>> i once cut my hand while cutting a bagel, that was so stupid that i wanted to say something else. the only thing worse is running with scissors. thank you for coming on. we will see you back here tomorrow. "the willis report" is coming up next. gerri: hello, everybody. i am gerri willis. last-minute press for president obama and mitt romney before they take the stage in a town hall style debate tomorrow night. whhle romney will try to give an encore performance and build on his momentum, the obama campaign promising a firm but respectful president. what will this be? another broken promise by obama? the editor of the national review. welcome to you both, great to have both of you here. i want to start with you, rich.

this town hall style format may well help one candidate than the other. what do you say? speak of this base wants obama to come out reading fire. not that it worked very well for joe biden, but that is difficult to do with ordinary people asking questions presumably about their own lives. the trick is connecting with those people. it is tough to do that when you spent a lot of time making ground -- and the other guy. gerri: to you, david axelrod outlined what the president is going to try and do, this is what he said the president's strategy is. >> he's going to make some adjustments on tuesday, it'll be an interesting debate. he will be making the case for his view of where we should go as a country.

gerri: the president wants to be aggressive, but it may be difficult in the format to do that, what do you say? speak of the most important thing the president needs to do is to show command of the subject. the biggest problem in the last debate was that he didn't appear to know where much about his own policies, he did not know enough about obamacare to go toe to toe with his opponent. nor social security, nor any of the policies they were talking about that particular evening. if he can show he knows more than he appeared to, he will do much better. so the big issues people care about and bring it back, but i am not very confident if he didn't know then, that he will know now. gerri: another big debate, the moderators, if she is asserting herself too much into the format.

>> she shouldn't be initiating questions, that is the reason for the town hall format. i don't mind a follow-up, but my big take away is these debates are not about the moderators. i thought martha raddatz inserted herself way too much. let these guys go at it, it is not about the moderator, it's about the candidates. gerri: we are using everything they can, social media, you name it. michelle obama tweeting we are in the middle of a huge recovery. is that right? >> no, it is not. economist might tell you that, but people all over america know it will be about 15% unemployment. look, the main unemployment we

talk about is twice that. that stated about 15%. it is not true, just wishing it away will not make it so. gerri: we want to talk about axelrod. talk abou of how much the consut advisors over what was going on in libya. it is amazing to me that he just refused to answer the question, here is david axelrod. >> this is the first u.s. investor killed since 1979, came on this show and five others during the american people a story that came out not to be true and you say we shouldn't discuss this? >> that is not what i am saying. the difference from the manner

in which he has conducted himself. it is not just me, he was criticized from people from right to left. gerri: so, rich, will this be an election issue at the end of the day that will play out over the next few weeks? will we be hearing from sources in the administration, the pentagon saying we knew there were problems, the administration wouldn't act? >> it is partly because they're trying to throw them under the bus. this kind of dynamic gets going, you have more backside. you can have people defending their institutions. somebody from the state department saying last week i don't know why they said this was about a video and a protest over a video because that was never our conclusion. gerri: arthur, what do you say? this seems to be an issue that won't go away, keeps being talked about.

seemed like axelrod didn't even know how to respond, what do you say? >> when you look at the public opinion polling, sadly in my view foreign policy almost never scores anywhere in the top 10 unless something blows up in the united states. unless there is something brand-new. that said, i agree completely with you and rich, it is not going anywhere especially among the journalists and those who think about these thanks a lot. i don't think you can affect public opinion very mud. i doubt it will have a big effect on the election. gerri: there was a late day ap story about the white house considering some sort of retaliatory strike in libya. not clear what they wanted to do, sort of an obscure report. what you make of this? >> you've got to believe they would love outside the questions of the american whoever did this

deserves severe retaliation. but love some show of strength hitting back to al qaeda. gerri: not a lot of details yet. thank you for coming on tonight, great job, we really appreciate your time. thank you. thank you. don't forget to watch the debate coverage hosted by neil cavuto tomorrow night starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern time. also tonight, there is hope for the teenager girl shot in the head by the taliban. she was targeted for advocating education for girls. she arrived in britain today to specialized medical care to protect her from any more attacks. the doctors are optimistic and believe she has a very good chance of recovery. thinking about her tonight. a lot more still to come this hour. in 10 minutes i will be joined

by tim griffin who is fired up about obama phones. handed out to poor people at the expense of the american taxpayers. mitt romney closing in as the swing states taken. what is behind the new numbers? i will break it down next.

