15% in a year. >> gary b., bull or bear? >> i love shakira. that's all i'm going to say. brewing up a great debate. ca-neil cavu "cavuto on business." shutdown panic because taxpayers aren't panicking. charles payne in for neil cavuto. and so much for all of those cones and barricades because the partial government shutdown getting hyped for bringing the pain doesn't look too painful to a lot of americans. so as life goes on, can america move on with a smaller government? ben stein, david mcdowell, and gary k. >> all evidence is we're a ok. we have hundreds of thousands of furloughs. we're still running just fine. for me, i've been saying it for years. the bottom line is government is an overbloated blob with too

much waste. if i got in there, i'd knock 15% off the top and we'd still run very well. that's something that needs to get done. unfortunately, it never gets done. >> probably people are at home saying that 15% sounds small. i never knew there were 800,000, quote, nonessential workers in the government. >> well, more than 80% of the outlays are still in effect even with the shutdown. you know, social security, the military, and the like. so we -- but i do think that this gives us a chance to prioritize what we want out of government. and to analyze what these bureaucrats really do. the "wall street journal" had a great editorial about the federal register of new rules made by the government, looking back in september on any given day. you would have 500 pages, 400 pages of new rules. >> a day. >> yeah. in the federal register that came out. and if you look after the shutdown, you had like 12 pages or six pages of new rules. so i think that lack of government burden is relief and refreshing.

>> i know that sounds like relief to the business community. >> ben, you actually worked in government. you saw first-hand. is it as bloated as we say it is or many people believe it is? >> i say it's much more bloated. i can say i was one of those nonessential workers. it was great. they paid me modestly well. they got incredibly good medical benefits. i liked it a lot. but on the other hand, we are only missing those people for a couple of weeks so far. we'll see what it's like when we have missed them for a couple of decades. >> right now, it does feel like life has gone on. and same thing with sequestration. the government spends less money. the deficit comes down. life doesn't change that much for the average american. so far, to ben's point, that's been the case also with the government's partial shutdown. >> well, i find the tone of our conversation sad, quite frankly. ben makes exactly the right point, charles, which is we don't know what it feels like. if you break your finger, charles, and i hope it doesn't happen to you, but it would be relatively minor, right?

you would feel a little pain. you could go a little while without treating it. eventually it would heal, but it would be disfigured. and that's what we're going through. we can do without these people for some time. you can do without having yosemite national park open for some time. but is that the kind of government you want? for the future, to have yosemite closed for all time? think about that as a metaphor. there are a lot of things like that, that the government does that may not be essential but are part of who we are as a country. feeding poor children, as a example. for example. >> go ahead, gary. >> ben -- >> let's talk real-world numbers here. in 2000, our government spent $1.8 trillion. just five years ago, $2.8 trillion. and we are up to $3.7 trillion. $900 billion the government is spending more than just five years ago. where is it going? what is it for? we have no clue. that's where all the bloated.

it's got to stop. that's how you get the $17 trillion in debt. i know the markets are acting find here. i am so worried one day the market is going to wake up and see all of this is not act fine. and all hell will break loose. >> let me go back to -- >> wait one second. dagen, i'll picky back off of adam's example. if i lost a finger, yes, but what if i grew 15 fingers? what if i had 25 fingers years from now? then if i lost one, it wouldn't hurt so bad. i wouldn't be so disfigured. >> this gives us the opportunity to prioritize and decide are these people and bureaucrats useful to us. isn't it time to call the herd, so to speak. i want yosemite to be open, adam. and we've learned how critical some of these people are, like at the cdc with the salmonella outbreak. you had people brought back from furloughs to run the computer network that tracks disease across the country. so we're realizing their value.

