RENO, Nev. -- President Barack Obama chose a clean energy company here in the economically hard-hit state of Nevada -- certain to be an important battleground in the 2012 election -- as the backdrop for his third town hall this week focused on deficit reduction and the economy.

At nearly every stop in recent days, Obama has mentioned rising gas prices that are hitting drivers' pocketbooks -- a bid to show he understands the kitchen table issues facing ordinary Americans.

Noting that he asked Attorney General Eric Holder last month to investigate cases of price gouging, he announced Thursday that he is going a step further to keep gas prices from being inflated.

"The Attorney General's putting together a team whose job it is to root out any cases of fraud or manipulation in the oil markets that might affect gas prices - and that includes the role of traders and speculators," the president said to applause. "We're going to make sure that no one is taking advantage of American consumers." 

As he often does, Obama again called for an end to subsidies for oil and gas companies that are already highly profitable. The argument is in line with Obama's call for an end to the Bush-era tax rates for wealthy Americans as part of his approach to lowering the deficit.

Obama's West Coast swing is focused on selling his "balanced" approach to getting the nation's fiscal house in order, which he says will be better for the economy than the plan passed by the Republican-controlled House. The GOP plan, he argues, cuts spending too deeply and benefits the wealthy at the expense of seniors, the poor and the middle class.

"We can't ignore our future deficits, but just as ignoring deficits would mortgage our future, failing to invest in our kids, in our infrastructure, in basic research, in clean energy, that would be mortgaging our future as well," Obama told the audience at ElectraTherm Inc., a company whose Green Machine creates fuel-free, emissions-free power by capturing readily-available waste heat. "I'm not willing to do that and that's at the core of the debate we're having right now."

Concerns about the debt and deficit, especially among Tea Party members and other conservatives, helped Republicans win big in the midterm elections. The White House is eager to drive home the point that both rank among the president's top concerns, along with job creation.

Obama has proposed a plan that he says would reduce the deficit by $4 trillion in the next 12 years, without sacrificing investments in the areas he believes are key to job growth and to America's ability to compete globally. After his opening remarks, the president took questions on topics ranging from federal support for renewable energy production to the importance of scientific and medical research and investing in education.

After the town hall here, Obama was headed to Los Angeles for three more fundraisers. He held three events to raise money for his campaign in San Francisco, including one this morning at the St. Regis hotel that was interrupted by a small group of supporters who sang a song in protest of the detention of Bradley Manning, the Army private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks.

The lyrics to the song included the following: "I paid my dues, where's our change? We'll vote for you in 2012, yes that's true. Look at the Republicans - what else can we do?"

As the woman who led the tune was escorted out, she said "Free Bradley manning. I'm leaving. I hope I don't get tortured in jail."

The president carried on with his remarks, quipping "That didn't break my flow."

A Democratic official said ticket prices for the event, which approximately 200 people attended, went as high as $35,800, but would not reveal the cost of the lowest tickets or share how much the party expected to raise there.

President Obama addresses the crowd during a town hall meeting at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. on Wednesday. (AP)

From NBC's Athena Jones
PALO ALTO, Calif. -- President Barack Obama continued his push to sell what he calls his 'balanced' approach to deficit-cutting with an event at Facebook headquarters on Wednesday.

The town hall, which was moderated by the company's co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, was the second one this week meant to highlight the president's plan to cut $4 trillion from the deficit over the next 12 years without making the kind of deep budget cuts Republicans have proposed. The president is set to hold a similar town hall tomorrow in Reno, NV.

Calling the plan passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives not "bold" or courageous, but "fairly radical" and "short-sighted", the president also argued it would be bad for the economy.

"The deficit could actually get worse, because we could slip back into another recession," Obama told the crowd, explaining what would happen if deficit reduction leads to cuts in economically vital areas like education, infrastructure and clean energy.

The event streamed live online and included questions from the audience and the web.

While the president's remarks broke no new ground -- with most of the questions and all of the answers fitting in nicely with the president's usual talking points -- it did offer the administration a chance to connect with people using technology and the cache of a web site that is wildly popular among young people and increasingly popular among older web users.

It's all part of the administration's effort to show voters -- many of whom are concerned about the nation's growing deficit -- that putting the country's fiscal house in order is among the president's top concerns. Obama said he did not want to leave getting the deficit and debt under control to the next president.

The White House took issue earlier Wednesday with the suggestion that the Obama camp had made great use of Facebook as part of its messaging strategy and that today's event could be construed as an effort to promote the social networking site in thanks.

"We get our message out in a variety of ways and the President appears in a variety of private enterprises to have events," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One. "This is not about endorsing a specific company; it’s about accepting an invitation for a forum to speak to the American people.  This is an excellent opportunity to do that."

