Wealthy i theyre going to say and do all the right things. You got a hint, gerri. President saying i want to work with Mitch Mcconnell. I want to work with john boehner. And they will. They will put out all the right signals et cetera, but you know theyre not exactly on Common Ground on most big issues. So we might see some gimmes some here. We might see, keystone pipeline, something the president would sign off on. He might do something, you know, at the ends here on the health care law. Some of its more controversial device tax. And rescinding it. But beyond that, they are really miles apart on big, big, environmental issues. Gerri absolutely,. Big, big, corporate reform and tax reeorm issues. So you cant just sort of schwab that over after a midterm election. Gerri after listening to mcconnell and then the president today, they made all the right noises, right . Right. Gerri what they talked about their own priorities i didnt hear a lot of things in common. Right. Gerri i heard mcconnell talk about energy, i heard him talk about the budget, tax reform, et cctera. Then i heard the president talk about minimum wage. Where is the Common Ground there . I heard the same thing, gerri, youre dead on right here. Youre not going to make make the president overnight fall in love with fossil fuels. Youre not going to make republicans start loving solar and wind. So that is a lot of hot air, no pun intended. Then we come back to some of the areas where they do have some Common Ground wanting to address the onerous tax code and thing at that pushes a lot of businesses out or to reincorporate elsewhere or to hide money abroad. The president is all but disparaged companies being thieves for that sort of behavior. Mitch mcconnell and in his remarks today was saying it is understandable given the high tax rates here. So they recognize the problem and in that case money is held offshore bit trillions. But theyre miles apart how to get it ack home. So you could hear talk about a carrotandstick approach where the president would require companies and to bring thht back home to give sort after tax holiday but they have to hire workersing Something Like that. But, youre right, i mean that is a lot easier said than done. Talking in the aggregate how you cooperate and hold hands is very different than actually doing it. Gerri riggt. And one issue i think is critical that you and i talked about last night. That is middle class americans. Were all concerned,wer saw all the beautiful numbers the president has been trotting out for weeks now. Gas prices at a low. Gdp is littll bit higher here. The stock market on fire. And yet middle class americans saying i dont feel wealthy. I dont feel great here. Right. Gerri so how is this Republican Senate and the president going to come together and help those folks make this economy move a little faster so we get job growth going, get real growth for this economy . Well i think youre right on all of the above, gerri. The fact of the matter is, you and i studied this over the years. Very easy to get cocky in the moment. I always remind people with these huge seismic elections, if you think about it, this is the fourth time in the last 10 years weve seen souch a a shift in such a shift in the congress or white house that goes 110 degrees. Two years ago, republicans were onsidered all but dead. They failed to reach out. They couldnt getoutthevote and going by way of dodo bird. Two years prior, republicans on a role and make barack obama onetermer. 20 years ago this month, bill clinton looked like onetermer and tried to justify his existence on postnewt gingrich takeover of3 the hoose. All of those incidents rrmind people that fame can be very, very fleeting. Your time in the sun can burn out very, very quickly if youre not careful. I think many republicans certainly i talked to last night, i know you talked to many, saying we dont want to invariably what you find out historically on left and right they do. I think they will try, really, really hard, to get some Common Ground ideas forward, approved, legislated but the onus is on the president when you think about it because up to now he had harry reid blocking a lot of stuff that went from the house and stopped at the senate. Now all that stuff from the house is even crafted originally in the senate will go right to his desk. He has to go yea or nay. He could be mr. Veto or mr. Lets see how we go forward. Well see. Gerri well see. Neil, thank you so much for coming on tonight. Thank you. Gerri great job last night. Terrific coverage. I appreciate. That thank you very much. 8 00 tonight, a postelection election special. Can a Republican Controlled Congress finally energize the economy so middle class americans can feel it at home . Joining me art laffer, former Economic Advisor for president ronald reagan. Ryan tate, Small Business expert, president of tate publishing. Douglas holtzeakin president of american act ahn sure rum joining us again tonight. Thanks for you all be here. Weve been talking about the numbers for weeks now. Gdp recovering. The jobless rate looking a little better here. Continuing to improve down to 5. 9 and yet in the exit polls last night 70 of the people say that their own personal financial situation has gotten worse or only stayed the same. Art laffer, to you, what do you make of that . What is this election about . I dont think the economy is getting much better to be honest with you. It is not in free fall, thats for sure, gerri but weve had seven years of just flat, where the employment to population ratio is not increased at all. It is not falling but every job that was, every drop in the unemploymentemployment rate is someone leaving the labor force, not finding a job. I think people are pretty disgusted with the economy and they should be. It is not just doing well and we need a Major Overhaul of economic policies. erri well how do you do that, doug . Where do you start . What we need is the economy to grow grow and create jobs. I dont think, it is interesting, middle class americans are not something for handout. That is not what is going