fed might come up. we'll see if they want toys, even conservative fed members don't want. that they are pushing on that. may have a veto-proof majority. veronica daguerre, "wall street journal." liz: thank for joining us. "the willis report" is next. gerri: hello, everybody, i'm gerri willis. this is "the willis report," the show where consumers are our business. gas prices are shooting up again. we'll investigate why drivers are paying more and how high these prices may go. >> horrible. >> gerri: deep freeze. winter storm alerts across 14 states. temperatures plunge again. >> national weather service says temperatures are 25 to 30 degrees below normal for much of the country. >> the consumers hit for judgments for debt that isn't theirs. what is going on? clark howard is here to explain. a huge step learning about your health. the feds reverse course, giving go ahead for first ever at home

dna testing. if you love bacon, little caesar's is here to unveil bacon wrapped crust pizza. >> watched with bacon it has so much bacon you won't know how to hold it. like that. >> all that and more coming up on "the willis report" where consumers are our business. ♪ gerri: want more money in your retirement account? the government says, it has a solution. the white house working on tackling stockbrokers excessive fees and conflicted advice that can eat into americans investment he returns. greg mcbride bankrate.com, jonathan hoenig founder of capitalist pig peter morici economist and professor at the university of maryland. great to have you here. jonathan i will start with you. big debate with sec and administration. fiduciary duty, i ask you what is wrong with having brokers put

their clients interests first? >> that is what brokers, that is what professional do, gerri. the whole notion we need to crack down, regulate financial services professionals it is a farce. one thing, financial services is already extremely regulated. forget sarbanes and dodd-frank. go back to the 1930s. the reality the most malfeasance and wrongdoing occurs exactly in highly regulated types of entities. bernie madoff is the example. we don't need government to tell any professional how to work. don't need government to tell a salesperson at a store how to work or person on television how to work. gerri: do you agree with jonathan? does jonathan have it right. are americans perfectly protected when it comes to their broker? >> well, i mean, no, i don't think so. i think there is conflict of interest. that is really what this is getting at, eliminating potential for conflict of interest, when somebody who is recommending invests to you, aren't necessarily in your best interests. it may be tainted by the fact

they get a bigger commission or, you know putting more money in their pocket. a fiduciary standard requires that whatever investment advice is dispensed is in the client's best interests. i think bringing bringing that to light making consumers aware that, channeling more of that, type of advice to consumers i think is ultimately a win. gerri: jonathan, let you have another swing at this. you look at this debate. i got to tell you, somebody telling me they want to pick investments right for me, that is really appealing. instead of thinking about how much they will make off an investment why, don't you think about what is best for me? >> well that is what professionals do. does greg believe government needs to dictate exactly how websites recommend invests or talk? that is what professional do. they work in their clients best interests. gerri, this is the past government's whole isnotion to paint financial service sector as greedy leeches would suck you

dry if not for government's hand. gerri: let's greg get back in here for a second. what is interesting about this, i think, that tens of thousands of registered invery much advisors are meeting the standard every single day. greg? >> look, i mean i'm not a fan of government telling business how to operate at all. what i'm a fan of make sure at that consumers are aware of the fact whoever is giving them investment advice, is the advice in their best interest or is it not? i'm just a fan of making sure that consumer is getting advice that is truly in their best interests and not something product pushed or, you know driven by commissions. look, to jonathan's point, he is exactly right. professionals adhere to that standard all the time anyway but the fact is, as we all know in every field there are some bad apples. >> only, say only regulated fields. how many of us look at doctors credentials? bank as credentials? we assume government has done it on our behalf. that is way all regulations and

financial services industries more dangerous, more prone to malfeasance at the end of the day. gerri: i don't know if i agree with that. peter, you have an interesting point. this isn't likely to go anywhere at all, is it? >> i don't think it will go very far. it won't have much traction because it will be hard to define what is in an investor's best interest. it has value for older investors maybe not as capable they might be to monitor their portfolios. that is where we see lot of churning going on. if you take jonathan's position churning never happens? that is doubtful. john listened to you quite a bit. we listened to you quite a it about. what this provides is for the people that represent them a better avenue to pursue that claim. what concerns me here is that there is going to be too much litigation. to say doctors shouldn't be watched or brokers shouldn't be watched or even professors shouldn't be watched is absurd.

