Whatever the case, that special election called for december 12th. The feeling seems to be that mr. Moore, judge moore is in a heap of trouble. And that he would likely lose, even if theres a writein vote for the man he defeated, luther strange. If that happens, the vote is divided, democrat wins. After that point, you have close a margin as you want, 5149 favoring republicans down from 5248. You dont want to risk losing republicans anymore that you can. To politico capital hill reporter, and rachel, to you first, the prospect this moore stuff is beginning to complicate, maybe actually speed up this process. What do you think . I think republicans decided he is more after liability than an asset. There is of course, you mentioned the tax bill. There is a fear that he will lose a seat that should have been the safest seat on the map for republicans, red state, alabama. That would mean one less vote for tax reform. This was already going to be close. So they do want to move as fast as possible, if they lose the seat, that will be an issue. Now i do have sources here in the house telling me they are pretty confident they can get this passed in the house this week. However, even if it passes in the house this week, the senate has 300 amendments in committee. It has to go to the floor. We know how difficult for the senate to get anything done. It will be a while. Neil on that shame point, cabot, if you indulge me, Mitch Mcconnell is talking about the moore situation, the judge moore situation, that republicans are looking for a viable writein candidate for the senate race this is from the louisville currier. Could write in a name. Inherently writing in a name, whether senator strange or anyone else that further divides republican vote. Makes it easy for the democrat to slip n already that democrat candidate has 4point lead in the polls. It could change. It does change the dynamics point to already we stand in this tax cut race, right . I think people will write in someone else. I dont think that is enough to give republican as victory the way the momentum going right now. You say that race could be a reason the republicans speed up the tax reform process. I think another reason what happened in virginia and new jersey. Republicans say they need to victory that they will have a democrat majority in the senate and house. They dont have the majority. They need to promise the American Voters what they need to do. For the past six years, promising if they got republican control in d. C. , they could bet tax reform done. I think they want to get that done as quick as possible, that they have plenty of time to brag about it up leading up to the midterms in 2018. Neil i know the clarion call that something is better than nothing. Im not always convinced of that, rachel. If something doesnt make a dramatic difference for most individuals. They crunch the numbers and it doesnt. Given fact were nearly full employment as it is, better than what we considered full employment, are we so convinced lower rates lead to boom in job growth, expansion in plant and equipment when Companies Might want to buy more stock . That is their right. They can do what they want with the tax savings but i dont know that it translates to the beneficial jobs degree they say. What do you think . I think republicans here think it will be need to get it done, a boon to the economy and follow through on the midterms. Neil they think it will be immediate boon by november next year . Yes, absolutely. Some people are still pushing for retroactive tax cuts. Neil that will not happen. That costs a lot more money. There is this back and forth on the hill, who can scream louder on the tax bill. Democrats are saying, you know this will be a tax hike on middle class. It will hurt people. Republicans sort of painting this as best thing since sliced bread. The truth of course is sort of in the middle. We saw jct, tax policy center, Nonpartisan Group come out say each bracket will benefit, however each bracket will see some people that will see tax increases. So just depending how you do your taxes you might see your taxes go up. But republicans are definitely holding on to this as, you know, their lifesaver right now. There is a lot of fear. Neil no doubt about that. Cabot, i wonder when a lot of people crunch the numbers, leave aside those in hightaxed states, a lot more than just a few will end up not saving much, if not paying more, im wondering how that translates . A lot of people could get angry, couldnt they . Couldnt the opposite effect happen . A lot of people just tend to look at their increase or decrease in taxes under the plan but many people fail to take into account income earnings increases that take place under the plan. Republicans point to that technically a small percentage people may pay a few percent an points higher but will not be as detrimental impact you will earn more money on the plan. Well have a boom in the economy. More money coming back from overseas. That is what republicans are talking to. That is effective selling point. Neil it has to happen. It may not have Immediate Impact before the midterms but they can point to the growth happening in the long term down the road and give people big picture. Neil thank you, nice, both, very, very much. Quick peek at the dow. Weve gone from negative to positive, largely on belief here, maybe, maybe they move the timetable ahead on this and ironic situation of roy moore in alabama and allegations against him and Mitch Mcconnell saying better part of valor might be for you to step down right now, avoid the embarassment for the party, whatever the party is trying to move ahead of the december 12th election, to get this wrapped up. Will that work . Former cbo director douglas holtzeakin. Very good to see you. Outside events are outside events but this one seems to be providing the latest catalyst to get hopping . I think thats right. There is enormous pressure on republicans to deliver legislatively for the president. There is enormous amount of pressure to deliver in the economy. They were sent to washington to make the economy perform better and now they have a clock on it. Neil do you think this package the way you crunched it will do this . Common illness in the house and senate, corporate reforms, business efforts will improve climate to invest, innovate, hire people in the u. S. , to pay them better. The key is better wage growth. It is not jobs. People working full time, full year not getting a real increase in their income. Neil would what would compel these guys to pay people more . No one wants to. But you have a tight labor market. Neil you have tight labor market for a while and not driving it. Not really. 