on. These people dont want a free check. What they want is opportunity. They want a job and they want a raise. Gerri right. And you know the jobs are starting to show up but the raises are not. I think art has it exactly right, the economy is not performing well. It is sort of muddling along going sidewaas and we need to grow much more rapidly. The right solutions, comprehensive tax reform, big trade agreements, kind of regulatory reforms that would take a lot of the oveehang out of the way would get the economy going again. Fixing big debt problems, those are things anyone would go to if you did it by logic but were not going to see. That well see much smaller initiatives and hopefully the president will change his style and actually work to get democrats in the senate to vote and get things out of there and sign them. There is no since of that so far. Gerri well talk more about that in just a seccnd but i want to stick with the middle income americans and what is happening. Look, people are not even identifying themselves aa middle income anymore. Theyre saying theyre lower middle class. Right. Gerri that is the tragedy of that. I find that astonishing for generations people boasted about being in the middle class. Now people feel like im nnt really not part of it. Art, to you, Small Business, typically the engine of growth, typiially the big employer, what does Small Business need to really get growing . They need government to get out of the way, geeri. Yeah. We need a low rate, broad base, flat tax, spending restraint, sound money, free trade and minimum regulations. Then get the hello hell out of the way and witnesses do what they do best, creating jobs and output production. Douglas holtzeakin is just exactly correct. Gerri ryan, what do you say . I think he is absolutely right. We need tax reform both on the corporatt and individual side. When you look at Small Business owners, it is not just the corporate side we need reform. They need help on the individual side as well. How they pass things through. Exactly. So you have got to do. That you want businesses to pour money back into their employees, you have to give them a tax break. We all want to do it. And then you bring in the Affordable Care act. I know for me personally, i have had over 30 increases in our fees for carrying Health Insurance for our employees. That caused our deductibles to have to increase to higher rates than they have ever been before. Again, keeps us from being able to invest back into our infrastructure. Gerri right. And into our employees. It is not that complicated. I want to focus in on that in just a second. A recent poll showed 51 percent of the people who signed up for obamacare last year are not doing it this year. Theyre rejecting it. Are you surprised . Im utterly unsurprised. Obamacare hurts in twoways. I mean youve got a product that cant be delivered effecttvely, costs too much. People walkway from that if the a all possiblee that es what were seeing. But the bigger harm is not that it is bad health policy, it is bad budget policy, it is bad regulatory policy and it is bad growth policy and it has been a to where we need to be. Us back gerri i agree. I want to get go ahead art. Im sorry, brian. What concerns me when thh Affordable Care act was kicked into place they knew it would get too large to kill. I dont see how even with a republican congress, i dont see how it can be killed. It is too large. You have over 10 million americans there. Second round of enrollment is coming up. Youve got to start fixing the mandates in those, little provisions in the bill to help Small Business owners once again on individual mandate. Employer mandate. Even insurance bailouts that are wrapped up in there. Gerri i want to get to the idea of just how well the president and this newlyRepublican Senate are going to work together. I want you to hear what the president said this afternoon about his intentions. Listtn to this. Every election is a moment for reflection. And, you know i think that everybody in this white house is going to look and say, all right, what do we need to do differently . But the principles that were fighting for, the things that motivate me every single day and motivate my staff every single today. Those things arent going to change. Gerri i think we lost art here. So doug, i will turn to you. That didnt sound like kumbayah to me . No, i dont think so. If you listen to the whole press conference what you heard was the president who said, look, republicans need to bring an agenda to me, i will pick out of things i like and want to work on. That is not really changing style. There are things they can do. The republicans and president can agree on trade and importance of trade agreements. They can agree on importance of Oil Exploration and oil exports and keystone pipeline. We do have to fix our ighway funding. That is a necessity. It happens in march. Well, lets get together and do that but to really be effective they have to move past the things that they easily can do and must do and do the things they should do. Those would be the tax reforms. Those would be these larger issues. That will require a change in style. Gerri middle class income. And gerri . Gerri go ahead. If i can real quickly, two years ago he said this was a mandate and he read the tea leaves. Now he said this is not that bi of a deal. Already it is politics and unbelievable for me, for an individual that has been doing this as long as he has to think that americans are going to have the wool pulled over their eyes again. he thing im most excited about, is the republicans are now going to be able to puu bills on his desk that he is going to have to make decisions about and harry reid wont be protecting him from doing what americans have asked the president to do. Which is represent us, protect us. Help us get back to a place of economic increase and stability. Gerri that was the point neil cavuto made just moments ago. Now the president will actively say no himself if he wants to veto something. Art, ryan, doug, art left us. He is here in mentally with us. Art, ryan