>> what about economists? >> jonathan, i listened to. >> you what about economists. >> absolutely, jonathan. you watch me every day. >> what is your government certification, peter? >> jonathan i have a phd, i have tenure granted by two universities. can be revoked if i don't do my job. >> guys an economist is facing a totally economist can't rob me blind. a broker can. totally different thing. >> exactly. it is absurd to say -- gerri: why broker is regulated giving advice to people. >> bernie madoff was highly regulated. >> we have had issues with brokers. we've had. >> we've been regulated. that is the whole point. brokers have been regulated since 1930s. gerri: why should we have a 1930s standard. jonathan, why would brokers not want to step up to the fiduciary standard? that is my question. i don't understand why? >> many of them already exceed that what arbitrary fiduciary standard is. >> there is no problem.

gerri: why not everybody? i don't understand jonathan. why not all of them? >> it makes the services that i would hope everyone wants to provide to those consumers more expensive because as the regulations goes up, so does the costs. that is why, gerri you have a semiindividuals, with 200 300,000 they're not given individual response. in mutual funds. gerri: let's move on. survey bank rate put out recently on how people are doing. and frankly, greg, i have to say, i expected people to be doing a lot better than your survey indicates. give us the basic. >> yeah sure. only, a little bit more than half about 58% of americans have more money in emergency savings than they do in credit card debt. at other end of the spectrum one in four americans has more credit card debt than emergency savings. additional 13%. don't have either one. they don't have credit card debt but more troubling they don't have emergency savings either. so gerri, more testament to the fact that americans are woefully

undersaved for emergencies. and yes we've seen a little bit of improvement in these numbers over the past several years but not a whole lot. just goes to show, people are continuing to have a difficult time moving needle on emergency savings. they have done well on debt. they have paid it down. refinanced at lower rates. they're comfortable with that. it is savings that continues to be the achilles' heel. gerri: mom and dad, 29 to 37. thanks for my guests, greg, jonathan peter appreciate your time. update on a story we've been following. consumers lose. the department of transportation says united airlines does not have to honor those low-priced air fares from two weeks ago. a computer foul-up at united allowed folks to buy first class tickets from europe to the u.s. for 70 bucks. united canceled tickets despite consumers received confirmation of the purchase. the feds launched an investigation and received thousands of consumer complaints. in the end the department of transportation says, united was

under no obligation to make good on its mistake even though dot has a rule requiring airlines to honor tickets confirmed by airlines. the department of transportation offered no explanation for the discrepancy. still a lot more to come this hour. the fda reverses itself and gives a go ahead for in-home dna testing. we'll take a look. the lightest or nothing. the smartest or nothing. the quietest or nothing. the sleekest... ...sexiest ...baddest ...safest, ...tightest, ...quickest... ...harshest... ...or nothing. at mercedes-benz, we do things one way or we don't do them at all.

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gerri: love our cell phones, maybe a little too much. biggest carrier, verizon wireless has discount brand available, only at walmart. is there a catch? joining me, consumer expert, radio show host, clark howard. >> thank you. gerri: always good to have you here. what is the wireless offering my friend? >> i am so excited about this because verizon has been sitting in the penthouse with its rates and now has come down to join everybody else among the major cell phone carriers. first person in a family pays 35

a month unlimited talk, unlimited text. 2 1/2 gigs of data a month. that is pretty much enough for most people to use. then each additional family member pays 25 a month and as you get to the third and fourth person, you get bonus data to use as a family. >> let me ask you a question. >> it's a steal. sure. gerri: let me ask you a question here. >> sure. gerri: do i have to use a specific phone? do i have a buy a phone that they want me to buy? what are they. >> great question. if you have a phone on verizon, you con go to the website for total wireless. you put in a code from it. and it will tell you if that phone will work on the discount service. if it does you're ported over. bam, you're good. all you do is save money. on the other hand, if you don't have a phone that works, they have four pretty mediocre mid-range phones that you can

get, non-contract. my favorite is motorola, that is $89. fairly small screen. 4.3-inch screen. but it's a good capable phone. the great news is for people who live in areas where verizon's network is really important to you, this is your opportunity to get their backbone and get a great my kind of price on the service. >> so you got to tell me is there a catch here? what is the hold-back? is there any? >> no. gerri: they're just trying to compete? it is super competitive out there, right? >> at&t already went to this price point with their discount brand called cricket. sprint went to it with boost mobile. and t-mobile went to it with go smart mobile. so everybody come up with a secondary brand where they offered this $35 a month price point with the unlimited calling, unlimited text. 2 1/2 gigs of data. the only player sitting out there not part of it, was