Carney noted the site, with some 'half a billion users' reached 'more people than you can possibly imagine.'

Obama has met with Facebook executives several times, visiting with Zuckerberg in recent months and including COO Sheryl Sandberg in a strategy meeting at the White House yesterday on how to tackle comprehensive immigration reform.

The president answered questions about deficit, home mortgages and the Dream Act, among other topics, and closed by asking the mostly young crowd to 'double down' and remain engaged in the political process.

There were some light moments, like when Zuckerberg admitted to being a little nervous during his brief introduction at the top of the meeting and a short while later when Obama joked that he had gotten the young computer whiz to don a suit -- more accurately a shirt, tie, blazer and jeans.

Zuckerberg gave Obama a Facebook hoodie at the events close, telling the president "in case you want to dress like me."

President Obama speaks during town hall meeting at North Virginia Community College today. (AP)

From NBC's Athena Jones
President Barack Obama took his case for deficit reduction on the road Tuesday, telling a town hall audience in Virginia he is hopeful a bipartisan compromise to address the nation's budget deficit can be reached.

It was the first stop on a campaign-like swing to sell his approach to cutting $4 trillion from the deficit over the next 12 years. The president will hold similar events in Palo Alto, CA and Reno, NV over the next couple of days as he travels to tout his plan and raise money for his re-election.

The push begins a day after markets shook when ratings agency Standard and Poor's downgraded its long-term outlook for U.S. debt. The agency said it had lowered its outlook to "negative" from "stable"because the U.S. had "very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness" compared to similar countries. The path to addressing those concerns is "not clear," it wrote.

The debt and deficit were a winning issue for conservatives and Tea Party-backed candidates in the last election, and Obama has spoken frequently about the need to get America's fiscal house in order.

Still, his speech last week at George Washington University was the first major attempt to begin to spell out how he would go about reducing the nation's gaping deficit. In that address, he offered a stinging rebuke of a Republican approach that relies mainly on spending cuts that would affect seniors, the poor and middle class and the disabled.

Today, he repeated his call for everyone to do their part to bring down the budget deficit.

"If we don't close this deficit now that the economy has begun to grow again, if we keep on spending more than we take in, it's gonna cause serious damage to our economy," the president told the crowd at Northern Virginia Community College, going on to explain that companies would be less likely to set up shop in America, individuals would see their interest rates go up and the government would not be able to afford to invest in areas that would create jobs and spur growth.

"We've gotta tackle this challenge and I believe the right way to do it is to live up to an old-fashioned principle of shared responsibility," he said.

Obama criticized the House-passed Republican budget plan, saying it would slash spending in key areas like education and infrastructure. The plan would "change Medicare as we know it," he argued, by creating a voucher system that would lead to higher out of pocket costs for elderly patients, while proposing more tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. 

"We can't just tell the wealthiest among us, 'You don't have to do a thing. You can just sit there and relax and everybody else, we're gonna solve this problem,' he said.

That argument -- that the Republicans are the party of the rich and big companies, while the Democrats are looking out for ordinary Americans -- was a central theme of Obama's campaign for president in 2008 and one that seems certain to play a role again this time around.

"The only way to pay for these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans is by asking seniors to pay thousands more for their health care or cutting children out of Head Start or doing away with health insurance for millions of Americans on Medicaid," he continued. "That's not a trade off I'm willing to make; it's not a trade off I think most Americans think is fair no matter what party you belong to. That's not who we are as a country. We're better than that."

The president, who wants to see the Bush-era tax rates for the wealthy expire, delivered a 20-minute speech to the crowd before spending nearly 40 minutes answering questions on education funding, Medicare, Social Security, clean energy investments and the chances for bipartisanship when it comes to reducing the deficit.

Even as S&P stated there was "a material risk that U.S. policymakers might not reach an agreement on how to address medium- and long-term budgetary challenges by 2013" and the Republican National Committee used the ratings report to drive home its own argument that the president is "all talk," the White House believes a bipartisan deficit-cutting agreement can be reached.

"I believe that Democrats and Republicans can come together to get this done," Obama told the audience.  "Shockingly enough there will be some politics played along the way. There will be those who say that we're too divided, that the partisanship is too stark, but I'm optimistic. I'm hopeful. Both sides have come together before. I believe we can do it again."

The White House yesterday set Thursday, May 5th, as the date for Vice President Biden to host a meeting on deficit reduction with members of congress at Blair House.

In his fiscal policy speech last week, the president asked House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to each designate four members of their caucuses to participate in the negotiations.

From NBC's Athena Jones
President Barack Obama called on both parties Wednesday to work together "to restore the fiscal responsibility that served us so well in the 1990s," as he laid out his own vision for how to tackle the nation's long-term fiscal challenges.