2016 we saw median Family Income rise 3. 2ers. That is great. Neil all right. Inside that fulltime workers got zero. People moving from parttime to full time, working a little more. The labor market tightened that stuff is going away and time to get wage growth up. Neil if you think, before they get it under the december 12th election in alabama, that they have enough support to get it approved, particularly in the senate . The house i dont think will be an issue. You might know this better than i. Senate could be dicey. Im wondering how you see it factoring . Always dicey in the senate. The margin is tight. Neil and its a light tighter with 5149. Theyre keenly aware about that arithmetic. Well see what the Senate Looks Like in the Senate Finance committee. Get a flavor what is important to people. I think republicans if they can look at bill, say this is going to deliver growth, will deliver for the middle class in pretax wage, not just tax cuts, then that is a sell. Neil that is what ive been saying to a lot of people. People of all stripes, very rich to the not so rich, have to see knit their net paychecks, right . Right. Neil if they dont or not considerable could it boomerang on republicans . Could they say we waited for this . Yeah. I think it is very simple. I think the republicans control the house, senate and white house for one and only one reason. Neil if you get the net paycheck, not nearly what i thought, i know constraints of reconciliation and a lot of people do, maybe they sort out the brackets in the senate versus four in the house but if in the end it turns out the savings a lot of folks thought they get they dont get or some hightaxed states like the one were in, even middle class folks pay more, then what . Much. Do we see the economy generally grinding up. Neil do you think we will . I think there is a good chance. Theyre disciplined in the growth aspects of bill. Dont get caught up in the class warfare or little niceties. Better incentives, make them permanent, hard in reconciliation, that could be a big sell. Neil a lot of people talk about how it wont be revenue neutral in the end. The budget deficit will be worse in 10 years than it does now. That happened under both parties as you reminded me but the republicans are not going to in conundrum a year from now. Do you think they will . Immediate effect of these tax cuts wont be realized assuming theyre passed but higher deficit will . I think there are two litmus tests for reform, number one on budget front, no one should want trillion 1 2 in debt. Question will there be enough growth to make it worthwhile . The senate and House Republicans have to decide that. Look at the plan as it emerges from committee and in conference. The lech litmus test is overseas earnings. The way it works, there is date theyre deemed to come back, whether they do or not. They only really come back in the economy is performing better, if the tax reform is worth it. There is built in test for a good tax reform. Neil lowest rate in the world doesnt automatically mean you bring it home. Right. Neil thanks, douglas holtzeakin, former cbo director, much, much more. President nominate ad new health secretary, blake burman, here to tell us who he is is and blake. Reporter alex asar. The official laid out why the president chose azar. He has been there done that already with hhs. They believe this is somebody who can walk in on day one. This is somebody who has been through the confirmation process who they argue fought the public fight to lower Prescription Drug prices. Let me bring you through lear bio. Azar was most recent president of eli lilly u. S. Division which he stepped away this year in january. He was in the role four plus years. For about a yearandahalf, azar was number two in the hhs in the bush 43 administration f he is confirmed he would be tasked with the planned efforts by the Trump Administration to unravel obamacare. Earlier when he appeared this year on varney company, azar made this prediction right here and it foreshadows his potential role, neil, if he becomes the hhs secretary he might have a lot to do with the president s plans. I think at the end of the day this is hot potato that lands back in secretary prices lap for him to use as many authorities he has to grant flexibility to try to dig us out of the obamacare mess as much as he can. Reporter secretary price the one azar is trying to replace. Democrats laid a marker down on this one. For example, senator ron wyden sent out this statement just after the president made his announcement. He said, i quote, i will closely scrutinize mr. Azars record ask his commitment to faithfully implement the Affordable Care act and take Decisive Action to curtail the runaway train of Prescription Drug costs. Even though, neil, this is somebody that has been through the confirmation process, unanimously azar was passed by the senate, this is a whole new fight now of course with the obamacare fight ahead. Neil . Neil he will be very controversial now especially in light of last weeks elections. Thank you very, very much, my friend. Blake best of your memory man. Were learning senator rand paul is tweeting coming back to the senate today. Back in washington this is little more than a week after a neighbor broke five of his ribs. That was pretty scary stuff. A lot of people thought not only a lot of plane but difficult to fly. Some doctors dont recommend you fly at all. He is. I dont know if he is flying. You could drive it from kentucky. He is coming back, a worry about one less republican vote when the health