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said obama, 21% said romney and to be fair 45% said it would make a difference one way or the other. a similar survey conducted back in june, the two candidates were tied. 21% under romney, 21% under president obama. what a difference a few weeks makes. 52% said their own finances will be a major factor determining their vote. they still have concerns about whether they can hold onto their jobs and they worry about their overall financial picture. while obama is winning the war on the wallet, romney is showing up in the polling numbers. rasmussen reports daily presidential tracking poll shows romney gathered multiple votes, virtually a dead heat. romney leads in florida with 51% of the vote, 47% for obama, as a

reminder obama carried florida over john mccain in 2008 by 51-48% margin. romney leads again for 9% to 47%. still pretty tight. you know how the numbers are flip-flopped. 48% to 47%. experts say the improved run the numbers most likely stem from his debate performance two weeks ago, but polls can be inaccurate. democratic primary in 2008 polls clinton way ahead by at least 10 points and average for months, and then senator obama was an afterthought. remember that? look at this, october 2004 just a week before the presidential election, john kerry was leading george w. bush. he went on to win by an even larger margin. so tomorrow night we get another reading. will romney continued the momentum or will obama rally?

will find out in 27 hours. last week we told you about two professors whose computer program predicted every presidential contest winner since 1980. one of those professors will join me tomorrow, you don't want to miss that. >> coming up on "the willis report," cell phones handed out to the poor making the richest man richer. all thanks to your tax dollars. we will hear from one congressman fired up about all of this next. and he says his administration plans to put their taxpayers first. the governor weighs in on the state of iowa later. more government red tape, this time clucking away at chickens transported across state lines. jerry is all over the explosive new details. we are on the case next on "the willis report." ♪

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gerri: free phones for the poor. yes, our government program is making world's richest men even richer.

melissa: the world's richest man is getting even richer thanks to you and me. media mogul who has a net worth of $70 billion also has a controlling stake in a company called trac phone. getting cell phone to low income americans as part of a federal program. the phones are being dubbed obama phone and we all pay for it in the form of a tax on our monthly phone bill. my next guest recently introduced legislation to end the federally subsidized program. he was more, tim griffin from arkansas. welcome to the show, tell us whawhyyou are opposed to this p. >> first of all with regard to

this specific program, a program that started out as providing land lines, there's a lot of waste, fraud and abuse. we have seen an example where individuals have 10, 20, 30, 40 cell phones even here in little rock with heaa interview folks who say i pay for a phone and then i keep my free phone as a backup phone at the house, so there's a lot of waste, fraud and abuse in this specific program, but there is the broader question, and that is why should the federal government be providing cell phone service to people? melissa: this is what they said when i put the program into place, they wanted to mention low-income americans have the opportunities and securities that phone service gives to folks. connect for jobs, emergency

services, what do you mmke of that, is that a good reason to give people phones? speak of that is a good reason to give land lines. when the statement was made it was land lines only. this program converted to cell phones a few years ago and it went from a relatively reasonable amount of money to over a billion dollars per year. gerri: the cost last year 1.6 billion up from 772 million in 2008, so big increases. the thing that blew me away from a congressman is number of folks eligible to get free phones in this country. nearly a third of the population could get free phones that we subsidize, that makes no sense to me, what do you say? >> 80 million is probably a low number.

we have used that same figure because we're confident, but if you add up all the different folks who are eligible country could get over even 100 million that is another point i have made. it would be different if the people who truly could not afford some sort of emergency phone needed this, first of all they can get a landline under the lifeline program. my legislation does not impact land lines. we had very little waste, fraud and abuse because he wants 10, 20 land lines in the house. if you're going to come up with a cell phone with a button to call 911, what would be different? it ithat is not what we have go% spew it is making a $10 per phone per month on this. i want to ask you about crony capitalism. the ceo of the company contributed money to obama,

$40,000 per plate fundraiser at his home for the president, do you think there is an issue here of friends of the president getting special treatment? >> i don't know why this administration has been reluctant except they have encouraged dependency in a lot of different areas. just to be fair here, this expansion cell phone started in '06. lots of the increasing cost occurred under this president, no doubt about it. i think ultimately this is the federal government with a bad policy, and a lot of these private-sector companies are following the rules of the sec and the federal government laid out. i don't know about this specific individual you talk about as much because i focused on killing he program regardless of who is using it.