During a roughly 50-minute speech at George Washington University, Obama offered what he termed a "balanced approach" to getting the deficit under control by keeping domestic spending low, cutting defense spending, reducing excess health care spending, and reforming the tax code. The president's plan would reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over "12 years or less."

"Any serious plan to tackle our deficit will require us to put everything on the table, and take on excess spending wherever it exists in the budget," Obama said. "A serious plan doesn't require us to balance our budget overnight - in fact, economists think that with the economy just starting to grow again, we need a phased-in approach - but it does require tough decisions and support from our leaders in both parties now."

Total outstanding US debt stands at about $14.2 trillion, according to the Treasury Department, while the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the deficit for FY2011 alone will reach some $1.5 trillion.

While the president has frequently sprinkled his speeches with references to the need to reduce America's growing deficit -- often mentioning that it's one he inherited when he took office -- he has rarely devoted this much time at one event to laying out the steps he is willing to take.

The fight over how to bring the deficit under control is likely to play out during the battles over the FY2012 budget and raising the nation's debt limit. Administration officials are hoping today's speech will help show deficit-minded voters the president is serious about putting the nation on a firmer fiscal footing, while continuing to invest in areas like education, infrastructure and research and development that will help accelerate economic growth, create jobs and help the country compete on the global stage.

"We have to live within our means, we have to reduce our deficit, and we have to get back on a path that will allow us to pay down our debt," the president said. "And we have to do it in a way that protects the recovery, and protects the investments we need to grow, create jobs, and win the future."

* Proposals and reaction
Obama's proposal builds off of the deficit reduction measures included in his 2012 budget and borrows from the recommendations of the fiscal commission he created. The plan would cut non-security discretionary spending by $770 billion by 2023, reduce defense spending by $400 billion, reduce health care spending by $480 billion over that period and an additional $1 trillion over the subsequent decade, lower Medicaid spending by at least $100 billion and Medicare spending by at least $200 billion over 10 years. Obama also wants to see $360 billion in spending reductions for mandatory programs like agricultural subsidies, federal pension insurance and anti-fraud measures by 2023.

He has proposed a "debt failsafe" that he said would hold him -- and Washington -- accountable for failing to reach the goals he is setting. The plan would include a trigger that would require across-the-board spending reductions if, by 2014, the national debt is not projected to fall as a share of the economy.

The president said little on Social Security, which he does not believe is in crisis, arguing only that there should be a bipartisan effort to strengthen the costly entitlement program.

The speech was short on specifics on how to achieve the proposed cuts -- in fact one senior administration official conceded on a conference call before the speech that the White House was "putting forward a framework and we're not trying to lock down every detail."

Still, the president made a point of drawing a distinction between his approach and the one proposed by Congressman Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican whose plan for cutting $4.4 trillion from the deficit the White House believes favors the wealthy at the expense of seniors, the disabled and the poor.

Obama said Ryan's plan had been championed by House Republicans and "embraced by several of their party's presidential candidates" -- a notable reference to the upcoming 2012 campaign -- and said the congressman deserved credit for putting one forward. But he argued the plan's cuts to clean energy, education and transportation and the changes it would make to Medicare and Medicaid would result in a "fundamentally different" nation than the one Americans have known throughout most of the country's history. 

"This vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America," the president said of the Republican budget. "I don't think there's anything courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it."

The president has also proposed allowing the Bush-era tax rates for the wealthy -- couples making more than $250,000 and individuals making $200,000 -- to expire -- a move Republicans have already said they oppose. The president tried to end those tax breaks last year to fulfill a promise he made during the presidential campaign, but was stymied. In today's speech, he said he would "refuse" to renew those cuts again.

Obama and Vice President Biden briefed a bipartisan group of lawmakers on the plan this morning, including House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Representatives Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and  Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ). The president has asked Boehner, Reid, Pelosi and McConnell  to each designate four members of their caucuses to participate in negotiations on a legislative framework for deficit reduction. The discussions would be led by Biden and would begin early next month.

As part of their pre-buttal to Obama's speech, the Republican National Committee released a video of the president underperforming at various sports from basketball to bowling to golf, while calling for him to engage in an "adult conversation."

Other responses to Obama's proposals were more serious, with Boehner releasing a statement after the speech in support of Ryan's proposals and sounding a familiar GOP refrain against tax increases.

“To reduce the economic uncertainty hanging over American job creators we must demonstrate that we’re willing to take action.” Boehner’s release said in part.” And any plan that starts with job-destroying tax hikes is a non-starter. We need to grow our economy – not our government – by creating a better environment for private sector job growth. That’s why Republicans are fighting for meaningful spending cuts and fighting against any tax increases on American small businesses.”