care thing comes up, is less of a worry. At same time were learning that roy moore is losing friends fast and furious on capitol hill, including Mitch Mcconnell, the Senate Leader says, here is the door. Bye bye. Think your Large Cap Equity Fund has exposure to Energy Infrastructure mlps . Think again. Its time to shake up your lineup. The alerian mlp etf can diversify your equity portfolio and add potential income. Bring amlp into the game. Before investing, consider the Funds Investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses. Read the prospectus carefully at alpsfunds. Com amlp or a little internet machine . It makes you wonder shouldnt we get our phones and internet from the same company . Thats why Xfinity Mobile comes with your internet. You get up to 5 lines of talk and text at no extra cost. So all you pay for is data. See how much you can save. Choose by the gig or unlimited. Xfinity mobile. A new kind of network designed to save you money. Call, visit, or go to xfinitymobile. Com. Neil you know the only thing that kept investors loyal to ge was the handsome dividend, among the fattest in corporate america. This is the stock. It is better than five 1 2year low today. This was not supposed to be the way it was going to fall out. To Deirdre Bolton if investors expect a rebound. She is outside where theyre gathering right now. Deirdre. Reporter i certainly am, neil. You said it, ge is supposed to be one of the stable stocks, one of the bluechips in peoples portfolios for years. A lot of people in this building for investor day are people that manage pensions or 401 k s. There is a lot of ge stock out there. You mentioned it is a dow laggard this year. Worst performing one. Five 1 2year low as we speak. Look at ge yeartodate. It is down 35 , versus s p s p 50015 gain. Current ceo john flannery. He has been with the company 30 years time but he is inheriting this company, this manufacturing conglomerate at one of the toughest junctures in its 125 year history. If you look what he had to take over from the previous ceo jeff immelt, during jeff immelts 16 year time, the stock dropped 1 to . Down 35 but during that time the s p 500 went up 35 . A lot of analysts are calling for a possible breakup of this company. Seems like today, the message from the current ceo, john flannery. This is our lastditch effort. He did not say that im paraphrasing that heavily, to really streamline this company, make it simple and show the investors here. I was a fly on the wall for first 45 minutes of his speech. Make this whole thing run better, more streamlined and he is making some very specific changes to have 2018 what he called, i am quoting him here, a reset year. He is putting a lot more pressure on himself and senior executives. As far as their pay goes, neil. Senior executives will now be paid 80 in equity. So, up from 50 . As for his own pay, he is a 100 , the ceo, equitybased. They are also reducing the number of people sitting on the board. There was a lot of criticism from analysts that ge had gotten too big to manage. There were too many people on the board. Theyre taking number of directors down from 18 to 12. They are also installing three new members on that board. We know that one of those seats is actually from activist hedge fund trian. Nelson peltz is at top did a lot of work for p g. John flannery, ceo of ge, says we know we have a heavy lift ahead, here is our plan and some of the elements but it is true they are seeking a much more streamlined company. Neil, back to you. Neil deirdre, thank you very much. This was earth shattering development, when the leader of the senate, majority leader Mitch Mcconnell says, roy moore, you should step aside. I believe the women that made accusations against him. Four on record. There were a couple dozen others quoted in a Washington Post story that said he had a history of of taking advantage of young women. That was then. This is now. The fallout how this affects tax cut debate, the washington examiners sarah westwood. Sara, i think on flip side, republicans are making lemonade out of these political lemons, speeding up process to get a tax vote done. Maybe long before the alabama election in the senate. What do you think . I think youre absolutely right. The republicans see are already delicate numbers and senate could get worse in december if roy moore could lose this race, which could happen if writein race could split votes. The race was too close for republicans. That could throw the race to a democrat. Neil they cant change the ballots at this stage, right . Right. Neil if he quits now, he is still on the ballot, you cant reprint the ballots . Right. The deadline getting someone new are past. They could write mount a writein campaign. Luther strange has been cast aside by the people of alabama. Even if the Republican Party were to coalesce behind him to try to get a writein campaign for him, he already been proven to be less than popular in that state. This puts republicans in very difficult position. There is a recognition that the way the numbers are looking, with bob corker and jeff flake already waivering on the taxcut package, they cant lose anymore republicans. Even one more defects could throw the whole thing into jeopardy. They know they have to hurry. They have about a month left to get this done. Neil let me ask you this. Doug jones, he is democratic candidate, has four or fivepoint lead in the polls now, but he realizes full well would be representing a very conservative state, a state, that donald trump won by comfortable double digits, do we know his stand on this tax package . Maybe he has been sort of a gimme as a no vote but he might not be . I think there is some concern among republicans that he would vote with the democratic caucus, more often than you would expect a southern democrat to vote with the democrats. This isnt someone who will caucus necessarily with the republicans very often. There is legitimate fear, a lot of positions doug jones would take would line up more often with the left than republicans are comfortable with. Difficult to run as progressive in alabama. I dont think y