country. there is no cause of action. melissa: still, ben affleck may not want to go back to iran. he may want to keep his oscar and stay home. here is a great sign of how great the economy is dding. lamborghini reported sales were up 30% worldwide last year. the report deliveries increased by half in the top u.s. market. even in financially challenged her up they saw 34% rise in deliveries. still makes you wonder if u.s. money is purchasing the cars. we have a lot of foreign residents, they occupy over half of new york city. i just wonder how much of this is money coming in from outside of the united states is obviously things are still not that great here at home.

>> still amazing. melissa: do you have a lamborghini yourself? >> no, but i have momentarily driven them. you're talking about real money, a nice sized house to buy a car. and the upkeep. it is good for the economy, good for lamborghini. melissa: didn't they decide they were going to make $3.5 million lamborghini? they made three. one of them went to long island. so you could go out and potentially test drive it. who is your agent? is that you behind the wheel right there? where are you driving? i never understood why that make

sense you drive off the lot, it loses its value. that is all the "money" we have for you, here comes "the willis report." gerri: hello, everybody, i am gerri willis. tonight i'm "the willis report." a new blueprint to save our problems. does it have a chance with congress? also, how long will wall street banks get off the hook? republican senator chuck grassley wants to take away their get out of jail free card. he is here tonight. and finally some good news. those annoying text spam messages could soon disappear. we are on the case. ♪ gerri: all that and more coming up including a record day in the market.

dow closing in the green for the eighth day in a row. getting further into record territory. repayment is coming soon, my friends. what the president playing nice with republicans wining and dining them so all is well in washington? we can expect a rousing chorus of come by on capitol hill? wrong again. the two sides could not be farther apart. today paul ryan really sinks his plan. ryan's plan would balance the budget in 10 years, something sg soon-to-be released democrat proposal has no intention of doing. ryan would cut spending down to only 19% of gdp down from 23% right now. much of the cuts would come from medicare and medicaid. he was turned medicaid over to the state cutting spending by $750 billion. starting in 2024, seniors will have the option of the

traditional form of medicare or use government assistance to go with a private plane. all in all saving $129 billion. if that wasn't enough of a difference, ryan would not make major cuts to defense that all seems pretty reasonable. how do the democrats feel about it? they've already said they oppose it. senate budget chair will release her budget plan which couldn't be more different. but two different sticking point around the usual suspects of health care and taxes, g.o.p. budget includes repeal of obamacare, which i'm sure the democrats are not going to like. ryan reforms the tax code by bringing it down to two tax brackets. the white house releasing its own budget plan in april, we are back to square one. we have that to talk about. welcome all, great to have you here. here are the numbers that popped out to me in ryan's budget.

saving 5 trillion over 10 years, but when you drill down into what is really going on here, government spending, federal government spending is going to increase 3.4% each and every year. it will increase anyway 5%. currently that is the plan. >> in washington we called that a cut. if we are supposed to rise by 5%. i am teasing you. the spending goes up every year on this budget, but i think this is a pretty heroic effort on the whole. as you mentioned he does the tax reform, goes after the big boulders of the budget, medicare and medicaid. he has, i like the fact he has gone through the abolition of obamacare. setting up a huge fight because they will try to pass this out of the house meanwhile a trillion dollars tax increase in her budget.

gerri: what do you see there? >> nothing that will pass, certainly. certainly we are hearing, has been reported in multiple outlets, a trillion dollars in new taxes in it, and there is no plan to balance the budget in that, but that is not intended to be a government document, with that is intended to be his answer to republicans who said if you do not pass a budget this year, which have no you have noe since 2009, he will not get paid any salary and there are not enough multimillionaires to me that an inconsiderable threat. gerri: i was looking at what they want to spend money on, $100 billion on infrastructure projects, they will find something. corporate training and job creation. not something the government is very good at doing. >> you say we may be back at square one, this is the perfect opportunity to lay out first and

for all why the government planned to inspire economic activity has failed, and you just said it, we're looking to do more spending, raise taxes on employers and families and what will that do to serve the american people? very little job creation, the budget plans to do more of the same. the interesting thing is paul ryan of course kicked off the budget process for a year. knowing that is the president's job but once again president obama has not come to the table with a budget. gerri: is there a deficit of leadership here? >> i lived in washington for 30 years and i don't think i've ever said president not propose a budget by this time of year. we don't know when that budget is coming out. gerri: it keeps getting delayed, right? >> he was president for four years.

