Moving a lot of First Responders there and we dont have an ability to sustain them with food, water and medical treatment. Its all part of a bigger plan again, were working in support of fema on that plan. How much its ten days since the hurricane hit. People dont have a lot of patience left along with not a lot of water and not a lot of food when you are saying its going to take time, how much time . Here is what i will tell you. We will be here until all the needs are met. Were going to be relentless in our pursuit of getting all these assets here to help the people its hard to imagine for those of the viewers that are back in the continental United States, its hard to imagine the amount of damage and suffering these people are going through they deserve help and were going to give it to them. I dont flow hknow how much have been briefed. Do you have any information about the island off the coast of puerto rico what i know is our support group, the navy ships that are off the coast, they have been dealing with that. Again, they have some capability we need more as it stands now, you are looking at half the island that does not have Running Water. I know getting generators to these water issues are its a priority to pump the water. What about fuel to those generators is there access now to get fuel to all these places . Its the same problem around the ring route on the outside of the island, were doing fairly well with getting fuel and now roads are open. We can move fuel by truck. Inside right now were limbited by air. I appreciate the time you have given us. I know you are off to actually do your official duties. So many people want answers. Thank you for giving some of them. Thanks, appreciate it as you can tell go ahead as you can tell here, a coordinated effort it involves fema and the department of defense and local agencies here in puerto rico we heard from the governor this morning saying that the ports are the absolute priority. They plan to go in and move those containers they said if the private companies cant go in and get containers full of essential supplies, they will be required to sell them to the government so the government can move them out. They are moving the those generators to water pumps, working on the electrical grid and have now powered they have the airport up and running, connected to the grid. One of the major hospitals here, Childrens Hospital connected to the grid there is movement. There is a sense now that with some attention from washington, d. C. And the federal response that people of puerto rico will start to see things improving. Thank you so much good to hear there is at least some progress being made a humanitarian crisis there. Have a good weekend. Keep the folks down in puerto rico in your thoughts this weekend as well. Power lunch begins now thank you very much. Welcome to power lunch. Melissa is here. Brian kelly is also with us. Welcome. Good to have you with us we begin with the developing story chronicled a moment ago in puerto rico. Our next guest ran fema during Hurricane Katrina and even before Hurricane Maria hit puerto rico he warned the agency would face a logistical nightmare in dealing with storm. Joining us is Michael Brown who oversaw relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Brown, welcome you heard the general a moment ago describe, i assume you did, describe the scene he saw there as looking like an atomic bomb went off how do you deal with that kind of destruction and how much more complicated is it to deal with it when it is on an island like puerto rico, st. Thomas, st. John you have an island that has been virtually destroyed just bear with me. Imagine two lines going at a 45 degree angle toward each other one is the Response Time the other are peoples frustration levels these move right toward each other. You take puerto rico now you have ports that have been damaged. You have railroads and you have runways that have been damaged after the storm passes, you have to move in to do a Damage Assessment to see what has to be done before you can move ships in once you make those assessments, you make the repairs but even then you have to make certain that the docks are safe so that you can off load the material before you can land a c130, make certain the runway is safe or the landing zone is safe. This is truly a logistical nightmare for fema i can guarantee you based on all the reports that i have seen, everything that i have heard from everybody both within the agency and other places, they are moving as rapidly as possible but the logistical nightmare of getting through all of these things you have to fix first before you can even get there necessarily slows things down. I know thats frustrating to the victims. Its frustrating to the public i can guarantee you that its frustrating to the fema administrator. Theyre doing everything they can to move it as rapidly as possible to your earlier report, this island has been destroyed. Thats the problem in getting all of these relief supplies in there. The good news is finish your thought the good news is, Damage Assessments have been done hospitals are coming back on line theres fuel on the island the question now is is how you distribute that fuel you are going to see an exponential increase in the Response Time, because these things are now becoming on line. Obviously, theres an acute need for food, for water, for fuel, for electricity. Theres going to be a longterm process here as well how quickly would you expect to see things improve on puerto rico, st. John, st. Thomas are we getting closer to a point at which the acute needs are going to be met . Its not just getting the supplies there to the ports and so forth its distributing them sometimes into very remote areas where the roads may not be passable. You just said something i think is incredibly insightful you used the phrase acute needs. Thats exactly how you operate in terms of response you address the acute needs first. The hospitals, the fuel distribution then you