon. keep in mind, we have been here before. we only reached $4 a gallon for regular unleaded back in 2008. not last summer when they said we would. jon: you and jenna just talked about it, $4 gas by memorial day. any reason to think it won't happen? >> there is phil flynn, a fox business analyst, as well as a senior marketing analyst at dfg best, said there is light at the end of the tunnel. two things: first, last year at this time, we were talking about gasoline prices, possibly $5 a gallon. it did not happen. remember, it didn't happen, yet everyone was worried it would. we peaked at 3.98 a gallon. one of the things happening, there is demand destruction. as the price of gasoline goes up, people use less gasoline, so eventually the the producers stop making gasoline or cut price to clear inventory. that's what happened last year. that's why we didn't go to $5 a gallon. it could happen this year. the price will go up, it happens in the spring, we may be moving the spike from march to april to the period now in which case we would flatten out. i don't want to say it's not going to happen but there are reasons to believe, look, we've been here before and didn't hit the doom and gloom price. ojon i had been wanting to ride my bicycle more this year, anyway. this is good motivation. adam shapiro, thanks. jenna: this is news, violence escalating -- escalating in greece, protestors setting afire one of the largest banks, 170 businesses damaged by fire, 45 of them, completely destroyed. pensioners, facing cuts, are the latest group to join widespread protests over deep austerity measures approved by the greece government. it's a bit like ground hog's day. without the cuts greece will default on its debt next month. it's been a cycle repeated over the last year or so. well, israel on a heightened state of alert after a series of attacks on its diplomats. we're getting new amateur video of a bombing in india. four people were wounded yesterday, including a diplomat's wife when, when a magnic bomb attached to an official's vehicle exploded. authorities broke up a similar attack in the republic of georgia. and this morning, two iranians were arrested after bombing in bangkok's thailand, those also injured at least four people, a third man, a suspect, still on the loose and now an israeli cabinet minister is warning his country -- well, warning his country will actually settle the score. david piper is live from bangkok with more. david. >> reporter: yes, the bomb blasts occurred just a few streets away from where i'm standing now and also only a short drive away from both the israeli embassies and also the u.s. embassy. now, the first blast came from a house in the echermeier area of the city. three tried to escape the area when police tried to investigate the blast, then when a taxi didn't stop one bomb was thrown i believe at the car, injuring the driver. then it seems one of the men tried to throw another bomb at the police but instead it exploded near him, blowing off both his legs. photos of the injured man, showing him covered in a dark suit, lying on the sidewalk, immediately appeared on the internet. the thai authorities say documents found in his satchel suggests he is iranian. the thai police are tolding two of the men but one is still on the loose here in kahn bangkok. thailand security forces have been on high alert since the u.s. last month warned of a threat of a terrorist strike on tourist areas in bangkok. thai police later charged a lebanese suspect after they raided property and discovered chemicals that could be used to make a bomb, they alleged that the group is linked to hez balancea. thailand has been a target for foreign terrorists although a domestic muslim terrorist in the south has involved bombings. the blasts in bangkok come a day after diplomats were targeted in india and georgia and israel's defense minister has accused iran of being behind the bombing of thailand. arab brak said the explosion in bangkok proves once again that iran its proxies continue to perpetuate terror. iran and hezbollah haven't yet commented on the latest bombings. back to you. jenna: a lot more on this as these stories develop. david piep ner bangkok, thank you. jon: what a story. there's new legal action to tell you about in the father's day massacre on new york's long island, when a drug addict looking for pain pills gunned down four people in cold blood at a small new york pharmacy. now a family of one of the victims is suing. it could be a ground breaking case because of who they're going after. jenna: also brand new polls in the gop race for the the white house. what they tell us about the rick santorum surge. jon: plus, supersized waves, and powerful winds in the bay area. folks on the peer say it felt like -- on the pier say it felt like an earthquake. the wild weather behind it, nexten. i want to go on a road trip. when i grow up, i'm going to go there. i want to fix up old houses. 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[ male announcer ] michelin knows it's better for xerox to help manage their finance processing. so they can focus on keeping the world moving. with xerox, you're ready for real business. jon: fox news is your election headquarters and rick santorum's surge is not slowing down, as brand new polls show santorum gaining on the frontrunner mitt romney. in the survey by the pew research center, santorum racks up 30 percent to romney's 28 percent. factor in the margin six error -- of error and it's a dead heat. joining us, tom bevin, executive editor of real clear politics. ever seen a race like this, tom? >> never jon. it's amazing. we've seen candidates who were left for dead, come back, have second surges, and in this case with rick santorum, his victories last week really provided a boost to his candidacy and it's clear that i think that gingrich had his surge after south carolina, the conservative voters, tea party activists, sort of didn't like what they saw with gingrich in florida, and have now shifted their support to santorum. he's almost doubled his support in a couple of these polls now, while gingrich's support has been cut by 50, 60 percent. jon: but mitt romney also had a boost last week that conservative political action conference in washington took place, they took the straw poll there and romney won. >> well, yeah. it's a straw poll. he also narrowly won the main caucuses. look, perception matters, and it's certainly better than getting a round of headlines saying that romney