Households finance 100 of transfer payments to bottom 60 as well as almost 100 of tax revenue used to run entire federal post. What is going on here in your view . Well we hear all the time how the rich are not paying their fair share. So when i looked at this report which is released annually, this report is 2011 data, i dug into some of the details, what i was able to show that they break the households down by income equipment tiles. What i was able to show quintiles. Bottom 60 of the american households by net income are net recipient and receive more in government transfer payments than pay in federal taxes. Fourth income quintile, pays highest, break even. Pay as much in federal taxes as they get in government transfers. It is top income quintile, households in america with average income of about 234,000 that it is that group that pays in 48,000, about 46,500 more in federal taxes than they receive in transfer payments. So that is really the, the main net payer quintile. So theyre financing all of the transfer payments to the bottom 60 . Gerri everything. Everything. Scott to you, doesnt this argue for tax reform . Oh, indeed, absolutely. We have incredibly progressive tax system. It is one of the reasons why the economy is stalled and it is not growing. We dont have enough money for investment. We have wrong kind of incentives built into the tax system and absolutely time to overhaul the tax system. Unfortunately the white house seems to drag its heels on that and trying to divert attention to other things like immigration. Gerri the beat goes on. Mark to you, quickly, do you think well see it . Tax reform . I think politically, well, politically it is going to be very difficult but i think as scott pointed out, economically, it makes sense because we have the highest Corporate Tax rate in the world. Were one of the only countries that taxes foreign posts. And we have one of the most progressive personal income taxes. I think it makes sense for us to take a look at our, you know, tax burden in this country and really move forward with some reforms. Economically it makes sense. Im not sure politically it will go through. Gerri we have a long way to go, thats for sure. I want to move on to another tax, cadillac tax, this tax was supposed to sponsor obamacare. Paul to you, we talked a lot about a little professor from mit, Little School called mit named Jonathan Gruber. He talked a lot in the past about the cadillac tax and now it seems that weve been duped yet again. Tell me what you make of his comments about this tax. It is 40 levy on cadillac tax costs. Well, lets not forget that president obama actually attacked john mccain in 2008 for suggesting that we cap the employer tax deductions. That we tax employer provided benefits for the first time. This is exactly what president obama did. He created this cadillac tax. Denied that it was going to be a tax right on individuals but gruber said secretly we knew all the time this would be tax on individuals. Hits 8 of employer plans when it starts in 2017. By 2030 it will be 80 of american employerbased plans. Gerri that is the point, scott. There will be more people than people with the most elaborate plans out there facing these taxes. Sure. Gerri how much tax will they face. It is huge. Like the alternative minimum tax originally designed during the 1960s to hit only the rich. Pretty soon it was hitting majority of americans and Congress Finally had to step in and put the brakes on. Well see exact same thing with this socalled cadillac tax which is going to hit a lot of union members. That is where you will see a lot of people begin to squawk because they tend to be the ones that have these cadillac plans. Theyre going to be hit most by that tax. Gerri going to be hit by this tax. I think ultimately lots and lots of americans with decent, good, corporate coverage will be screaming bloody murder. Sure. Gerri as a matter of fact there is estimate out there well end up paying more in income taxes because ultimately what will happen, the companies will scale back their coverage. Why will they do that, paul. Look, all deferred compensation. If you say well have 40 excise tax what employer pays you for the health benefits, the employer says i will not pay the tax. I will shift two wages. You will get socked by fica tax, income taxes all the rest. It will drive up costs for middle income families. Gerri the president is running as far from this as he possibly can. It, unbelievable to see what is going on here. Heres the president speaking about obamacare. Did you mislead americans about the taxes, about keeping your plan in order to get bill passed . No. I did not. I just heard about this, i get wellbriefed before i come out here. The fact that some advisor, who never worked on our staff expressed an opinion that i completely disagree with, in terms of the voters, is no reflection on the actual process that was run. Gerri all right. Paul over here is making all kinds of noises. What do you say. He is on the white house visitor logs. Gerri 400,000. He is on the payroll. Got 400,000 from the administration to do analysis of obamacare while he was promoting obamacare to you know every news outlet left and right. No one was mentioning the fact he was on governments payroll. Gerri you know this, is kind of thing that makes me absolutely crazy. You know, talking past each other. You know, trivial mendacity lying around the edges. Talk a little bit more about gruber though. He said something about seniors highly annoying. He says seniors are stupid too. Not just all americans. He says seniors. Senior do a terrible job choosing their own Public Health care plans. Mark, to you, this may not be your arena, obamacare, but im wondering what you think of the way this law was passed and kind of information that was put in front of the American People . Yeah, i think it is not that unusual. I think they generally rely on kind of rational ignorance of the american public. So this is not any different than lets say sugar quotas or