verizon. and now here they are. gerri: now they are. here they are. >> so we all save money. gerri: another topic. thank you for that my friend. >> sure. gerri: that is good news for folks looking right now. you have another kind of fun and interesting idea about what you call a brilliant sales tactic for homebuyers. what is it? >> i love this. this is popping up experimentally in some markets, homebuilder allows, people test, home you're considering buying. test drive a car. gerri: yeah. >> we look at biggest purchase in our lives. we walk through for a few minutes. gerri: this is so true. you have no idea, what it is like. what is the neighborhood like at 1:00 in the morning right? you don't know, right? >> get to sleep there typically for night or weekend. this works pretty will with condominiums and townhouses. not as often probably for single

family homes. i adore the idea to give you a chance to see before you make the biggest commitment financially of your life. is this where i want to be? gerri: love it. clark, great advice today. thanks for coming on the show. always good to have you here. >> sure, thank you. >> a "fox business alert" for you now. star get has -- target has sliced minimum purchase to qualify for free shipping in half to 25 bucks. take a look at. that f you're buying something, that is minimum purchase price. taking aim at amazon, with $35 billion minimum purchase price and walmart with 50. new free shipping to target is available to all online orders in the continental u.s., my friends. handling fees apply to some orders. target has this available to shippers in the red card loyalty program. grover norquist about his latest beak on the irs.

the fda changes its mind about in-home dna testing. we'll test how the latest move what it could mean for you and your health. stay with us. ♪

gerri: federal government gave the go-ahead for first-ever in-home dna testing kit. this is a big deal for anybody who wants to find out if they're predisposed to certain diseases. new approval covers testing certain ailments but the fda may expand it. with us dr. kevin campbell unc department of medicine. dr. campbell, welcome back to the show. why did the government change its mind, my friend? >> i'm not so sure as complete change of mind as it is the beginning of a negotiation

process. what happened with 23andme after they were put in a timeout chair in 2013. they're allowing them to test one genetic disease. they worked with the fda to make sure the test was reliable and valid. gerri: interesting you bring them up. they were behind the most recent move bit dna we had them on the show. they make a very good argument allowing people to do this are you in favor of people having access to their own information about their own dna? >> i absolutely do. i don't think it is the government's role to regulate how much we know about our own bodies and what we're at risk for. having genetic information is a powerful tool to motivate patients to reduce their cholesterol or exercise more if they're at risk for certain cancers, heart disease or other genetic diseases. i think we absolutely deserve information like this. gerri: the fda only taking baby steps. what is the disease they will allow you to test for? >> it is incredibly rare genetic

disease. called bloom's disease. we see it. people are born with it. they have a propensity to develop cancers. they have very sensitive skin. they have normal lives. they have to take care to screen for cancers and things like that. this test allows parents to see if they're carriers, to decide if they want to risk pregnancy if they both carry the trait. gerri: should that be who is buying the kit? >> right now the only people it is approved for. people who are worried as carriers for bloom's disease. i would like to see more trials more cooperation with the fda so 23andme and maybe more competitors can come to bring the tests forward so we have data as physicians and as patients to help decide how we live our lives. gerri: you make a good point. the folks at 23andme they want to bring together all the dna information they get from the kits. spit in a tube, send it off to them. they feel like they can give the information to researchers who

can come up with new solutions to old problems. is that a good idea? would that be some kind of a security safety risk in that? >> i don't think so. i think as long as the data is valid, this is going to help us create huge databases of genes and genetic defects. personalized medicine is coming, where everybody has their own genome on the iphone one day. i really believe it. we'll be able to cater therapy to your exact genetic makeup. i think we'll cure cancers and things of that sort with this technology. gerri: hope is alive. dr. campbell, thank you. >> thanks for having me, gerri. gerri: programing note for you. it is an you will all new "strange inheritance" tonight on fox business. when jamie colby learns about the emotional "strange inheritance" a rock and roll legend left his sons. here is a sneak-peek. ♪

>> i'm crying. okay. ♪ gerri: that's terrific. also tonight will a family business devastated by superstorm sandy be rescued by comic book superheroes? "strange inheritance" airs monday through thursday at 9:00 p.m. eastern on the fox business network. coming up next the arctic chill is back. we'll have the latest on the record low temperatures. he has never been shy about calling to the end of the irs. grover norquist. he is there. he will explain how we might do that. ♪ many people clean their dentures with toothpaste or plain water.