but what about the people who have little to no value who work in the government? >> dagen, i have no problem with what you just said. >> we're talking about nonessential people. not that. and dagen, i have no problem with what you just said. we should always be prioritizing. like any good business, the government should also say, are these people essential? are they useful? and reasonable people can agree that a lot of the things that we're not doing over the past couple of weeks are things that we should be doing. and, gary, the markets spoke last week. when it looked like we were getting closer to an agreement, to getting the government running again, to avoiding the debt ceiling crisis, the markets soared. >> i'm going to jump in here. because what we're really talking about, ben, is everyday people. people watching this show. were their lives changed? were their lives impacted? just like sequestration. i don't know. we might be finding out we can live with a smaller government. >> except for this. except for this, charles, which

is that the heads of every uniformed service has said they cannot defend the united states in the event of serious military problems. and that is a real crisis. that is not a joke. that has to be taken very seriously. >> gary k., listen, everyone has their own pet area of the government that they'd protect, that they love, that's essential. but, again, i'm not making up this word. 800,000 nonessential workers. and we all either worked in the government, we know someone who worked in government. let's be honest about it. it's not run like the private sector, to adam's point. it's run like something else. >> and, look, those of us who really want efficient and effective government are told we are extremists and we don't like the poor, and we don't like children. and that's just got to stop. all we care about is government being accountable. it is our money they are spending. and they are castrating not only our tax dollars, but our kids' tax dollars and their kids'. something has got to give. but you're talking about last week in the market. i don't care about the short-term.

i care about the long-term. >> as i've said many times, it's our money, as you say, gary, and our government. charles, i promise you that all corporations have nonessential people too. people they could get along without for a few days, for a few weeks. but they needed their employees for the corporation. the government is no different, gary. >> adam, i can promise you if you hired somebody like a jack welch to walk into d.c. and really streamline it, he can cut 10, 15, 20% ougt of it, and everything would be ok. >> and i don't disagree with that. i don't disagree we should try our best to prioritize. the question is, do we need these nonessential people? yes, we need them. for all sorts of reasons. >> the question is, has it impacted america? would it impact america -- >> in many ways, charles. >> to keep the government as bloated as it is? it grows faster than the rate of inflation. we all know there's redundancy and waste. we know that. meantime, everyone watching this show just about in the last five

years had to tighten their own belts. they had to make adjustments in their open liwn lives. the only thing that's grown is the government. we can do without a bigger government. >> there are a lot of officials of corporations getting paid enormous amounts who are also nonessential but who get it through cronyism. cronyism is a fact of human life. it's not just a government phenomenon. it's a fact of human life. as a stockholder, i'd like to see that too. >> but you have the right to not own part of that company and that business. as taxpayers -- >> but i do own it, dagen. and therefore i believe i should have a right -- >> but you have a choice to sell it. >> i know that. but it's my corporation. it's not the board of directors' corporation. and i think i should have a vote on whether or not they cull that herd. >> i think you have more of a vote in private business as a

stockholder than we, the american taxpayers, do right now. >> i disagree. >> we might throw them all out of office, but i think we can live with smaller government than we have right now. forget about having trouble getting on the obama care exchange. the real problem starts after you do log on. we'll explain at the top of the hour. but up next, forget about any pain from a government shutdown. if this union leader gets his way, get ready for some pain at the pump. (announcer) scottrade knows our clients trade and invest their own way. with scottrade's smart text, i can quickly understand my charts, and spend more time trading. their quick trade bar lets my account follow me online so i can react in real-time. plus, my local scottrade office is there to help. because they know i don't trade like everybody. i trade like me. i'm with scottrade. (announcer) ranked highest in investor satisfaction with self-directed services by j.d. power and associates.

