302 billion transportation budget before congress right now. For more on this the founder and president of americans for tax reform, grover norquist. Hello. Hi. Gerri i thought i was already paying for this, mr. I pay my gas taxes every time at the pump why is that not enough money. Because 25 of the gas tax money you pay in end up in mass transit to pay for rather expensive pensions for people who work in new york city and washington, d. C. Metros take home. Theyre not building roads with a quart of that money. Heritage foundation says more than 38 is siphoned off into nonRoad Construction and maintenance. Bike paths and things like that, in addition to mass transit. So, because they take so much money, that you think youre paying in gas taxes for roads and for other stuff, obama comes back and says, oops, we need more money. Gerri hang on, grover. There is something in the world called the highway trust fund, right . Unfortunately yes. Gerri it is facing a 63 billion short fall. So maybe what youre Say Something right here. But shouldnt this mechanism, shouldnt this be the thing that pays for these interstate highways and in the real world, that is the it should work, right . Yes. And the money, temporarily goes into the trust fund from your gas taxes. And then they take a quarter of it and put it into mass transit. , subways. Then they take more of it and do everything from parks to bike paths. I hear there is a lot of poseys and flowers and landscaping going in there. Yeah. Gerri take a look at state taxes on gas for a second. So you know what youre paying. In new york 50 cents a gallon. California, 4cents a gallon. On and on it goes 48. 184point cents is the federal tax. This adds up quickly. Grover, im paying more than 50 bucks to fill up my tank here. Im not happy to hear somebody wants to slap tolls on interstate highways. What kind of impact could that have on americans . What they will do tax you for riding on a road that already been built. They take that money and spend it on something else. Not like theyre going to spend the money on the road that youre using. Theyre going to spend that money elsewhere. Not only are they taking your gas taxes putting them into nonroads, 22 plus percent of the cost of all Road Construction comes from the davis bacon act which forces, a law from the 1930s, which forces them to pay union wages, very high wages, when ever they do federal construction. So federal dollars are involved. It makes, we could have 20 more roads or we could have roads be 20 less can expensive. Instead they take a r that money put it into inflated salaries. Gerri unions behind part of this too. Tensions pensions behind part of this listen to what the gao said in june 2009 report. During fiscal years 2 00 to 2008, four agencies within the department of transportation obligated 78 billion in monies for purposes other than construction and maintenance of highways and bridges. There you have it. Even the federal government ratting itself out there, grover. Its ridiculous. Remember we had an 800 billion stimulus package which they kind of made it sound like they would build all these roads with it . They took that money, they didnt really spend much of it on roads. And now theyre back. They want to raise taxes, promising you roads but the money will go to something else. It is a bait and switch tactic that we see over and over and over from politicians. And obama has this down and he is playing this game again. I dont think congress will let him get away with it, but it is indicative, five, six years into his presidency gerri something needs to be done. Somebody needs to manage money better. I dont know if you driven your car lately, you can barely go anywhere without going into a great big pothole. Yes. Why the davis bacon law makes it expensive to build or fix roads, makes expensive to do. As we talked about, they siphon the money siphon the money off to do other things and they come back and want to raise taxes. Gerri i think weve seen this movie before is what youre saying. Grover, thank you. Thanks. Good to be with you. Gerri good to be with you. We want to know what you think. Hire is our question. Are motorist as soft target for the taxman . Vote on gerriwillis. Com. Vote on the righthand side of the screen. I will share results at the end of tonights show. Recalls we talked about them a lot especially with autos like gm. Now you may have something dangerous in your house, something potentially lethal that has been recalled. Hundreds of common house old items are recalled every year. Items can cause injury or even death. Consumers dont know the dangers. With us patty daves from the Consumer Product information agency. Good to see you here. Thank you, gerri. Gerri how likely in the average American Home there is something in there that has been recalled . Unfortunately it is pretty likely. You can, we recommend that consumers do is make sure that they get that recall information from cpsc. We can send it to you. You can come to us for it. But its really important that you really check out and see if you have any recalled products in your home. Do an inventory. Go through your childs toy chest. Go through the kitchen appliances. Compare it to what is been recalled on the website. We have 300 recalls announced every year. It is hard to keep up. We know people are busy. Gerri i was shocked to see how many recalls you guys do and i want to get to some of your more recent ones in a moment i want to understand a little bit what is most oftenned recalled. Is it items from overseas . Is it toys . Is it stuff using in my kitchen . What is most likely to get recalled . Number one would be childrens products or toys. That would be number one, in fact i have one of them right here. This is a lamp that we just recalled yesterday. Gerri wow. With ikea. This is a cord problem here, strangulation hazard. There was a death in europe with this series of lamps. And, there was a near strangulation with this as well. You know people place this right next to their childs crib. These kids are pulling this cord into their cribs and that is how that one child strangled himself. The other one was nearly strangled. Gerri go right ahead, patty. You have to Pay Attention to recalls. Gerri lets Pay Attention to some of your recalls then. Lets go to your ge brand dehumidifiers. Whats wrong with those . Well the ge dehumidifiers were recalled and the problem here was that a component in the compressor could shortcircuit. That is a fire hazard. Gerri oh. There was one report of a fire contained within the unit. But you dont want that to happen to you. So check out, check out and see if youve got one of these in your basement. There are about 15,000 of these sold. Too important to not act now. Gerri no kidding. No kidding. Do you see a lot of overseas, china toys, china goods that are recalled . Are they living up to our standard here . Well, we work hard on educating the chinese as well as other countries where manufacturing takes place. You know as well as anybody this is a global economy. Gerri yep. The. United states doesnt make most products anymore. It is often overseas. 