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♪ ♪ gerri: the winter weather refusing to let up, the south particularly badly hit. snow and ice wreaking havoc in texas, ice knocking out power to thousands of people in the state, several school districts have canceled classes and businesses closed in the dallas and fort worth area today. the winter weather in neighboring states caused more than a thousand flights to be canceled and another 2,000 flights to be delayed. along the east coast millions of folks suffering through another bout of freezing and below-zero temperatures. janice dean in our weather center with more on this. tell me this is ending soon, please. >> july? [laughter] when we're complaining about the heat i'll remind you of this. let's take a look at it. there's the wind chill what it feels like and it is cold outside. cold as far south as dallas, texas, where it feels in the teens, feels like 1 in chicago 2 in minneapolis, you get the

picture. look at tampa. hello, tampa, 73. there's the last 12 hours on the radar, you can see our southern storm that's moving eastward across arkansas mississippi louisiana, alabama and eventually into georgia. so we're concerned about icy roadways, northern louisiana in through mississippi and arkansas here and the temperature, of course, is cold enough for a mixture, a wintry mix. look at atlanta though as we head into the overnight tonight. a couple of years ago atlanta got about an inch or two or snow and it shut the city down. you could see several inches north of atlanta, georgia and the temperature's going to hover around the freezing mark so that's going to cause some problems on tomorrow morning's commute. and then as you head towards the carolinas, we're going to get some snow into the afternoon hours. this storm is going to pull offshore thankfully it's not going to move into the northeast. we're very thankful for that. however, we're not out of the woods because it's going to remain cold with wind chills below zero in a lot of these

areas, so, of course, we have wind chill advisories, it's very dangerous to be outside for a great length of time across the northeast over the next 24-48 hours. now, let's take a look long range. certainly, we're going to continue to see that arctic air. the pinks here is below zero, so really cold into friday, into the weekend, but as we head into march, it looks like that cold air's going to retreat a little bit, a little bit. so hopefully, my fingers are crossed, gerri that's all i can do the at this point -- [laughter] just cross our fingers that relief is on the way and spring will be here soon enough. gerri: and janice we try a different forecaster and they are always saying the same thing. i thought maybe we could shop a different -- >> if i had my magic wand, i would do it for you. [laughter] gerri: thank you. >> okay. gerri: and it's time now for a look at other stories in the news. boston's transit agency is slowly returning to normal after snowstorm after snowstorm crippled the city. all subway and trolley lines are operational for the first time

since february 1st, buses running on a regular schedule though some delays have been reported. president obama telling the nation's governors department of homeland security will shut down on friday without a budget extension. he says that would have a direct incompetent pact on -- impact on states' economies and securities. and stocks falling from friday's record highs, energy shares among the biggest decliners today as the price of oil fell under $50 a barrel. and authorities say a tanker truck carrying nearly 9,000 gallons of fuel has caught fire on a major highway in new jersey. look at these pictures. the smoke could be seen five miles away in downtown philadelphia. authorities say the driver got out of the vehicle before the fire and that it's not clear what caused the truck to to overturn. and those are some of the stories in the news tonight. and with tax season underway countless americans are cursing the tax man. in fact, the man at the forefront of tax fairness is calling to abolish the irs

altogether. grover norquist, president of americans for tax reform, is here with a look at his new upcoming book, "end the irs before it ends us." i don't know if we can get rid of the irs. let's start with this new ap poll grover, because folks are really teed off at these high taxes. take a look at some of these numbers. so many people in the middle class say they're overtaxed. what do you say? >> well the american people are overtaxed, even more so if you look at history. my book is a book of how we got from where we started. 1-2% of our income went to the government in 1774. that's just before we had a revolution because they were thinking of going to 3 or 4, and the guns came out. 1-2, over time it's now at about a third of the economy is taken and spent by government. for 138 years there was no federal income tax. gerri: but, boy howdy, there is now, my friend. >> there is. gerri: and the world has changed and changed dramatically. look, i want you to take a look

at these numbers. so the ap came out with a poll saying that the wealth -- here's the results of the survey, i'm just reading them the wealthy pay too little, 68%, the middle class pays too much, 60%, wealthy pay too much only 11%. i've heard you say before this idea of getting the wealthy to pay more is not fair. what do you say today? >> well, what it is is the politicians when they say we're going to tax the rich, they haven't finished the sentence. we're going to tax the rich first, then we're going to get you. obama promised he wouldn't raise taxes on anyone who earned less than $250,000 a year. great selling point. it took him 16 days to tax people who made $40,000 a year. there are ought different middle class taxes -- eight different middle class taxes in obamacare. it's been a series of assaults on middle income people. every once in a while they say they're going to punch a rich perp, and you're supposed to -- person, and you're supposed to feel better. it's to distract you from the hand in your pocket.