sugar subsidies but in this case the more people find out about it, the more they realize it is going to be unaffordable care act, like this tax, the cadillac tax will eventually spread and cover a few americans. People will realize that coverage is not the same thing as care. Care costs go up and doctor shortages, so i think people, the more they find out about this, the more, the less they like it. And more theyre boeing to find out this was really bad public policy. Gerri wellsaid. Quick question before you go. New gallup polls, americans prefer socialism over capitalism. This is obamacare poll. Socialism over capitalism poll. 25 of americans choose socialism, pal. People sitting in stagnant economy. Watching their income decline under the obama administration. Theyre frustrated. That is frustration poll. Gerri mark what do you say. Well i think what people are really upset is not free market capitalism. What theyre upset about is crony capital system. And rigged policies that are passed that really are to the disadvantage of the average consumer in middle class american. They dont really object to free market capitalism. They object to crony capitalism. Gerri scott, quickly. Well, in polls that are showing americans are wholly against obamacare which is socialism. So theyre against it in that form at least. I think again were seeing this as part of the frustration theyre having with the entire system. Gerri lots of frustration. Scott, mark, paul, thanks for coming on the show tonight. We want to know what you think. Here is our question. Are you paying more than your fair share in taxes . Log on to gerriwillis. Com. Vote on the righthand side of the screen. I will share the results at the end of tonights show. Much of the Mainstream Media has ignored the scandal involving Jonathan Gruber or at least has been late to report it. You may have noticed my colleague Melissa Francis is causing a stir after revealing her former bosses at cnbc tried to stop her, stop her from telling the truth about obamacare. When i was at cnbc i pointed out to my viewers that the math of obamacare simply didnt work, not the politics by the way, just the basic math. And when i did that, i was silenced. This is not the first time cnbc has tried to pull the wool overviewers eyes. One of its top talents, suze orman was peddling a Prepaid Debit Card and i called her out on it. Remember the suze orman Prepaid Debit Card . It was sold as a great way to build credit and manage the household budget. Suze orman used her near celebrity status to hawk it everywhere. With no explanation, it has been canceled. Prepaid debit cards have zero benefits, people, zero benefits to consumers. And suze ormans card was one of the worst of the lot. Her card is now gone. Unfortunately the lies about obamacare still linger. We have a lot more to come, including your voice. Your voice is important to us. That is why during the show we want to you facebook me or tweet me gerriwillisfbn or send me an effort mail to gerriwillis. Com. At the bottom of the hour i will read your tweets and evident mails. Next you may soon be encouraged by your employer to log on to facebook at work, believe it or not. A look at the new software the social media giant is developing designed especially for the work place. Dont go away. The mercedesbenz winter event is back, with the perfect vehicle thats just right for you, no matter which list youre on. [ho, ho, ho, ho] no matter which list youre on. Lease the 2014 cla250 for 329 a month at your local mercedesbenz dealer. Gerri well, facebook wants to you spend more time on, facebook reportedly working on a new sight especially for the office called facebook work. Like Microsoft Office and without potentially videos of facebook. With more, jeremy kaplan, the editorinchief of digital trends. Com. Welcome to the show. Great to have you here. Thank you. Gerri were already on facebook at work. How is this different . Everybody is on facebook but the thing is were not on facebook at work. A lot of big businesses and corporations say get the heck off of it. They dont want you facebooking at work because essentially youre wasting time. Its a different version. Gerri before you move on to that point, we have to say, we have good numbers, 64 of folks browse website unrelated to work at work. I think that number is low. I think 100 . It is undercounted. They go to facebook, linkedin, amazon, theyre all over the web of. Facebook wants to tweet a product they use for their individuals lives at work. Why . Facebook is so massive and immense they say 1 6 of the people on plan set on facebook. The way they want to grow is taking more of your time. Gerri almost impossible for them. Not actually. If youre spending eight or nine hours staring at digital things all day and only spend 20 minutes looking at facebook there is a whole big slice of the pie for them there. How do you capitalize if youre facebook. Gerri they will be competing presumably with a whole new category of websites, like linkedin, you mentioned it before. People are going there looking for jobs, updating resumes, looking for people in their field of work. Sales force, where people who are salesmen dot kind of thing. This is important and growing niche, right . Oh, definitely. This is huge important thing. Very hard for a lot of businesses to network effectively. Hard to get collaborative tools. These are things that facebook does incredibly well. There is already very established market in there. Can facebook suddenly compete . Theyre facebook. Gerri answer to the question is yes. Absolutely theyre going to be competing. What is the next step in your view. Havent actually seen the product. They havent confirmed it exists. This is rumor of a rumor. Like the apple watch though, right . Everyone knows it is out there. They have shown it off. I think facebook has shown it off to a few people according to published reports. But how good is it . See what it looks like. Gerri area mixer thanks for coming on the show, appreciate it. Later