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hi, everybody. we are live from america's news headquarters. i'm jamie colby. the government shutdown is now in day 12. and i'm going to give you a live look at the house floor, where congressional lawmakers are voting on more mini spending bills as the debt ceiling deadline looms just five days away. the senate will meet this morning as well, and the focus there is an attempt to move forward with a six-month plan to raise our debt ceiling and give

lawmakers more time to pass a budget. in afghanistan, talks are continuing today over the future of our troops in that country. secretary of state john kerry arriving unannounced in kabul last night to meet with afghan president hamid karzai over keeping troops in the country after the 2014 withdrawal deadline. as many as 10,000 troops are expected now to stay. i'm jamie colby. and i'll see you back here at 1:00 p.m. eastern for america's news headquarters. but first, back to "cavuto on business" on fox. talk about a kick in the gas. a top union leader wants to hike the federal gas tax. the head of the laborers international union in north america saying we need more cash for roads and business. this as consumers are getting a break at the pumps, down more than 40 cents since the beginning of february. >> i would tell mr. union to

take a hike. the bottom line is that every penny of gas tax hike is $1.8 billion out of an economy that's still getting off its back. this is not the right time. government has plenty of money. go back to the president and ask him why he didn't spend the money he promised during the stimulus on infrastructure. that i ha they have plenty of money out there for this. >> a gas tax is never going to be popular, but is it necessary hike it? >> the unions have a sweet gig here. they get the government to extort money from the taxpayers to pay into them, the union, and they say it's in your best interest. it's like the mafia coming to the people in the dry cleaners and say, you need to provide protection, and you say from whom, and you say it's us. >> i have no idea what he's talking about. >> taking the money from the general public and lining their pockets, it might be pretty beneficial, huh, dagen?

>> it might be. nobody has the right to bitch about their roads needing repaired, their potholes, unless you're willing to step up and pay for it. >> every day we pay gax taxes already. >> i can talk about the gas taxes until the cows come home. the gas tax hasn't gone up. the federal gas tax has not gone up for 20 years. and the cost of road construction and repair has gone up by 55% over that time. it is a usage fee. it is a tax on those people using the roads. now i will say, if you're happy with the state of the roads, fine, don't raise it. but if you want the roads repaired, you either have to raise the gas tax or talk about switching to a road usage fee, which is something that weave talked about. but people driving have to pay for the roads. >> we do pay gas taxes already. on the local level, federal level, state level. in fact, i think that the

government agencies make more money from our gas taxes than opec does. >> well, this is one of those issues where i look forward to agreeing with dagen every time we discuss it, because not only do we pay gas taxes, and not only is it a user's fee, but it's a successful user's fee. the federal gas tax is what has funded so much road construction over many decades. and as dagen points out, not only is it low for us, but it's low in comparison -- our gas prices are incredibly low in comparison to the rest of the developed world. >> hold on one second. you do understand that as you extol the virtues of this, you actually don't. in other words, if they are building so many roads and they are so successful, why do we have to hike it? in addition to all of the tolls we pay in addition. >> first of all, we haven't raised them enough. dagen has already explained. and secondly, tolls are location specific. and they work too.

toll roads work for where they are. >> dagen, you're the one who says that government needs to prioritize. so this is important, start prioritizing. >> right. that's what i'm saying. if you're not willing as a driver to pay for road repair, like if you're roads are in bad condition around where you live and if you're happy with that, that's fine. then keep the gas taxes exactly where they are. but, adam, i want to say something to adam's point about this, the gas tax has been very successful. it's actually a declining source of revenue because of the fuel efficiency of automobiles these days. people aren't buying as much gasoline. so in the long run, as a nation, we have to come up with a way to pay for road repair and construction. whether it's usage fee, higher gas taxes, that's a decision we'll be forced to make. >> gary k.? >> i said earlier, we're spending $900 billion a year more than we did five years ago. take some of that money. fix the roads.