lost again, but i don't think it changes the overall dynamic of this race. i think the two races coming up at the end of the month, jon, in michigan and arizona are key. if romney can win both of those then perhaps he will reestablish himself as a frontrunner but if he loses either of those or both of those then i think he's in real, real trouble and we're going to have a wide open race that's going to last well into the spring and perhaps summer and perhaps all the way to convention. jon: well, and you bring up an interesting point, because the american research group took a poll of likely michigan voters and it shows at this moment rick santorum in the lead, 33-27. this in michigan, the state where mitt romney has deep roots, where his father was governor. >> right. and that's why romney should be very concerned. this is one of his home states. and the fact that he's losing to santorum there, santorum has been making a big push, he got a cash infusion after his last round of victories, he's spending a lot of that money in michigan to make a serious play there because santorum knows that michigan is key for him. he's got a good profile there, he's from a neighboring state, and if he can pull off an upset in michigan he's going to be in great shape and mitt romney is going to be stumbling into spa tuesday. jon: rick santorum was down, what, 17 points two weeks or so ago and all of the sudden it looks like a real horse race. >> it's amazing. as we've seen at the outset, we've never seen a race that's so fluid, chaotic and support has shifted and remember, in the new pullout, new york-tbs news poll, it has santorum up two points, 60 percent of republicans surveyed say they're still open to changing their mind, so we could see more of this. perhaps a gingrich comeback, whatever. it's just so open and crazy right now. there's no predicting the final outcome. jon: one of the old saws about republican politics is republicans like to annoint as their next candidate or their next nominee the guy who finished second the last time around. but there's also the suggestion that republicans or conservatives are looking for an antiromney candidate. is that what you see? is mitt romney, because of his organization, his cash on hand, doing well, but a great number of republican voters are still looking for anything but mitt? >> and it's -- that's exactly right jon. it's been this way for the better part of eight or nine months. romney is sort of stuck in the same place, you know, 25-30 percent support, while conservative voters, activists, republicans, have tried on all these different candidates from herman cain, and go through the list, and haven't been satisfied. and romney has been i think given the frontrunner status based on his run last time, based on his organization, based on his money, and those are going to be key if he's going to end up pulling out this nomination. those would be the two reasons why. with you he still has not connected with republican voters in the way he needs to to wrap up this nomination and that's why four years ago, the royce was -- race was over by now and we're in the thick of it because romney hasn't wrapped up those voters. jon: it's going to be fascinating to see what happens, especially in michigan. tom, thanks. >> you bet. jenna: some smokers could soon be digging deeper into their wallets but for health care, possibly paying extra for their medicaid. we have a live report on that straight ahead. a family rocked by tragedy, now fighting back, slapping a drug company, among others, with a major lawsuit. and that is just the beginning. why this case could be ground breaking for victims everywhere. just ahead. 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[ male announcer ] 5-hour energy. every day. jon: a horrific massacre that rocked a quiet new york suburb and made national headlines on father's day. now the family of one victim of a quadruple homicide is suing a pharmaceutical giant in what could be a ground -- ground breaking case. >> reporter: you can understand the family is looking for a remedy, the family of jamie ducetta are looking to the courts for that. they were held up by a person at a new york pharmacy and now they are filing a multi-million-dollar lawsuit. what makes it unique is who was named in the suit. it accuses a number of people of not properly doing their jobs, allowing for the murders to have taken place, including the drug company that makes the pain pills, the doctor who at one point treated the killer, the owner of the farmly where the massacre took place and also local police officials on long island, where the suit claims they failed to follow up on a lead that the murder was potentially dangerous. you may remember this awful case, it was father's day last year, as you said, jon, a quiet suburb of new york city, david lapper shot and killed a pharmacist, a 17-year-old cashier, and two customers before taking off with more than 10,000 pills. lapper pleaded guilty, he is serving five life terms for the murders, his wife, serving 25 years for her role in planning the attack. the daughters say if everyone had done their jobs the murders could have been prevented, and quote, everyone apart of this -- a part of this should suffer the consequences. jon: rick, thanks. jenna has more on this horrible story. jenna: we remember this so well. such a senseless crime. we're joined by the attorney no jamie's daughters. jon, did you know this family before this happened? >> i knew someone who knew them. but they came to us once the terrible event occurred, first to help the victims after sentencing of plaintiff lapper and his girlfriend to speak on their behalf and ultimately to take on this case. jenna: let's talk about the big part of this case. there are so many different parts of it. but going after the drug companies could be the ground breaking part of this case that we were mentioning. now, you say, the case says, that the companies, these drug companies, should be aware that some physicians were prescribing too many of these pills. did the -- so the drug companies have come back and said listen, these pills have been available for decades, there's a lot of generics on the market and a lot of people take them and don't commit crimes, so why are the drug companies responsible in your opinion? >> the drug companies are responsible for the same reason that the colombian drug dealers are responsible for the sale of heroin and cocaine. we have a war on drugs started by the republi