look, this is a balanced approach to raise taxes. a lot of people are not aware of this, we've already had two big tax increases. obamacare has another half trillion dollars. gerri: we have the tax on people earning 40,000 end up, the tax on payroll tax increase coming into effect, taxes, taxes, texas. you have been looking at some of the numbers for the president, doesn't look so good for him right now. >> that is pretty evidently why. we have seen disapproval up, people generally side with republicans on how much spending there ought to be, they will make a sudden break, very urgent and sudden break away from the prior tactic which said he was going to drag the g.o.p. through the fiscal fights over the next 18 months and go through victory

in 2014 and win back the house for democrats, so the president is at least engaged in an operational pause so you can quiet the criticism. >> that is because the last two weeks have not gone well for the president. using all these scare tactics. the american people look at all the waste in the budget and say wait a minute, have to cut the parks rather than get rid of the conferences for wine tasting and things like that. i'm great to see the polls are reflecting that. gerri: i was interested in what paul ryan had to say about his budget. he wrote the truth is the nation's debt is a sign of overreach. government trying to do too much and when government does too much it doesn't do anything well. we heard the head of the fda on "60 minutes" talk about she doesn't have control of the pharmaceuticals, the drugs want the children and grandchildren.

she can't handle that, she can't control that, she can't vouch for all the medication. how is it possible or federal government bigger than it has ever been with more taxpayer dollars than ever before. we will collect more taxpayer dollars this year than before the financial crisis, how is it they can't get their job done? >> that is the question every taxpayer is asking. you can cut less than 2% of federal spending because everything the world was going to fall on it didn't happen. exactly what we're talking about with the polling. they overplayed their hand in that battle and now a difficult position moving into battles he does not have the upper hand whatsoever. a senate democrat this week that it balances nor has the support from the public. we will have a deficit that will not fare well. i know it is an opportunity for

the president to say listen, give me more borrowing authority, i will continue to run the country into the ground. it is not a credible report. speaker they get gridlocked they will have the sequestered this year. there are sequesters every year from now, the republicans feel like they are holding the negotiations, that is why the last few days the president has been making nice with republicans. he is having dinner with them read >> they are asked. gerri: what is the endgame here really? at the end of the deitie day the blueprints only, right? how likely is it reality will match either one? >> these are political documents, not governing documents. the first tuesday in novembe

november 2014, paul ryan wants to point out the republicans say we can't afford to have the president's health care entitlement program, democrats had to pass that only to save their paychecks but so they had a counter to ryan. the federal government between now and election day 2014 will spend $8 billion. that is a lot of money. ill have to borrow 1.3 1.3-$1.5 trillion of that. everything we're talking but in washington relates to this. borrowing authority and how much spending between now and the next election when voters will have the chance to break the gridlock. this is not about what happens. >> we may go bankrupt. gerri: let me tell you. taxes go up and up. thank you for coming on. you were just great together. love it, thank you. we have a lot more still to come and we are just getting started. some shocking salaries despite

dire budget cuts. and the top cop saying we are powerless to do our job, we can't go out to the big banks, republican senator chuck grassley gives us his reaction coming up next. there he is.

gerri: we talk about this here all the time, have big banks become too big to fail come back bail or jail? the big question tonight, why isn't anybody being sent to jail? do they have a get out of jail for free card? chuck grassley from iowa, ranking member of the judiciary committee joins me now.

thank you for being on the show, always great to see you. you got a lot of attention this week for a conversation that you had with attorney general eric holder on this very issue. i want our viewers to hear precisely what he said, here is the attorney general. >> i'm concerned the size of some of these institutions becomes so large it becomes difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you prosecute and have criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy and perhaps even the world economy and i think that is the facts are these institutions have become too large. gerri: the administration disagrees with you. but i have to ask you, senator, are the banks simply too big, the major ones, five or six that

do business with so many americans in this country. >> doesn't that bring up a whole other issue of if they're too big you can't govern them, you can't punish them, you can't discipline them, maybe that is an issue we have to deal with but that is not the immediate concern. the immediate concern is number one they said they relied on experts. senator brown and i want to know who these experts are. they want to know the judgment basis for which you can't ggt them for criminal activity, but the other things, is it a crime you can be a ceo of a company as opposed to a customer in the bank and violate the law and can't be punished for it. you get to big to jail in that instance. gerri: what the attorney general is saying is moving to a jail would jeopardize the financial syssem and i think everybody has in the back of their mind what

happened to arthur andersen after enron, that company went down in flames. if a large bank were to go down in flames, and woul could take e economy with it, what is the solution to that problem, what do we do about that? that seems unacceptable especially since we bailed them out. >> senator brown and i want information on the basis of this judgment. if they are too big in that instance and maybe something needs to be done about that, some of these banks were involved in money laundering and drug money. this is pretty heavy stuff, if you're involved in those operations and you know about it, we ought to at least know who made the decision that we weren't going to do that, and if you cannot enforce laws against money laundering, it is pretty bad.