gerri: i think a lot of people don't realize the degree that taxes have been foisted on the middle class during obama's tenure in office. how have we missed that? is it just the rhetoric that's obscuring this? >> well it's the rhetoric, and the president talks about it, the establishment press doesn't really cover it. i mean, how many times -- there are 20 different taxes in obamacare. the establishment press covered obamacare as if it was about health care. it's about a massive set of tax increases that's going to take in trillions of dollars and they phased it in to take effect -- gerri: no late -- >> -- the series of elections yeah. gerri: it's like being thrown into a pot of water where they turn up the heat slowly, and you only boil over time, you know? it's exactly like that. so tell me if you would, how do you end the irs? how does that happen? >> sure. gerri: you want to end the irs? does that make sense? >> we want to dramatically reduce the size and cost and scope of government. i have about 20 different ideas all of which take you part of the way there.

what's one thing that's happening? a drive to add to the nine states now that don't tax income. if you're in california or new york, they say well, you have to have a state income tax don't you? well, they don't in florida. they don't in texas. they don't in new hampshire. so there are a number of states that function perfectly well better than the high-tax states people move to no income tax states. as we go from nine states to more -- arizona's hooking to go -- gerri: very interesting. >> -- kansas is looking to go to zero, when we get to 20 or 30 states i think the case can be made we can do the same thing at the national level. gerri: and how are we going to fund our armies and, i mean, there are things we need to pay for, right? >> federal government's 30% of gdp, and the army's about 3 or 4% of gdp. gerri: it'd be a lower bill, comparatively. [laughter] grover thanks for coming on. great job, as always. >> thank you. gerri: when we come back i how bacon is back in a big way at

little caesars you'll want to see this. and next, it was hollywood's biggest night, but were the oscars just too boring for their own good? my take after this, but first here's your consumer gauge with the numbers that mean the most to you. stay with us. ♪ ♪ ♪ help brazil reduce its overall reliance on foreign imports with the launch of the country's largest petrochemical operations. when emerson takes up the challenge it's never been done before simply becomes consider it solved. emerson. there's nothing more romantic than a spontaneous moment. so why pause to take a pill? and why stop what you're doing to find a bathroom?

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bacon so we screened consumers, what do you want in a pizza? bacon kept coming on so we wrapped our whole pizza in bacon. gerri: it's around the edge here, i don't know if you can see where i'm pointing, but then is it on the top too? >> yeah, crumbles on top and thick-sliced bacon around the crust. gerri: bad news is this is not something you'll do all the time. >> it'll be a limited time offer, runs through the end of april, so we're excited to have it for the customer. gerri: all stores? >> all stores in the u.s. gerri: so you are going to get a piece of this action be you order it that's for sure. so do you think that this is a big, new food trend, bacon or is this something that's always been popular? >> it continues to get bigger and bigger every year. gerri: here's my question for the pizza people out there and you see this, i mean, across the board. you guys are competing on innovation. everybody's putting something

new on a pizza. i never knew pizzas could be so different. what's the next thing? >> well, you know, innovation and little caesar's go hand in hand. we've invented pizza pizza, crazy bread, hot and ready -- gerri: you've to the to give me a little, tiny sneak. what could be around the corner? >> we might do something more with the pretzel pizza. we just got done with that this replaces that, and maybe we need to bring that back. i'm not sure. gerri: i want to talk to you about your position as ceo, though, because you are in the catbird seat when it comes to consumers and what they're thinking and what they're doing. i've got to say there's a lot of information out there that would seem to be kind of conflicting about how enthusiastic consumers are about spending right now. what are you seeing? what's in your crystal ball? are people changing their habits at all? >> you know, at little caesar's we've been a value play we sell $5 hot and ready pizza, and consumers love that value. you get a premium pizza, and

