are taxpayers finally saying enough is enough? a new fox news poll vealing 74% think americans are too dependent on the government and not enough on themselves. this as entitlements and benefits explode sending the nation's debt out of control. so time for vacationing politicians to cut their break short and get to cutting this. hi, everyone, let's get right to it. here they are. the bold aulls and bears this w. welcome to everybody. so, john, do americans have it right? >> yes, they absolutely have it

right. this is a waf politicians, simply to buy votes and not have to deal with real problems. this is like having a person with a brain tumor giving him aspirins for his headache. he's going to come back to you time and time again. you're not fixing the real problem. we have 46.9 million americans that are on food stamp right now. 1 out of every 6. 1 out of every 6 is also in poverty. you want to fix food stamp use, fix poverty. but we have politicians that aren't doing something for fing the underlying problem, that is jobs and t t economy, we simply pay people food amps, welfare, we're spending $1 trillion this year on these programs just to buy votes. >> well, why do you think even the majority of democrats who were polled think americans are too dependent on government? >> well, i actually agree with some of what john said that this is about fixing poverty. this is about making sure that

the recovery, you know, doesn't continue to be as tepid as it has been. look, brenda, i had the very personal experience as a young child of standing in a line waiting for government eese. people who are on food stamps who are receiving these progr s programs, it is demonizing. they do not want to be in that line. they do not want to be working a full-time job and still living in poverty. what needs to happen? we do need to increase the minimum wage. we should not have a person who is working full-time receiving the minimu wage still have his family in poverty and have to listen to a child say mama, i'm hungry. it is not about throwing these programs more money. this is a social safety net. it's a safety net for when we went into the recession and that's why the numbers are so high. but the solution isn't to just slash that money and remove that

safety net as folks are still struggling in this tepid economy. >> well, jehmu -- >> person with the minimum wage -- average person in america is making $53,000 a year with a minimum wage worker, that's over two times the poverty rate. minimum wage has little to do with poverty. >> in fact, tracy, it's not the recession that americans are pointing to about why it's wrong to be dependent ongovernment. but, in fact, it's the ease of getting a system. it's not the recession. you can get food stamps quite easily. >> look, i agree with jehmu. there was a time when it was embarrassing. my family immigrated, they would never in a million years take a government handout. things have changed, jehmu since you were a kid. hey, my neighbor's getting a check, i want one too. how come i didn't get a first-time home buyers check. everyone else got something i didn't. now 're starting to feel like, hey,y, where's my cut. and that's a bad, bad place for

our country to be in. >> do you want to respond? >> well, again, i know from personal experience that the majority, overwhelming majority of people who are having to receive these programs to stand in the line and pay for their food with food stamps with the card that they do not want this. they want a good-paying job. they want to be able to provide for their family. so what do these vacationing politicians need to do? one, they need to come back to d.c., they need to pass parts of thamerican jobs act program that they refuse to address, the president has put forward so many programs that we could actually put people back to work in communities, infrastructure building, speaking of crumbling schools, jobs, it is about jobs and it is further about raising the minimum wage. >> well, gary, we have spent billions on stimulus, and the people on food stamps -- the number of people have exploded. what explains tha is uncle sam to blame? >> well, brenda, i think when

you give people something for free, they're apt to do what most of us would do and that's become lazy. i'm not saying that everyone getting the food stamps is lazy. but let's look at something like unemployment benets. when are people most likely to get a job that have unemployment benefits? just when unemployment benefits run out. what is the correlation between shortening unemployment and unemployment? it goes down. so you can -- and study after study has shown that when you increasenemployment benefits, the length of time a person stays unemployed is longer. so there's a very direct correlation between increasing this quote, unquote, free money and a time a person sits back and i hate to say it becomes lazy. i'm not saying there's a certain percentage of people out there who don't really desperately need it or in the case that jehmu points out, they are desperate for food stamps. yeah, but there's a big gap

between that and the people who just sit back and are taking it as evidenced by all of the fraud and things we see in welfare and medicare and even food stamps. >> let's weigh in here. >> you know, there's this kind of underlying feeling that the government's problems are the poor on the take. you know, the 74 people of the survey are right, but 75% of the country is dependent on government. if you broaden it, it's paying less in than you're getting from the government. and most people don't pay in enough. they take out more than they pay in taxes. most americans pay a single digit tax rate. ey're going to get benefits far in excess of that. doesn't mean they're all getting food stamps or uneloyment insurance. but this government writes more checks to the oldest 20% than the poorest 20%. let's not say the whole problem is food stamps. the problem is people who shouldn't be ont but people are not paying enough and they're taking in more through home credits or mortgage deductions, going down the line. only the top tier of this