0 to 90 of toys are made in china and then imported and sold in the united states. We take that very seriously. In fact i was over there in recent years with our chairman and we are teaching the chinese and were going into all kind of governments to teach them, this is what the u. S. Rules are. If youre going to sell here you really have to comply with them. Gerri patty, how do you guys do this . I know you send some test some stuff are you able to do anything. We dont do the testing. Companies with childrens products do testing before they sell. Gerri do their own testing. They have to do their own testing with an independent third party laboratory. So you know the results are real and you know that it meet as specific standard for instance, lead or sharp points or strangulation. Gerri i want to go quickly through a couple more of your products here. The horizon lobby helicopter. You mentioned toys. Whats wrong with this . Well this is a very expensive helicopter. In fact it is probably for hobby its more than anything else. A washer come loose on rotor and blade can fly off. Of course that would be an injury hazard. Anybody standing nearby or the person who is using the helicopter. So the company is offering a free repair kit for this unit. So, do they tell people, i mean if i bought one of these things are they sending me a letter in the mail, hey, gerri, you ought to stop using this or is it up to me to go to your website and figure it out . You bring up a great point. Its really important for consumers to register for products. Companies are required to if they sell the kids products, durable nursery products, cribs, strollers, et cetera, to put a card in there, registration card for consume is so they know how to contact you in case there is a recall. But for adult products you have to take that step. Make sure you registered your products. When the recall comes around and the company can contact you so you dont get injured. Gerri we have a white rogers thermostats. You can go to the web site. Cps. Org . Cpsc. Governor. We are flicker and youtube. Twitter is upssc. We have 26,000 followers. You can come to us. We can push the recall information to you. Its your choice. Gerri patty, thank you so much. Weve got more to come this hour, including are you spreading stress to your family and your friends . Stress is contagious. Well tell you all about it. Fitness band promise to monitor under the sun. I had them. I thought they were great. Now information may not be accurate. That is what our guest is going to talk about. Stay with us. If youre in the market for a band, a tracker that monitors your exercise, you may want to hold on. These products may not be as she say they are. We have jim mcdaniel. Thanks for coming on the show tonight. I bought these things for myself, for other people. How accurate, i know you test this stuff, how accurate are these things . To be quite honest, theyre not perfectly accurate when it comes to measuring steps. They can give people a general overall view of their health and some activity information but theyre not precise medical instruments by any stretch of the imagination. Gerri not precise medical instruments and theres all kind of brand names out there. Nike has its own product. Weve seen the up, all kind of different products. What are these bands good at and what are they bad at . I think theyre good because they give you a physical reminder you should be more healthy. Obviously they can give you alerts and some other notifications to let you know, when youre been sedentary for a period of time or days that you should be getting out for more activity like running or walking but they give that general information. Where they kind of fall short is, some of the claims they have made. The biggest one being sleep tracking. These devices claim, a lot of them claim to measure the amount of sleep thaw had during the night. In reality what theyre doing only measuring the amount of motion in your arm. So if you have a an unrestful night of sleep, you know, it just not accurate. Only ones that can actually measure sleep tracking would be ones that measure heart rate and one currently on the market is basis b1. The rest is a lot of marketing. So you like the basis b1 for that reason. What about the one that measures blood sugar . So you put it on your wrist. It measures blood sugar . How does it do that. Not currently any that measure blood sugar but whitings pulse which has a small optical sensor on the back of the device which will measure pulse rate and some oxygen saturation of your blood. But currently there is nothing, no fitness tracker that measures blood sugar. Gerri my mistake. Talk about apps versus band. Do you like apps better than you like the bands . I guess from the app standpoint the biggest draw back of those you have to have your phone constantly with you. Gerri right. Whether playing a pickup hockey game or peaceful run in the park you have to have your phone with you or youre not getting a clear picture of activities youre performing during the day. What i would say is that, some people dont want to run with their 500 smartphone, whether it is waterproof or protected in some kind of case. Gerri there is something calls apple picking. People like to steal those things. That is for darn sure. 17 million of these devices wearable devices not the apps, but of wearable devices were sold this year. Maybe these people are better marketing than devising something people can actually rely on for accurate information. What do you tell people . Worth it or not without r worth it . Should you just stay away entirely, jim . What i would say if youre looking for something super accurate and will give you a perfect, a