>> thispeak of this as yet just another example of the government trying to get people to take things from the government so they therefore are dependent on the government, what do you say? speak a lot of people say these are good, people need a cell phone, it can help them if their car breaks down. should the federal government by everyone jumper cables? should the federal government the first eight in everybody's trunk? where does it end? if someone is shot in their home, they can get a landline, that services already provided. this cell phone thing is out of control. by the way, if you want a cheap cell phone with a few minutes per month, you can get those very reasonably priced. and so we need to kill this program, if we can't deal with this, we will have a hard time dealing with a $16 trillion

debt. gerri: thank you for coming on. >> people should tell numbers of congress to sign onto my bill. gerri: appreciate your time. now what you think, should the government give free cell phones to the poor? log onto gerriwillis.com, i will share the results at the end of the show. debate the truth behind the jobs numbers, anyway you cut it, 7.8% unemployment is a tough market to get a job in. there are some college majors that make it harder. the worst college majors based on unemployment and starting salary. number five, liberal arts. more than 9% of recent graduates are unemployed. even the workers in their 30s and 40s are only earning 50

grand per year. philosophy and religious studies, nearly 11% of recent grads are unemployed and the experience grad only earns $40,000 per year. number three, fine arts may produce masterpieces but more than 12.5% of grad are unemployed. number two, film, video, photographic art. there's a 30% unemployment rate and the number one worst college major to find a job and make some money, anthropology and archaeology. college graduates only earn about $28,000 per year in their 20s and face 10.5% unemployment rate. all right, coming up next the governor of one of the most talked about states in politics, and the government is doing a chicken dance forcing small farmers to tag and iv each chicken crossing state lines.

how they are choking the industry next.

gerri: election day maybe three weeks away but early voting is already underway big time. president obama, i'm falling michelle obama's example and voting early october 25. the first absentee ballot in the mail today. she'll push for early voting in iowa this wednesday, but will his push swing voters to his side? what's ask terry branstad.

interestingly all this early voting is starting to give us a sense what voters are thinking and we're starting to see in iowa in particular and ohio as well democrats are coming out and voting for obama. should mitt romney be worried? >> no, i don't think so. he performed exceptionally well in the first debate, not of the american people have a chance to see the two candidates side by side, they can see all these nasty, negative attack ads obama has leveled against romney really have not worked and when people get a chance to see the president of the united states blaming other people and attacking other people, he can't defend his record of increasing the national debt more than a trillion dollars per year. $0.40 of every dollar spent is borrowed money. a recipe for disaster, the country has gone the wrong

direction. he has ability to do what i and other governors have done, get our state's financial house in order and reduce the spending that has gotten us in trouble. we have done that in this state. gerri: i want to stay with the election for just a second, sir, and then we will get to your performance in the state. let's talk about the election for just a second longer. polling in iowa. >> i'm confessing my state with state is following his example, the most debt per capita, most unfunded liabilities for their public employee retirement system. in our state we spent $0.97 of every dollar that came in revenue last year and we are in a strong fiscal position and we need a president who will do the same thing at the national level

that we're doing at the state level in the governor's office. gerri: i think we have a big delay, and so let me get a question in edgewise here. especially when it comes to early voting, the early voting going on right now, i'm wondering if you believe obama may be cannibalizing some of his votes that would've, november 6. people see it as a positive right now but in a few weeks could be a negative? >> exactly, that is what happened two weeks ago in the democrats had a massive early voting deal, but when the election came out in 2010, even though we lost early voting as it got closer and closer to elections, republicans picked up in the turnout on election day was phenomenal and i carried the state by strong margin beating an incumbent governor here. i believe we will see a great

turnout in this election, i see some real momentum not only for romney, but for our congressional candidates in our state senate candidate as we're working to gain control of the state senate in iowa as well. gerri: this is your second tour of duty in iowa. it ended with an unemployment rate 2.5%. what do you know in iowa the rest of us don't? >> you can spen can't spend moru take in, the private sector creates jobs, so you need to reduce the regulatory burden, you need to keep your state fiscal house in order, spend less than you take in, have low debt. only second to norrh dakota when it comes to a strong financial edition. we're very proud of that that illinois acting as second-worst in the nation.