country is paying more tha they're getting out of this federal government. >> well, john, doesn't that speak to the point that these vacationing politicians should get back and really face the debt. it's not about stimulus, it's about cutting our debt. >> i think the best case is that these politicians never come back. i think our country would be a lot better off. why are they taking a five-week vacation anyway? they have to address the debt. we have mandatory spending of about $2.4 trillion a year. we only take in $2.4 trillion a year. that is before you pay one soldier, one federal employee. we are spending way too much money. and we have to address this at some point. it is about jobs. look, the lowest poverty rate, lowest food stamp rate is 7% in wyoming. and the reason is, they have jobs. and that'what the president should have been focusing on instead of paying these people so tre won't be civil unrest, which is what politicians do because they are lazy and want to be reelected. >> that, but john and jonas i think hit on an important point.

you have to rehaul this tax code because it's a book of favors, and if our political system weren't where it were, if we weren't on the voting lines every two to three years, we would be rethinking about doing this the right way. but because you've got an election coming up, i'm going to give out more money. >> brenda, the clearest tt for if there is too much the government spending as jonas implied, other people's money, you wait until about six months to a year after obama care officially hits in. we'll be doing a show on right here on saturday morning saying how much fraud and waste there is in obama care of people gaming the system. >> okay. that's got to be the last word. thanks, guys. taxpayers fired up at town halls over the cost of the health care law as more states warning the law will bring even bigger premium spikes. but the president's person in charge of rolling it out saying those states are just making

numbers up. who's right? at it at the bottom of the hour. but up here first, it's back to school time. so pack that lunch and pack that check. yep, more public schools charging parents extra fees. and if you do

i'm jamie colby, i'll send you back to bulls and bears. >> boy, talk about a back to school bummer. more public schools now charging mandatory fees for everything from school registration, classrsroom supplies, activitie

sports, even certain classes. and get this, if parents don't pay up, some schools are banning kids from participating in school activities. but gary b., you say this practice should be the thing that's banned. >> absolutely, brenda. this -- the parents are undergoing a stick-up, if you will. and it's all due to the fact that american public education iso incredibly inefficient, it's jaw-dropping. we now spend double per student, over $13,000 per student than we did back in 1975. second, here in the d.c. area where i live, the average spent per student in public schools is $28,000. you know $28,000, you can go to national cathedral georgetown, visitation, any one of the number of great private schools. now, the parents in d.c. public schools think their kids are getting as good an education as they do at natiol cathedral, i don't think so.

american educati, public education needs to be reformed. >> you brought in kleenex boxes and paper and crayons and all that. we're all parents. they're upping the ante a little bit. what do you think of that? >> well, they definitely are. at the same time, as much as i complain about it, and i do, i would rather the money go to the curriculum. don't drop the advanced math program, you need to repair the building. some school systems are so poorly run. but i would rather pay to put my kid on the sports team and know that the money is going at least towards the education process. >> jehmu, a lot of this is because states are not able to balance their budgets and so school funding is getting cut. >> school funding is absolutely getting cut. and, brenda, i think it's outrageous that parents should be paying these fees. i don't want to bust out the violin here and have this be a woe is me show, but when i was in elementary school, myarents couldn't afford the $3 fee for

the musical class that we were taking to buy a recorder. and so i can't imagine these hundreds of dollars of fees. but privatizing education is not the answer. we can't say that when you're looking at school budgets right now. what is happening when children are getting private school vouchers and they're leaving those schools, then the sools are losing that money and that is why these fees argoing g in. so you have to have like an all of the above approach where there are charter schools but still public education is not de-funded. we have republicans who just passed a bill in theouse and no child left behind act that wod make it easier for school districts to slash their budgets. that's wrong. >> and jehmu, why did they leave the public schools? because the education there is inferior to the private schools where they can use their voucher. >> okay, gentlemen -- >> you're not going to have 100% of kids able to use vouchers. so we can't give up on the

public education funding system. we have to find a way to improve those schools, make sure they're meeting standards. >> i've got to get everybody in. and i want to get back to the fees. jonas, you're not too worried abouthe fees. >> it does sound like an airline where they're going to charge them for a jet fu tax to go on the bus. but conceptionally i like the idea. i don't like the implementation. there are some poor kids that can't do the activities and that's unfair and against the scope of public education. you're not supposed to be able to buy more benefits. however, you can't keep dumping your neighbor with a higher property tax bill to pay the skyrocketing costs. this issue is paying for those costs and parents who can afford it should have to pay a pupil tax, let's say, you've got five kids in school and let's say you're a renter you're not paying property tax, but poor kids who can't afford these fees should not geturdened with them. that's against the scope of it. it's not private school and on

the private school note. private kids don't have to pay for the special ed and special needs kids. they won't get into the public schools, private schools, you can't compare those costs dollar for dollar. >> john, what do you think about it? >> i think this is not a partis issue. look, every present says they're an education president. our system has coinually deteriorated despite bright spots. my sister's a great teacher, there are great schools out there. i run a program that helps with at risk kids. we are privately funded. we help minority kids get through school. and not every -- very few of our kids could afford to be in our tely am. funded. in inner cities, we have 50% of minorities dropping out of school. this is a problem on society. and that's where you have to have thegovernment step in. and as jehmu says, you cannot cut funding to these schools. we've got to do something with this horrible education system and these horrible teachers that we have that need to be fired. >> okay. guys, great debate.

