Forgoing the fiscal cliff

>> now, the november jobs report showed the fifth straight month of job gains, over 100,000. a jobless rate at the lowest level in four years. is it real or is it a mirage? joining me now allen krueger, chairman of the president's council of economic advisers . good morning to you.

>> morning.

>> obviously this was a jobs report that beat all expectations among economists that were looking and expecting a sandy impact. the labor department says no sandy impact. do you believe in the long 0 run we will look back at this report and not see a sandy impact?

>> that's an interesting question, chuck. there was an impact in terms of over a million workers who normally work full time or part time in the reference week. so sandy did leave an impact in the data. but i think the report as a whole shows that the economy has been resilient, as i say every month when i'm on your show we're making progress. we're digging our way out of a deep hole. we're not satisfied yet. there's a long way to go. but there are signs that the economy is continuing to heal.

>> is it a realistic possibility a year ago today the unemployment rate was 8.7%. today it's 7.7%. is it a realistic possibility, i know you don't like to project numbers, but that we could expect another point drop a year from now? is.

>> well, we'll come out with our official projections when the budget comes out but i would say if congress does address the problems that it needs to address concerning the fiscal cliff if we had reasonable resolution type of programs that the president has been proposing to support the economy in the short run, get us on a sustainable fiscal path in the long run, protect the middle class , we're going to continue to see progress in this economy. in fact, i would say if you look deeply in this report the retail trade sector did quite well. that's a sign consumers are feeling more confident. and the last thing we need now is a big tax increase on the middle class to affect that consumer confidence .

>> to the fiscal cliff here. one of the more intriguing parts of the story has been is it actually bad for the economy in the long run if we go over the cliff , and i want to quote back to you, the congressional budget office , their review of the fiscal cliff policies and they made a projection that while 2013 , if all of the fiscal cliff things and all is enacted in congress and you do nothing to stop the tax rate increases for everybody, 2013 will be bad but by 2018 and 2020 we will be a better did debt to gdp ratio than we've had in decades, that we will be running budget surpluses and we'll be full deployment. do you believe the analysis of the fiscal cliff impact was too rosy?

>> projections are very difficult. it's very difficult to take into account the effect on confidence. as i said, consumers have been confident. they've maintained that confidence. but look at what happened during the debt limit debacle a year ago august. look at how the economy came to a grinding halt at that point.

>> and that's your fear that the cliff could just freeze consume earp confidence and that's something you can't right now project as an economist?

>> no one wants to go over the fiscal cliff . worse would be for the president to sign a bad bill.

>> all right. alan krueger , chairman of the president's counscil on economic advisers. mr. krueger, nice to see you that month. i'll see you next month, i promise.

>> thank you, chuck.

>>> trivia time, jim demint 's decision to step down 0 means south carolina will have two seats on the ballot in 2014 . who was elected the last time both of south carolina 's senate seats were on the ballot in the same election? strom thurmond , of course, and the longest serving junior senator perhaps in the history of america, fritz hollings . senator thurmond won re-election and hollings, the form earp governor at the time, won a special to fill a seat left empty when johnston died. we'll be right back. ...so as