like to contrast our state with obama's state of illinois. they can't pay their bills on time, have all these problems they have brought on themselves by not having fiscal discipline. we need that in the country. gerri: thank you for putting up with our technical difficulties. >> thank you, look forward to it. what is the chicken cross the road? to get away from the red tape and get another instance of the government running afoul. usda is looking to identify all chickens crossing state lines. joining me now, senior research fellow in repertory policy at the heritage foundation. what is going on here?

why do we need to id chickens? >> that is a really good question. this came out last year. the idea is the chicken covering cattle and others to make them traceable of the breakout of any disease. it sounds like a good idea on paper. taking them, putting bracelets on their feet is quite a task. not only that, but you have to do it more than once because it has to be small and they have to change it. gerri: i understand there are 9 million chickens in the country. they only live five to six months. at the end of the day, i guess the whole idea is to be able to track and find the source of th% disease.

if there is an outbreak of salmonella or some disease associated with chickens, you can find out where it comes from but do you think that will work? >> there are real problems with it. whenever there is an outbreak identified, the entire set of chickens is eliminated. they are slaughtered and not used for food. gerri: if they want to keep this information on hand, right? >> for five years. this just baffles the mind. >> this hurts the small farmers more than the large farmers. the large chicken farmers have the ability to group buy and sell as a unit so they don't

have to individually tag the small farmers which are a big part of this business. melissa: according to the usda can estimate $1.68, $4.68 per head to do this but in reality it could be $17 to $27 per chicken. 100 million cost for the cattle industry alone. seems to me this is an industry that can't afford this after the drought we saw last summer still struggling financially. >> that is right. they did a very quick review and concluded they did not have to go through approval. that is usually the stage where this will get a hard look, forced to look at alternatives, cheaper ways to get the job done. nobody is in favor of letting

them run free to endanger the consumer, but there are other ways to get the job done. gerri: unbelievable. thank you for coming on tonight, a pleasure speaking to you, thank you very much. >> thank you. gerri: still, a warning about a flaw in your 401(k). and should at&t and verizon be shaking in their boots?

gerri: sprint is getting a major lifeline after sparking a deal with the third largest mobile carrier said to be the majority shareholder of america's third-biggest carrier, sprint injecting billions and the balance sheet. joining me now, paul reynolds. thank you for being here. it is a comic a deal and it is not close to happening at they could have big ramifications to the marketplace. >> basically you have sprint and number three carrier. at&t and verizon are very dominant, the biggest players by far, and they're growing quickly. the context of this is sprint really needs to get an injection

to be competitive, the other part of this is t-mobile, the number four carrier recently acquired metro pcs, they're trying to be more competitive. melissa: will this make sprint competitive with pcs and verizon? >> they certainly need a boost. this will give them the money they need to expand their network to be able to be more competitive in providing particularly the high-speed fourth-generation ne network whh is what they need to be competitive. he wanted to be great if they could buy the remainder of the company. they deal with l.t., the holy grail of service that everybody wants. do you think if a deal happens service will get better or worse for consumers?

>> clear where has a lot of spectrum, a lot of bandwidth that companies need, what they don't have is they have not built this too is good of a network as they could, this could give them the money to do that. as far as the overall network, it could help to make sprint a better company, it could be good for sprint customers that could help to ensure there is real competition for at&t and verizon and this trend could potentially do that because the trend of the big getting bigger could be arrested a little bit. gerri: sprint is the last major carrier to stick with an unlimited data plan. we talk about that a lot here. we all want that, we want to pay a set price for data, we don't want to pay by the tech. do you think they will have to take that away at the end of the day?