and doug, thanks so much. Now we want to know what you think. Heres our question tonight. Are you hopeful after the election . S log on to gerriwillis. Com. Vote on the righthand side of the screen. I will share results at the end of tonights show. We have more to come this hour including your voice. Your voice is important to us. Thats why during the show we want you to facebook me or tweet me gerriwillisfbn. Also send me an email by going to gerriwillis. Com on the web. At the bottom of the hour i wiil read your tweets and emails. Next, how it will impact your portfolio now that republicans are in charge . What stocks if any, should you be buying . Stay with us. rectionist gunderman g. Guerman grp is growing. rectionist gunderman g. Growth is gratifng. Goals to grow. Gotta gegrear growth. I just tked to ups. They gotxpert advise, special discounts,. New technogies. Likemart pick s. Theyll only show up whenob and its autotic. Likemart pick s. Save timti . Nd money. Time and money. E. Awesome awesome ese awesome gerri stocks mostly higher today after republicans regained control after the first congress. Mitch mcconnell sets legislative agenda for last two years of obama presidency. That is being wellreceived by theemarkets. What is your Mitch Mcconnell portfolio . With us daviddkotok with cumberland advisors. Welcome back to the show. it was dow, dow up 100 points. Where should investors be focusing their efforts and their dollars . This was a day to taae up your underweighted pooition in the energy sector, gerri. We started to see it. The congress, now, both houses proenergy sector. We may fight overrthe pipeline. Xm ps get a boost because the attack on gerri Master Limited partnerships, right. Master limited partnerships, thank you. The attack on the tax structure will be dampened or eliminated by the congress. There is a good story in the energy space. We think thereeis a good story in the Health Care Space for two reasons. Gerri yet, david, yet david, those stocks traded lower with the exception of some of the medical devicemakers today. It was sort of a split decision. And you know, as you know, that is a diverse and wide sector. Are you talking about hospital stocks . Are you talking about medical device makers . Whattdo you like in that sector . Well, medical deviceemakers are on an upward path because of the possible repeal of the obama care tax on medical devices. My sense there is one contentious issue that the combined republican chambers will put to the president attached to some bill, it will be that item as part after package. Well see, but certainly markets are anticipating that. Gerri okay. o, pharma sector, biotech sector, upward trend since middle of october. Now we have the first converration again about a repay tricks ages bill and the repatriation bill and it may come into tax reform. It may take a year. May come next year. Gerri it could take time. I should point out biotechs were big losers today. Im interested if you think that what has gone on innthe last couple of days is going to put wind under the wings of stock market as a whole . What we know midterm elections are generally good for stocks as a rule, up 16. 5 . After, in the wake of this kind of election. All other years up just 3. 7 . These are averages now. Can we, can we get a lift from this . Are professional investors going to say well put more money to work in u. S. Stocks because there is republicanncongress now, and we feel more comfortable . E think so. Weve taken up the u. S. Weight relative to the rest of the world. Weve taken up the stock weight relative to bond, especially with bond at such low interest rates. And we believe that the typical postmidterm election pattern, through the end of the year and into next year. So ere bullish on the market. Were 100 invested and weve been riding that since the second half of october and we see no reason to change it. Gerri and in fact, if we were to get some kind of comprehensive tax reform, especially tax reform that lowered tax rates for corporations, that could be an even bigger boost, right . Hugely. If the u. S. Could get competitive, in the world corporate environment, and be able to repatriate earnings so the investmmnt structure is inward focused in the country instead of incentivized to be outside of the country, the country could flourish. We have huge opportunities and potential. If we dont have political obstacles in the way. Gerri i like your thinking. David, thanks for coming on the show and coming up later, a look how the midterms will be next it was a shellacking in 2010 and a bloodbath in 2014 but obama is certainly not the first president to sigh Congress Change sides. Some Historical Perspective after the break. Get to t terminal ross tn. Arall the green lightsou . No. Its called iq. Th4 51 is leavg at 4 51. Th cut the per. Itll fiself. Quick thking traffic light and self corcting power gr its more than thehe car. Ble. Thrigly predictable. For los f1 team, the Competitive Edge is the oud. The team can gaireal time,azure, insi and instantly share information aroundhe globe. When every mliseco cnt aying competitive begins with the cud. Th is the microft oud. Gerri big shakeup is republican full scroll of senate. How have previous president s handled changes in the past . We have a political scientist from George Washington university, lauren brown. Lauren, great to have you on the show. So it is interesting to see the sort of cycling threw the sort of change and it occurs to me that it all happened before. How will this play out . Well it is great to be here. Thanks for having me on. One of the things that is true is that president s for the most part in these sixth year midterms arent able to really accomplish much after the midterm does happen. Usually because they are already in terms of being a leam duck. And the energy is focused on the next electioo, the next president. Gerri like momentum, right . It is interesting, they just really lose momentum like a ball running down the hallway. They go slower and slower. So how do these president s typically pivot once they get to thi