it's only $12, so we seep them ratcheting -- see them ratcheting up the spending a little bit. gerri: consumers maybe feeling a little bit more comfortable in this environment. are you going to be expanding this year? what's the game plan? >> oh, yeah. we've expanded for over a decade and we'll build a few hundred more worldwide this year. gerri: okay. so pretzel pizza anything you want to add to that? [laughter] >> bacon-wrapped deep dish pizza, they're both great. gerri: okay. i tried to trick you into selling me more deep secrets from your company. [laughter] little caesar's president, and i'm going to take just a tiny bite of this and tell you what it's like. it looks fantastic and it smells like heaven. and it is heaven. >> there you go. gerri: such a great idea. thanks for coming on, david, great to see you. >> thanks for having me. gerri: and a tough night for the academy last night. not many people sat down and watched the most famous awards show senate world, the oscars --

show in the world. viewership was down 16% this year compared to last year so what went wrong last night? the vice president of marketing here at fox news and fox business he's the host of in the fox light, he was at the awards show. [laughter] kicking up his heels having a fine old time. why didn't this work? why are so few people watching? >> first of all, you're killing me with -- how do i top the pizza? i've been starving myself for weeks to get into my tuxedo. gerri: you should be here. >> my god! [laughter] well, first off, why the show didn't work, it's four hours! i mean, they have some nerve giving out ap award for best id kitting, and you tell me they can't cut that show down to at least two and a half? they probably should at this point split it up between a technical show before and the main show right after -- gerri: but, michael, look i mean, when the beginning of the show is boring, then you know you're in trouble. i feel like we were talking about movies that nobody in america could have seen, and "american sniper," nothing.

i mean, come on. >> well, that -- gerri: the biggest movie at the box office they completely ignored it. >> well that's just it, gerri, and this has been the trend that's been going on for quite some time, a lot of small movies with actors that people haven't seen or heard of. back in 2009 abc went to the academy and said, you know, guys, you've got to help us out here. we're spending a lot of money on licensing, we need movies and stars that people want to tune into movies they have seen and stars that deliver all the big glamour and glitz. watching last night's show, there wasn't a lot of heavy star wattage on that carpet. no george clooney no angelina jolies or brad pitts, tom cruise. in 2009 they expanded the best picture film category from five movies to possibly ten with the idea that it would bring in some of the bigger more blockbuster movies that everyone has seen,

and that hasn't happened. they did get one this year, "american sniper," the american people voted on that movie. it's earned over $400 million at the box office but the academy still can't seem to get their act together when it comes to this. gerri: well, it's so funny the whole list of characters here, i was kind of surprised. they think they're being so controversial by calling for equal pay for women. i want you to hear patricia arkansas debt, firsthand what she had to say. >> to every woman who gave birth to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else's equal rights. it's our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the united states of america! [cheers and applause] gerri: so what do you make of that? i mean, i heard that, and i thought here she is, she's in front of an audience of 80 million people wearing a dress that probably cost $250,000 probably made millions on the

movie she was nominated for where's the beef? are people out there really suffering? >> look well look hollywood gets political is no shock. what's still surprising to me is they haven't gotten the memo that outside of l.a. and new york city, we don't care what they have to say. we want to see the movie and be entertained, and we certainly don't want it in our bedroom or loving room on sunday night. and what about meryl streep leaping out of her chair? [laughter] gerri: i know my female friends are going to think i'm insane, but if you're making millions of dollars, you have to consider some people are going to roll their eyes right? >> well, there was that thing in hollywood with the sony hack scandal which kind of exposed all these deeply-caring liberals for not living up to their ideals and, you know, they got a little egg on their face with that whole thing, with not paying jennifer lawrence the same as her male counterparts. gerri: "american sniper" should

have won more. michael, thanks for staying with us. >> send some pizza. gerri: we'll hold it here til you get back. [laughter] >> okay. gerri: maybe not. okay. well, if you found the oscars as boring as we did, you could have spent your time watching nascar's 57th running of the daytona 500, also happened last night. the annual nascar race took place at the daytona international speedway in florida. racer joey logano who made history in 2009 when at the age of 19 he became one of the youngest winners in nascar history. he won the race this year. how exciting is that? beating out last year's winner and fan favorite dale earnhardt jr. who came in third. pretty cool. now we want to know what you think. here's our question tonight: did you watch the oscars or the daytona 500 last night? log on to gerriwillis.com and vote, i'll share the results at the end of tonight's show. and here's what some of you are tweeting me about our poll question. rick writes: no.