we had to get to a situation where you violate laws like that cathat, you can be punished. gerri: hsbc faced a money laundering fine of $2 billion, a record only 11% of the profits from last year as a comparison. give me a little rule, hsbc wasn't all that much i suppose. seriously, how do we get around the problem of these big banks, what is the solution to that? if your own top cop says i cannot hold these people to justice because there are fears it will bring down the entire financial system in this country, what do you do? >> i did not vote for dodd-frank, but that was supposed to take care of too big to fail and you have a bill that you are not too big to fail.

the government standing behind it, and that sort of moral jeopardy is a problem in and of itself. gerri: tim geithner says the government will have the ability to close firms under dodd-frank. it didn't happen, did it? >> wisher kept them from a failing before dodd-frank, so who knows what will happen afterwards. gerri: thank you for coming on the show tonight, appreciate your help on this very tough issue. thank you so much. now we want to know what you think, here is the question tonight, do banks get a get out of jail free card? i will share the results at the end of tonight's show. a warning for consumers who may be getting scammed on your cell phone. what to look out for. and next, you have to be a fool to believe sequester especially when you look at how much they

are spending their money. so much for cuts. [ lorenzo ] i'm lorenzo.

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because at usps.com® you can pay, print and have your packages picked up for free. i can even drop off free boxes. i wear a lot of hats. well, technically i wear one. the u.s. postal service®, no business too small. gerri: the white house blaming the sequester still making record salaries. we break it down in 60 seconds.

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one of our viewers recently hit the problem right on the head saying with all the end of the world that rick and obama defunding everything failed, he is doing what politicians always do when money is short. they cut essentials while funding the junk. the junk in this case is the precious ever-expanding bloated government. according to the federal employment website accordin, sie first, there have been 2600 job openings. 2600. so while the economy is supposedly crumbling all around us, they want to add thousands of people to uncle sam's payroll. that includes more than 100 positions at the department of homeland security, the state department said the budget was so hit by sequester they had to create twfree illegal immigrantt were behind bars. the fda hiring 100 people.

and the d.a. has more than 9003 new openings, so much the threat of forcing veterans to live on the street. just not true. not just the new jobs costing billions of dollars. there are the jobs already filled. 20 making the maximum federal salary. president obama needs really expensive climate change advisors. the deputy assistant has specialist assistant and his deputy director earned $370,000 alone last year. do you really need three people doing the same thing with three different titles? the worst example of the mall, the chief calligrapher, making pretty close to six figures. at her assistant, $94,000, $86,000.

when it comes to the white house pay, they make the same argument wall street makes. if you pay more to address the best people. it takes a lot for people to leave the private sector, apparently. the payroll under the bush administration in his last year in office $33 million compared to nearly 38 million last year, only 18 staffers earned the maximum salary in 2008. all i can say is stop, mr. president, stop trying to pull the wool over our eyes. stop playing politics with people's livelihood, stop acting like your hands are tied into congress is screwing everything up. stop funding the junk. that is right, that is what i think. more coming up. the state of illinois charged with lying to investors. now more people caught, identity thieves are using your cell phones. the latest on the cheap tricks coming up.

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gerri: a fox business alert for you now, marketwatch reporting nation's biggest tax preparer h&r block has boss return boschs after neglecting to fill out a mandatory field on the form. affected taxpayers expect delays as much as six weeks. the irs says h&r block improperly filed form 8863 used to claim educational credit. likely they have to refile and even pay more. we will let us know what happens. we will continue to update you on this story. meanwhile onto spammers. the fcc recently filing claims against 29 defendants for sending out unwanted text

messages to consumers. the stakes are high. there is one that was sent to one of our producers. grab your electric bill and save up to 20% of current prices. not true. and tasty with special offers that trick you to giving away your personal information. a researcher issues annual reports on messaging threats. you have said people are more trusting of their phone than they are some cour sort of spam coming into their laptop e-mail. >> and they respond to it faster. if you get an e-mail to m cominy not look at it until the next day and it is pretty obvious what is spam. if you get a message on your phone, your phone is beeping at you to get attention, and people are far more likely if they get