lot of motivation, you may want to stay away from the device. If only if youre going for the accurate portion of it. If youre looking for general motivation, looking for some feedback as far as your activity level, its a good physical reminder of being more active. These devices definitely have a long way to go and what would i say hopefully over time these manufacturers will improve their software and hardware in ways that make them more accurate. There is also some big companies, some tech companies, potentially getting into this market which may make these first generation of devices live up to the some of the marketing claims that have been made. Gerri jim, youre very judicious. You can buy them but theyre mostly reminders. We think the federal government will get in and look at category. That might slow development. Jim, thank you for coming on the show. Thank you. Gerri most welcome. Coming up later, secondhand stress, what it is and how you can prevent yourself from catching it. And baby boomers are downsizing their homes but are supersizing the price. Coming up we answer the question, how do you do that . How to downsize to meet your needs. Stay with us. Gerri paying more for less. Why some seniors are downsizing into smaller, more expensive homes. Expert advice for you or your loved ones next. David baby boomers are turning5 at a rate of 8,000 per day and lot want to trade down to smaller home that requires less care. The problem many folks are not paying less for smaller houses y is that . What you need to know if youre considering downsizing . How do you do that . We have personal finance expert vera gibbons. How much are they paying . Interesting trend, right. Theyre some cases paying more. Sell the big house in the buschs burbs. It is interesting phenomenon. Gerri sell the house in urban area, expensive house, the big one and pay less for something in climate you liked better which was less expensive. Yes. These people want lifestyle change. Were living longer. Many of us living longer, 80s or 90s. The big house served its purpose. They want culture, activities, nightlife, transportation, access to hospitals. Want walkability factor. They want it all. Not necessarily getting in their current home. 60 of boomers living in current home they will move in retirement. Go to someplace fun. Gerri well, someplace fun. I have to tell you they have only 100,000 in equity. Four out of five boomers that own their own home. One in five dont even own their own home. I used to think of a house that kind of a cash storage facility, right . Right. Gerri that is what you tap in part when you retire. You shouldnt rely solely on this for retirement. People actually doing this, have cash reserves on hand to actually do it. For most of us were tapping equity. Were doing reverse mortgages anything they can do to tap into the equity. If there are risks come with the territory doing that too. This is for select few who feel like they want lifestyle change. Want something different. Not like something everybody is going to be doing. Gerri what is interesting is what they are paying more for. What are they willing to pay up . They want the amenities right . They dont care about Square Footage, even if it is small apartment in new york city, for example. They want gym memberships. They want facilities for their pets which they see as their own children these days as you very well know. They want all stuff that comes big kitchens, entertainment centers. They want places where they can have guests. Everything you can imagine under the sun. Beautiful bathrooms, master bedrooms done just so. Walkin closets. They want it all and willing to sacrifice Square Footage for the sake of getting those amenities. Mentioned that they want to go somewhere fun soft where are they going. Theyre going to a lot of different places actually. Some people are going to college towns, places like austin. Lot of people are going overseas which is interesting. Going to costa rica. Gerri you can really cut costs. Costs are next to nothing there. Going to places like that, belize. Panama. Interesting places. Other people are staying closer to home. Where the kids are, grandkids. Theyre not necessarily leaving the state. Theyre going to the fun city within their state. That way they can stay close to their friend, stay close to their family but still have a great social life and cultural activities. Gerri what do you know if you want to downsize and trying to keep that price tag under control . Face it, not everybody wants to pay up. It is really numbers game. Tough crunch the numbers to see if it is economically feasible. For a lot of people it might not be. You dont want to wait life altering event. People wait until a spouse dice. Moving to the city. Im going to do something else. You necessarily dont want to do that you have to consider tax ramifications of actually moving as well. If youre living in big house out in the burbs and had it a long time and made money on the property you will be hit with a couple dings. Profit over 250,000, yes. Gerri plan ahead is what youre saying. Plan accordingly, gerri. Gerri plan accordingly. Just want to tease you. Appreciate it. If youre in the market for a new home im about to share a list of gorgeous homes you could own if you have a lot of money. Listen to this in tonights top five. The most expensive homes for sale in the u. S. Number five, steve colens duplex condo at beacon Court Building in new york city. Going for 9million. Offers floor to ceiling glass windows giving panoramic views of city. Wonder what maintenance is there . Number four, ocean boulevard, mansion in palm beach, florida. For 99 million. This newly built mediterranean waterfront estate is over 23,000 square feet. Number three the penthouse at city spire in manhattan for 100 million. This unit has been on the market off and on over two years but never seen a price reduction. That may be the problem. Some real estate insiders say it is overpriced. Number two, homers pond on martha i cant vineyard. This stunner is pocket listing. Recently lowered from 111 million to 1 08 million. What a deal. This offers 1200 feet of private beachfront of the those are gorgeous pictures. Most expensive home for sale a new york mansion going for 114 million. The seller is vincent viola, owner of nhls florida panthers. Look what he lives in, unbelievable. Was remodeled in 2005. He used the palace of versai