a multibillion dollar plan to build up home prices by knocking down houses. but will this be another knockout for taxpayers? and it's three months to the day since the irs scandal exploded. yet, still no answers. well, we have e that could finally fix the tax agency. w

tear it down to build it up. president obama pushing a new $15 billion plan he says would help fix the housing market.

>> repairing run down homes, tearing down vacant properes so that the value of homes in those surrounding areas start picking up. we can put people to work right now and improve the remaining housing that's out there. >> will it work? >> oh, my, these people don't learn, do they? get out of housing, get out of everything. none of the housing projects that came out of d.c. have worked. if this was such a grgreat idea some private equity firm or a bunch of entrepreneurs would come in and do this themselves. let the capital markets do this, not the government. >> what do you think of that? >> well, you know, we have seen some recovery in the housing markets -- >> not because of the government. >> there are five states that right now hold 33% of the total negative equity. if we do not focus on these hardest hit communities, we are not going to see home sales rebound and prices are going to continue to be driven down in

these hardest hit communities. we have to intervene. this is also the textbook definition of a win/win/win. you can put people back to work, construction workers help lift up these communities. >> gary b., what do you think about getting government to take care of this? >> brenda, i -- i think you know what i think. i'm with tracy on this one. why is the governmen meddng in housing period? they're trying to predict supply and demand. trying to prop up home prices. why is that the government's job? look, if that vacant land ofhe rundown houses were of any value, someone would swoop in and build something there. we've had vacant land and run down stuff in this country before, it was called the 1700s and 1800s, no one said the government had to go into oklahoma to clear away the shrubs to people could build houses, they just went there because it was cheap. land in detroit right now is cheap. you can buy a house there if you

want, but no one wants to right w. all right. so go elsewhere. >> all right. is part of the solution credit? >> i thought that was how we developed alaska, incentivizing people out there. but the government's had a role of developing this country. the private sector is strong enough now to hale the for profit housing market. there is a way to make money from a lot. there's all of these funds that are buying dilapidated properties. however, when you have a situation that's uneconomic where there is no free market solution, that's when it becomes the role of government. when you've got a house that's dilapidated, it's not going to go away if it's worth nothing like in detroit, for example. otherwise it's like a manmade disaster like a dust bowl. we have to fix up our own mistakes we made. >> okay. john, you've heard it all. >> frannie and freddie are going

away, why aren't you celebrating? >> i was just in france, and, believe me, they like texan wearing cowboy boots as much as i like them right now. we're pretty much even. the president stole this out of the president of france's playbook. when they have a dip in unemployment, he says, hey, let's hire more government workers, that's exactly what o president said. hey, let's put people back to work, what'she answer to help private enterprise to build something where commerce can take over? no, let th government hire them. it doesn't work in a socialist system, doesn't work in france, doesn't work here. the government just needs to do something other than say we're going to take care of everybody. >> all right. okay. thanks, guys. and thank you, jehmu for joining us. up next, three months later and the clock is still ticking on getting to the bottom of the irs targeting scandal. someone here says time's up, there's only one thing left to do. and later on cashing in. well, no reporters asked the president about his phony scandals claim, eric is all over

predictions. you're up. we heard about the irs targeting groups, we still have no answers on that. it is time to overhaul the irs once and for all. >> gary b., your prediction. >> mrs. jbl says wall street's downsizing, i say bet on goldman sachs to weather the storm. >> mr. jbl? >> no pga championship, the heck with them, buy nike, up 25% in a

year. >> i don't know what it was, but there was a study this week that chocolate is good for your brain, hershey's up 20% in the year. >> i'm the healthiest person in the >> you're 98 pounds. >> equally sweet. well, you don't believe the diagnosis over these rising health care costs, it's time for a dose of reality my friends. hello, everyone, happy to have you. somebody, everybody call a doctor. several states already feeling sick expecting premiums to rise along with the rollout of the health care law. now the white house isis tellin them to take a chill pill, that the costs won't be going up as much as they say. what about how much thos prices have already risen? premiums for families on average up around $2,000. and that is just since the health care law became law. so it seems like those price spikes are already here. we can debate