they call the oscars you only need to watch the last five laps of any nascar race. and neil says this: if you love movies the oscars can be interesting, just tune out the political nonsense, and on facebook, janet posts: oscar's too politically tired of hollywood telling us they know more than we do. and here's tom: i was expecting wrecks on the daytona race, i knew there would be wrecks on the oscar presentation. the daytona wrecks were more impressive. in addition to following me on facebook and twitter be sure to like fox business on facebook. and still to come, how this administration is crushing business in this country with its ridiculous tax code. details coming after the break. ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪ gerri: you heard grover norquist sound off on the tax man earlier this hour. he called for abolishing the irs altogether. personally, i think that's a pipe dream but the facts don't lie. a new report by the tax foundation says our tax policies are kiming off american corporations. their ranks falling off to 40-year lows. the group's chief economist will mcbride, with what that means for middle class jobs and financial security. will, welcome to the show. >> thanks for having me. gerri: so 40-year lows, does this mean that companies aren't being created or they can't survive? >> well, we're not quite sure actually, from the irs data. all we can tell is that about 60,000 corporations drop off the tax rolls every year. that's, that pace has increased over the last ten years or so. we've lost about a million corporations since 1986.

but -- gerri: wow. >> it's not clear where they're going, what's happening. we know with the inversion story that often they're leaving the country and at least moving their headquarters abroad. but that explains a very tiny portion of this. gerri: right. right. >> it appears -- gerri: doesn't it have to do with the c corporations and this double taxation that goes on? you've got to have theories about why this is happening. >> well, definitely at the same time the c corporation has been declining, the other business forms have been on the increase. so so-called pass-through business entities that are taxed on the individual side their profits are passed through to their owners, onto their tax returns and they're taxed as individual income that -- those sorts of businesses have been increasing at the same time. so it appears there's been a shift, a very large shift of business activity from the corporate sector to the noncorporate sector over the

last 25 years, and this is really exceptional in the developed world. there's no other country with such a large share of business activity happening outside the corporate sector. we have more than 50%, more than 60% of business profits actually occur through the noncorporate sector. gerri: you know, i've got to tell you i think this is bad news aa cross the board, you know? -- across the board. this is bad news for people who want to get jobs, for our economy, the people in washington who collect taxes shouldn't be happy because there's less money to get. tell me, what are the ramifications? what's the long-term import of this? >> well, it is a very long-term story, like i said, it goes back at least to 1986. corporations have been on the decline in the u.s. but, i mean, i don't think they're going to go to zero. we've lost about a million in the last 30 years, but just losing that many corporations is yet another sign that we are really overtacking our

corporate -- overtaxing our corporate sector. there's the inversion story but there are many other things -- gerri: well, that leads to my next question what will it take to turn this around? >> well, there needs to be a general realization, first of all, that the u.s. has an extremely uncompetitive corporate tax system. of we have i mean, obviously many people know we have the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. it's the third highest in the entire world. but it goes beyond that. i mean really in virtually every aspect the corporate tax is extremely uncompetitive, extremely burdensome. we have the double tax of shareholders because there's a corporate tax and then distributed profits are taxed again as dividends or capital gains. most countries provide some relief from that double taxation we do not. then there's the fact that we tax our multi-nationals on their foreign earnings at this very high corporate tax rate. that's hardly, you know, that's simply not the norm internationally.

gerri: right. absolutely right. will we're running out of time i apologize. >> no problem. gerri: thank you for being on with in this story tonight. it's very, very important. thank you so much. >> thank you. gerri: and we'll be right back with our answer to the question of the day did you watch the oscars or the daytona 500? stay with us.

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>> >> 18 percent said the oscar's 82 percent said the daytona 500. no surprise. disney has raised ticket prices and also in parts topping $100 for the first time. single-day tickets are now $105 up from $99 getting from disneyland will now cost $99.10 years and older. children's prices have jumped with the measles

outbreak at the california theme park does not look like it has hurt attendance. making money is next. we will see you tomorrow. >> charles: i am charles payne. the call before the storm this is the week that nasa could hit the all-time high. it is the beginning of the big time the move to the upside. first rigo to nicole petallides. three consecutive weeks of gains with a fraction of a record of the all-time high the nasdaq peaks at the nasdaq 5000 and the dow was down 23 points. traders are watching oil very carefully