>> so far they have said they will stay with that. it is becoming harder and harder. people can use a lot more data on the high-speed network, spinach michigan stand behind that without the service moving backward because in our survey they find sprint to be only meddling in satisfaction. in a state of her formants, they have to make sure they don't move backwards even further. gerri: i remember when a japanese company bought rock center, and the outcry it cause. you don't have any of that today, but we should say this is a huge, huge deal, very big. this deal would be a $20 billion deal. will it get approval? will it ultimately happen? it could be a little controversial, right? >> the federal communications commission asked to consider not only whether this deal is in the consumer interest but whether

having a foreign company acquire one of the major carriers is in the public interest. there is an additional hurdle. thangerri: thank you so much. the biggest risk investors are facing right now. what you have to do for a more secure retirement. don't go away. ♪

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gerri: up next the biggest risk small investors are facing right now. what you hav do for a more secue retirement. we will be back in two minutes.

gerri: good news and bad news for social security recipients. because of living adjustment in january will be under 2%. that'll be among the lowest since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975. multi-benefits for workers now average $1200 per month in the typical retiree can expect an increase of only 12 to $24 per month. here's the good news, increases tied to inflation and consumer prices have gone up only about 2%. older people tend to spend their money on health care and medical cost. rising much faster than inflation.

could be a tough road ahead for seniors and it will only get off bumpier if social security obamacare goes into place. your company taking with your money. chairman of research affiliate at the california-based investment management firm. thank you for coming on the show, we have been talking about your criticisms of the fund for a week now. you are here to explainnto us, why are you not a fan? >> it is pretty straightforward. i find it fascinating so many ideas that dominate investment world, people don't even test them to see if they stand up under historical testing. we went back over the last 140 years and asked the question if somebody started with 20% in stocks and ramped up instead of starting at 80% and ramping down, woulddthey be better off?

shockley wind up 20% better off in terms of your wealth and your retirement income if you start cautious and finish aggressive, and there is some interesting and important reasons behind that. gerri: conventional wisdom is the older you get, the more conservative you should be with your investments, but what does your research tell you? >> when you are tww or three years away from retirement, you shift toward honest to reduce the uncertainty in what your retirement will look like but that uncertainty is startling high. the uncertainty is actually higher with bonds than with stocks. which suggests the bond centric trajectory as you get into your 50s and 60s may be totally off base. gerri: aren't we doubling down on that risk?

isn't there a bubble that threatens to blow up and take a lot of people approaching retirement with it? speak of this is of the big factors that they provide the market with ready buyers for treasury bonds that are yieldg less than inflation. think of the treasury bonds, especially the short end of the curve as certificates of appropriation. we are punishing seniors, we are punishing retirees, we're punishing savers, playing right into that. gerri: maybe they're five is out, maybe they're 10 years out, already settling into bonds. what is the right step to take now? >> i am not an advocate of

renting from mostly bonds early in life to mostly stocks later in life. that is a test that proof of concept shows the flaw. other people should be technical, basically if markets are priced to provide too little return for them, look elsewhere. mainstream stocks, mainstream bonds. but spitting and macroeconomic, that is pretty anemic. providing negative interest rates did look at high yield, look at the spectrum of alternatives. ramp down your expectations. if people don't expect eight to 10% from their investments, they expect 3% to 5%, they will spend more cautiously anddwork a couple years longer and it will be fine.

gerri: really interesting to hear your expertise. we will be right back with my two cents more and the answer of the day. give to us [ male announcer ] how do you trade? with scottder streaming quotes, any way you want. fully customize it for your trading process -- from thought to trade, on every screen. and all in real time. which makes it just like havingour own tring floor, right atour fingertips. [ rodger ] at scottrade, seven dolr trades are just the start. try our easy-to-use scottrader streaming quotes. it's another reason more investors are saying...

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it's another reason more investors are saying... energy is s being produce. while energy development comes with some risk, noh america's natural gas producerare committed toafely and responsibly providing generations of cleaner-burning energy for our country, drilling thousands of feet below fresh water sources within self-contained well systems. and, using ste-of-the-art monitoring technologies, rigorous practices help ensure our operations are safe and cle for our communities and the environment. we're america's natural s. gerri: just a few minutes ago we spoke to tim griffin about a government program to give cell phones to poor americans called a lifetime program funded by a tax on your cell phone bill. should the government be giving away these phones?

4% said yes, 96% said no. stop the free cell phones. anybody who has watched football this month knows the nfl has gone pink for the fourth year in a row for breast cancer month everything from lines in the field for the players and snnakers, coaches have, everything. the nfl says it is a way to raise awareness of breast cancer screenings and to raise money for breast cancer research. but it turns out they're not raising that much money. only 5% of each auction item for sale goes to the american cancer society. only about 71% of the money the organization ever received goes to research. so for every $100 you spend on pink football gear only about $3.50 go to breast cancer research. the nfl issued a statement saying to the 95%, they use the