a link in a message to click on the link and follow it. gerri: how common is it and who are these people coming after them? >> they are very much the same people who have been sending e-mail spam. we have seen in e-mails for years moving over to new mediums. how common is it? at least 60% iphone users in the u.s. have received some sort of spam message on their phone in the past year. gerri: walk me through it, how does it work? i take a look at it, what am i going to see? >> you will see a message maybe you have a free ipad, they need testers. gerri: you have my attention. >> maybe a free gift card. you click on the link and it simply is what is your name and e-mail address and your street

address so they can deliver the gift card. and you go to another page asking for more details and then you're told to qualify for this you need to sign up for a credit card or take advantage of this offer or that offer and you can end up going through 12 pages or more trying to get the product gold at the end of the rainbow. it is a scam. there is no gift card. under the 180 million messages sent, i would be surprised if one person got a gift card out of this. gerri: how did they get my phone number in the first place? >> i probably ought it. how was it collected on this list? maybe you bought something on the internet and didn't read the fine print. some of them are being mined

from social networks and some are just sending text messages to random numbers until they find one that works. gerri: oh, boy. there is a way you can fight back if you get one of these. send it to 7726, right? tell me how this works. >> 7726 is spam spelled out, and you forward the message, don't just reply, you have to forward the message and that goes into a reporting system which is operated by the market company on behalf of the gsm a. the trade group for the mobile carriers in the united states. and they pull that information so they can save 50% of all the spam we are getting it gets cards, we ought to do something about this. gerri: thank you for coming out and telling us about this scam. a lot of people don't think

about their phones being something that can hurt us. appreciate it. >> thank you. gerri: they can get you a lot of ways, not just text message. the top scams of 2012, according to the better business bureau. a phishing scam same president obama will pay your utility bills. consumers got e-mails and even in persons with wha solicitatio. while software company federal government would do, it is not true. number four, nonexistent loans. you saw the no credit checks, you pay upfront for insurance purposes and they got you. number three, mystery shopping. offering a dream job for a price. number two, the grandparents scam, an oldie but a goodie. an e-mail or text saying a family member traveling has been

arrested or hurt and needs money right away. the differences now they can tell when somebody is actually on vacation and the number one scam of 2012 is car ads. offering $400 per week if you drive around with the company's logo on your car. watch out for these. for more, go to bbb.org. what a mess. nobody is safe. first lady michelle obama is the latest public figure to have her social security number in recent credit report linked online by website posting private data. the fbi and secret service are investigating the site which apparently has a wide array of victims. celebrities include beyoncé, mel gibson, kim kardashian, jay-z, paris hilton, britney spears.

even the fbi director and los angeles police chief charlie beck and vice president joe biden. how does the mission of the fbi director get leaks? internet suffix originally assigned to the soviet union. the dow hitting another record but only by a few points. investment advice on that. and the state of illinois in chaos after the lead investors about the natura financial heal. we will be right back.

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>> from the fox business studios in new york, here is gerri willis. gerri: the state of illinois charged by the fcc for misleading the public about the health of the pension plan. for years, the unfunded the pension system and didn't tell

investors what they were getting into or not getting into. taxpayers are on the hook for the mismanagement and the worst part, illinois is not alone. joining us now, senior fellow at the manhattan institute. always great to see you. this story drives me crazy. here is the bail o sec. how long di can this go on for? >> the people were supposed to be keeping it safe. the sec is only concerned with investors, they don't protect the interest of taxpayers. one of the problems with the pension systems is defined-benefit systems, the pension accounting is extremely obscure and it allows the states and musicality is essentially hide or mislead voters who really have to look out for their own concerns. the real loser in this case if taxpayers of illinois.