start going out and spreading that response out further inland into other parts of the remote portions of the island i think what people need to understand is, you are going to see these pockets of things being fixed while at the same time you have pockets that they havent gotten to yet because its so remote that, for example, if you want to get a rescue team or medical team in, you might want to i hear this all the time why dont you just airlift why dont you get a helicopter and get those medical teams in there today . You have to find a place for the helicopter to land and get those teams in there to your point about acute needs, you will see incredible stories of response helping people immediately. At the say the time i know the media does this. Its how the media works they will find these remote areas where people are suffering. Theyre working as hard as they can to get to those remote areas quickly. Getting there is going to be difficult. It sounds like you believe fema and for all for what its worth, all of the other rescuers and people there to help are doing the best they can. I want your thought on an interchange causing a stir elaine duke said, i know its a good news story in terms of our ability to reach people and the limited number of deaths taken place in such a devastating hurricane. That sparked the ire of the san juan mayor who said, this is not a good news story. This is people are dieing story. Do you think the administration really completely understands the situation on puerto rico when you hear those types of comments from the dhs secretary . I guarantee the fema administrator understands how dire things are. As you go up the food chain and in any bureaucracy, people are going to say stupid things i will say up front, im a no nonsense guy, that was a stupid thing for elaine duke to say you are in the middle of a crisis you have a humanitarian disaster you dont talk about good news stories. You talk about what you are doing. I would suggest that she gets a director or a pr person and learn how to tell the story that makes sense and understands that people are suffering michael, looking further down the road were getting reports about Corporate America pitching in. Today, the latest is that a Royal Caribbean ship is going there. Its going to pick up people and delivering items necessary to various other islands in the region a lot of the people getting on the ships, getting on planes dont intend on going back theyre going to miami they may never go back what do you think the u. S. Government needs to do to make sure when people come to the mainland that there is a support system for them here as well there is a support system you have both private organizations and public organizations that will help these people get relocated even though they may move from puerto rico onto the mainland, theyre entitled to certain Disaster Assistance programs they will still immediate to ner and get that help. I would emphasize again, i love it when the private sector comes in and starts helping. That take a coordinated effort the last thing you want im going to use the term cowboy i dont want to i dont want the private sector to be cowboys thinking they are going to ride in and rescue people and do stuff. They need to do that in coordination so everybody has the picture of what everybody else is doing. I know the private sector can do it the right way i just encourage them to do it the right way. Michael, thanks for your time we appreciate it you bet any time Michael Brown the president speaking at the National Association of manufacturers just a short time ago declaring the era of economic surrender is over hi. The president took his tax pitch to an already welcoming group of executives here at the National Association of manufacturers annual Board Meeting interestingly, his messaging focused less on what his administration planned to rip up and more on what it planned to create listen my administration is working every day to lift the burdens on our companies and on our workers so that you can thrive, compete and grow at the very center of that plan is a giant, beautiful, massive the biggest ever in our country tax cut. Another applause line came when he talked about Small Business tax cuts. The majority of manufacturers in this group are Small Businesses or pass throughs they pay workers more than the average u. S. Employee. They also pay heavily on regulations that they need to comply with. Even so, this group in a survey released, the majority said if they got comprehensive tax reform, they would hire more, pay the workers more, they would grow and expand faster and they would spend more on capital. That being said, theres not everything across the board that this group likes the Tax Blueprint released this week does remove a key deduction for the industry it also only treats favorably shortterm capital expensing even so, this group says theres enough to like its better than the status quo. Now its up to congress to enact it back to you. Thank you very much from jobs to taxes the white house and the Republican Leadership rolling out their tax plans this week. The question now is, who gets the tax cut . Robert frank has been hard at work trying to figure it all out. Who wins, who loses . The president saying that this is a middle class tax cut by definition, any massive, giant, beautiful tax cut will benefit the wealthy because they pay most of the taxes. Lets look at the numbers. The top 1 earns 25 of the income and they pay 40 of federal income tax the bottom 50 of americans pay less than 3 put another way, the top 1 of earners pay more than the bottom 90 of all americans a lot of americans dont pay any taxes. Most recent period, 44 of americans paid no federal income tax. They paid payroll taxes but dont owe additional taxes a lot are too low or because the preferences and deductions in the tax code wipe out their tax bill the wealthy not only pay more because they earn more, they pay a higher rate on what they earn. Look at the tax rates that people pay this is known as the effective rate the middle class pay an average effective rate of about 2. 