on the show, could you be driving on faulty tires . We have important new warning from Consumer Reports. Next a new survey shows Financial Security on the rise for most americans. Our First Priority is still paying bills. Noting, not investing. Paying the bills. Why that is after the break. Go ahead and put your bag right here. Have a nice flight traveling can feel like one big mystery. Youre never quite sure what is coming your way. But when youve got an entire company who knows that the most ontime flights are nothing if we cant get your things there too. Its no wonder more People Choose delta than any other airline. Over 12,000 financial advisors. So, how are things . Good, good. Nearly 800 billion dollars in assets under care. Let me just put this away. How did edward jones get so big . Could you teach our kids that trick . By not acting that way. Ok, last quarter. Its how edward jones makes sense of investing. Gerri sometimes the bills are just overwhelming. You may feel youre so far behind that is on catching up that you will never catch up. Turns out youre not alone. New study from bank rate shows top priority of 41 of americans to catch up on and stay current on Living Expenses with more, bankrate. Com chief analyst greg mcbride. These numbers are shocking. 41 say top financial priority is paying bills. Doesnt leave a lot of room for saving for retirement or putting your kids through college. Youre absolutely right, gerri. Weve seen this three years in a row this has been the top priority and by increasing extent each year. It is 41 this year. That is up from what we found each of the two previous years. So i think it just reflects reality that some people have where the paycheck hasnt increased, they have, other bills that they have to pay. And so keeping their head above water, really ends up taking a top priority. As you said, it doesnt leave a whole lot of room for the other things like looking toward the future. Putting kids through college. Let me interrupt you here. Because, we get such good, positive, economic data. Apparently the jobs, Unemployment Rate is going down. You know, apparently, the economy, the president tells me the economy is going great guns. Why is it that more and more people are saying, just paying the bills is the top priority . You know, thats having because we are seeing, when we look at other facets of Financial Security, people are saying, things are better. Theyre feeling more secure about their jobs. Reporting higher net worth. Feeling more comfortable with their debt and overall financial situation. Whats happening though is that the missing link in this economic recovery has been the fact that for some people their incomes havent gone up. It is why people are not able to ramp up spending. Why we have a slow growth economy. Why people dont make headway in other areas. You. You see that reflected, more than 40 of the people say were trying to keep your heads above water to stay head of bills. Gerri you call this Financial Insecurity which i think is dead on. Another number from your survey i think is amazing, a third of americans say theyre less comfortable with their savings. We see time and time again people arent putting money aside for emergencies. For fixing refrigerator, you name it. Yeah. Absolutely. Savings is really achilles heel of Financial Security. One area, gerri, we see month in, month out, people say theyre not comfortable with what they have. They dont feel like theyre making progress. The numbers bear that out. We find fewer than one in four americans actually has adequate Emergency Savings cushion. You know, about half either have none or less than would cover three months worth of expenses. So a whole lot of people need to do a whole lot of saving. Theyre making precious little in the way of progress that that direction. Gerri 26 of americans have no savings. Zero savings. Zilch savings. That does not put you in a good situation if the worst happens. Financial priorities. We mentioned paying bills. Number two is paying down debt. Savings. To ahead. Yeah,. You know paying down debt is second but its a distant second, almost two to one. People prioritize the paying bills over paying down debt. Savings is third and then, the fourth place providing Financial Assistance to family members and friends. The interesting thing about that one, gerri, that those that were most likely to cite providing Financial Assistance to family members or friend, those age 65 and up. Throws out this notion that it is retirees and seniors that are helping their relatives, their children and grandchildren, not the other way around. Gerri unbelievable. Before you go, tell us about the kind of things youre studying. What are the issues youre looking at in these individual peoples lives . Well, what were doing in terms of the Financial Security index every month were polling consumers on core tenants of tenets Financial Security and asking them very simply is it getting better, is it getting worse . Job security, savings, debt, financial situation and gives us chance to dive deeper into things like what is your top financial priority . How much emergency situations have you had . Are you raiding retirement account for emergencies, those kinds of things. Gives us great window into psyche and Financial Condition of the american consumer. Financial security or Financial Insecurity. Greg, thanks for coming on and talking about it. Thank you, gerri. Gerri coming up next, a new warning from Consumer Reports on the tires that could be on your car. Kelley blue book is out with the best cars and trucks of 2015. Find out why this classic truck, this particular classic truck, is topping out the list. E. How could switchgrass in argentina, change engineering in dubai, aluminum production in south africa, and the Aerospace Industry in the u. S. . At t. Rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy. Its just one reason over 70 of our mutual funds beat their 10year lipper average. T. Rowe price. Invest with confidence. Request a prosp