gerri: exactly. so, here's the problem though. how they're coming after illinois, at the end of the day they give them a fine and walk away. >> they did nothing. [laughter] essentially the sec will not find governments because ultimately the taxpayers will wind up paying. for some reason, and i don't know this. they did nothing. all they do is they got an agreement from illinois not to do it anymore. they did not have anyone actually conspire or taken action, didn't really investigate. and so the idea is this is supposed in some way or another, i don't know, fight in the state. if a private company did this,

misleading information in the bond offerings which left out material problems, they would not only be fined, but a possibility some officials would be referred for criminal prosecution by federal prosecutors. gerri: why can't we do that? >> in fairness to the sec, there is a federal law which limits the ability of the sec to essentially supervise municipal bond market. they do not provide the extent of the stock market. and the jurisdiction. there is no top cop. sovereign entities, it is basically up to the voters to say no more, no more. the problem is that the debt in america becomes increasingly complex and the pension obligations another form of borrowing and deficit spending,

voters don't understand what they're getting themselves into. gerri: it is a pickle we will have to pay into, bailing out these states. illinois at the top, two or three of the programs, kentucky, indiana, he said new jersey is also one of these states in the crosshairr of this issue. >> new jersey was the first state ever cited by fraud back in 2010 for basically just in the bond documents making the pension fund the way it looked before the technology crash of 1999. in 2002, 2003 saying this is what is funded. that is unbelievable, isn't it? don't you think somebody might go to jail for something like this in the private sector? gerri: he talked about how long this has been ongoing. >> numerous accusations of

faulty statements given the fact illinois is a state legislatures taking this plan, bailing out the pension system going back more than a decade but they never followed it. in the bond documents the state continues to put in the documents that showed the plans as if they were making the payments. gerri: but they weren't. >> no. gerri: i couldn't get away with any of this, have to work for the state government. thank you for coming on, always great to see you. unbelievable. still to come, my two cents more on a hazardous golf course and squashing enthusiasm. that is very disconnection with main street? answers next. ♪

gerri: a record-breaking day for your 401(k), but how long can the winning streak last? updated analysis in two minutes.

gerri: can you believe it, another milestone for the dow today closing at a new record high marking the longest winning streak in more than two years. meanwhile the s&p 500 and the nasdaq seeing red at the close with thof the s&p ending its wig streak at seven days. joining me now, trader and editor of many news ultimate web report. i keep hearing wall street analyst and traders saying we will have it did pull back,

people. jpmorgan chase saying the market could drop as much as 5%, they think we are overbought out there. what do you say? >> at one point you could say correction is coming eventually you will be right. eventually we are due for a pullback, some sort of tune of two to 3% probably over the coming days to weeks. but we probably will see 4% to 5% correction months out. gerri: why is it you will see this and what propels it ahead? the stocks are really not overvalued. i don't think stocks are incredibly expensive if you look back at the benchmarks of the.com boom and other long-term rallies we have had, so why do you see this in the crystal ball? >> they push to excess and they

push began in pullback, that is a niche of the market and we are overdue for one of those to happen, but the fundamentals of the market has stocks fairly priced. gerri: trees don't grow to the sky and needed to stocks. sort of back-and-forth movement you see so much. a lot of people say how can the broader economy be doing so poorly, so anemic, of employment. such a high gdp, and yet we have this rip roaring stock market, what do you say? >> at the end of the day we are buying companies and not the economy, so companies can keep the balance sheet cleaner, run less debt, but the capital in more productive areas, a lot of times we don't do that in the overall economy. another reason is the fact stocks tend, savvy investors

seem to look ahead and see what they think the economy will do six to nine months down the road. if they think things will be better, they will buy the stocks they, think of better valuation. gerri: where is the opportunity for the small investor? what should we be doing? sell your long bonds, get into stocks, what is your message for small investor? >> they have to get out of bonds, have to be in equities but they have to be selective. places like copper, steel, things of that sort. gerri: why do you like that? speak ospeaker that is why it iy to get an edge on the market. i like commodity stocks like

stock symbol abx. they have about a 3% dividend yield and very solid stocks with billions of cash on the books, i think they are at the inflection point in the charge. gerri: it seems to me i think of gold as being the thing you buy when stocks are in the pond, you're worried about the safety of everything. why are you buying gold here? speak of their times golden stocks will get them together. presented by gold is a lot of currencies around the world are being devalued. interest rates are being held down exceptionally low and others are flat, so you see this with the yen, from the dollar, the pound, and so when they are

deluding the currencies come it is better to be in part currency in gold. gerri: appreciate your time. >> thank you for having me here. gerri: it was on the stay in business history in 1987 the tony award-winning musical masterpiece open for the first time on broadway when the eight tony awards including best musical. the show was a staggering box office success. seen by 65 million people worldwide in 42 countries and 22 languages. history of love, christian redemption originally costing $4.5 million. today les mes is the fourth longest-running broadway production all-time and will be back next year. keep on going on. one of the world's most popular musicals ever written, les mis open on broadway today in 1987.

the answer to our question of the day, do banks have a get out of jail free card? stay with us. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro.

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