6 the top pays a rate of 15 the top 1 pays an average of effective rate of 34 . Thats the highest rate in nearly 20 years. There are ways to cut taxes for the middle class through things like the earned income tax credit when you cut taxes, unless its very targeted, those gains by nature because of the numbers are going to go to those who pay them when you just cited that number, 34 for the top 1 , thats their effective rate. Does that mean that when you put all the tax the federal tax together, including payroll tax, that their overall rate is 34 or that their last dollar rate is 34 thats the marginal tax rate. At the margin let me ask question number two you showed 44 of people pay zero income tax. By raising the standard deduction, doubling it, what is how is that number going to be affected its going to go up. Its going to go up my guess is Something Like twothirds will go up. It will go up as high as twothirds will pay no even if you start eliminating state and local Tax Deductions if they start messing with other deductions, if they cap the mortgage deduction, anything with retirement plans, then that number could come down maybe in the 40s and 50s. Garys point was most americans, vast majority, north of 70 , dont take any deductions right its about a third. The question were going to get answers to today later on is a lot of what they proposed are parts of the tax code that benefit the wealthy. Amt, estate tax, cutting the top rate and passthrough income, all of those measures are primarily benefitting the top. You have not only got an issue where the top pays the most, but you have the fact that what they proposed are things that really affect the top taxpayers the most robert, thank you fantastic. Lets get to jackie. Oh, yeah. Good afternoon. U. S. Drillers added six oil rigs last week according to baker hughes that brings the total up to 750. Put this in perspective. This is the first week of additions since mid august and total rigs have decreased for two months in a row. That was bullish that sent oil prices into positive territory for a moment september seeing the biggest decline since may of 2016. Some are going to wonder if this is a trend 50 oil makes it more attractive to deal. Are we going to see more rigs come back online thank you one of americas most quintessential brands trying to rev up a rebound harleydavidson out with new models we have them here at cbnc headquarters along with the ceo. His plan for the business is taking on the president on taxes, trade and a whole lot more coming up its a u. S. Versus the world when it comes to market returns. Te loigns supreme weaka ok thats next. Most etfs only track a benchmark. Flexshares etfs are built around the Way Investors think. With objectives like building capital for the future, managing Portfolio Risk and liquidity and generating income. Thats real etf innovation. Flexshares. Built by investors, for investors. Before investing consider the Funds Investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. Go to flexshares. Com for a prospectus containing this information. Read it carefully. Welcome back to power lunch. We are checking out shares of valiant after the company says it closed the sale of its inova business it will use the proceeds to pay down debt. Saying that it is on track to close the Skin Care Business they say they expect to exceed their commitment made in august 2016 of paying down more than 5 billion in debt before february 2018 making progress on that all important debt paydown of 5 on that thank you very much lets take a look now at that on valeant. Whats interesting is this turnaround story we know the Business Model changed. Thats what caused it to go from 200 down to where it is today. If you believe that this turnaround is happening, which this shows it is, you are having some progress, then valeant is a buy. For me, i would look at it i would like to see momentum breaking through 14. 60 or so theyre clearly on track to turn this company around. Whether or not its a longterm hold like tim seymore thinks oneyear hold thats a long time. Slow money. We will talk back with you in a little bit were closing out the trading for the month and Third Quarter today. The u. S. Stock market having a quite good year. The s p 500 up 12 so far in 2017 check out the rest of the world. Some of it doing better. Brazil with all their political turmoil, up 23 . India growing economy there up 17 . South korea, 18 higher. Look at argentina, up more than 50 . The massive rally in the Third Quarter, will it continue into the fourth . Gentlemen, good to have you with us scott, i will tick okick off wi. We get the whiff of some sort of tax cut. Does that get you more bullish would you rather go elsewhere internationally . You know, we have been in the pull back camp late in the year. The s p 500 is probably its 100 points higher than where we thought the high would be, which was toward the middle point of the year its done better than what we thought. I would argue probably just the last 25 points of the move up has been tied to optimism over this tax situation based on that we dont have a lot of faith that were going to see a meaningful tax cut thats really going to push ahead an 18 trillion economy any time soon barring that, it looks to us like emerging markets, developed markets, they both have if you looke ed at the emerging mat they have more up side not a lot more but more up side between now and the end of 2018. Than u. S. Large mid or small caps. 25 point tax cut premium. Would you agree with that . Is that embedded in the market is anything embedded in the markets . I dont think so. I think the tax cut, the final version that were going to see is certainly not the version we are looking at right now were debating whether or not the state and local taxes are going to remain in there i think what you are seeing behind the scenes are the underlying fundamental