not somebody who comes out with these big books every year of ridiculous actually comedic government waste. get rid of all of that, and it adds up to hundreds of millions of billions of dollars, and earmark is to the roads and bridges that need to be done. >> adam? >> gary, federal tax -- a federal -- increase federal gas tax dollars go directly into the economy, to the point that you said earlier, it would hurt the economy, no, it goes directly into the economy by improving the nation's infrastructure. that helps commerce. it helps in every way. it's not wasted money in the least. especially because it's being paid for by people who are using that infrastructure. more people are -- >> more taxes directly out of consumers' hands, and also -- >> users, customers. this is capitalism. >> if you're taking the bus, you're a consumer taking the bus, it doesn't hit you. not directly. if your taking public transportation, it doesn't hit you. >> but the bottom line, guys, it does feel like we hear -- >> it hasn't gone up because it

is regressive and people hate it and they bitch about it. so it's been 20 years, and that hasn't gone anywhere. >> a lot of money has been thrown at it. thanks a lot, guys. this might have you calling for a different kind of shutdown. not only is the nsa watching you, but they have been keeping tabs on you for a long time.

the government is doing more than just watching. >> a new report showing that the nasa snooping goes a lot more deeper than you thought.

information on innocent americans for up to 75 years. ben stein? >> well, i assume that i have no privacy at all anymore. i assume that i'm talking on my car phone, e-mailing, people are listening to me all of the time. i assume that -- sorry, that it's 1984 already. and that big brother is watching every single thing i do. and i'm going to get in a lot of trouble. >> yeah. well, you may have to call in a few markers. gary k., 75 years boggles the mind, doesn't it? >> yea! it's just one big gigantic colonoscopy at this time. we're watched by an administration who railed against the last administration for its watching and probing. who knows where it ends? i got news for you, we don't even know one-tenth of what they're doing. they only allow us to know what they want us to know.

>> maybe it's 750 years. adam, do you have a problem with this at all? >> i will admit to being conflicted. here is my conflict. we in the media should do everything we can to expose the method that the government is using. we have should be on their case on it and make sure we understand and that we bless it. having said that, i think that the security agency should do everything they can to keep us safe. if that includes collecting and holing on to data so -- holding on to data so they can analyze and protect the country, yes, i support their right to do it. >> 75 years you have to analyze it after someone has been dead 50 years? realistic -- >> we can joke but maybe there are patterns there they can learn from to prevent the next terrorist attack. i'm willing to say within reason and with oversight that they should be allowed to go to great lengths to keep us safe. frankly, i'm surprised you don't agree with that, charles. >> the government couldn't even find this guy who had a mental health record, many

arrests, be shooting at people, blowing out their tires. they couldn't keep him from going in the navy yard and killing people. what is going on? analyzing patterns -- >> no. you are just pointing out how difficult it is to find and analyze this data. you make it sound like it's easy. it's not easy. >> it is easy. it is easy. >> hold on. bring dagen in. we're talking about piling on extra data. 75 years worth, everybody in america. c'mon, we do draw the line somewhere. >> do we? i don't know. i'm with them, though. i think it's sad, distressing but i fully expect the government to behave this way. unfortunately -- >> do you accept it? >> i will be dead and gone. i hope they look at my data when i'm dead and in the ground and say, "that girl was crazy!" >> they will confirm what we already know. >> you know what? when i'm gone, have fun with it.

>> my thanks to daigen. stocks continue with the highs for the year but we have picks that might be down for now but they're definitely not out. ng, i just think it's better to work with someone. ng, someone you feel you can really partner with. unfortunately, i've found that some brokerage firms don't always encourage that ki. that's why i stopped working at the old brokerage, and started working for charles schwab. avo: what kind of financial consultant are you looking for? talk to us today. and better is so easy withrning you cabenefiber.o something better for yourself. fiber that's taste-free, grit-free and dissolves completely. so you can feel free to add it to anything. and feel better about doing it. better it with benefiber.

stocks that are down and not out and ready to break out. gary k.? >> i like starbucks. we're a caffeinated world. howard schultz knows it and he is finding every nook and cranny to put stores. i expect big things going forward. >> you like it, adam? >> i do but i will point out a risk. he is expanding the menu greatly. it's an opportunity and also a risk. that is something they could screw up. >> the breakfast menu didn't work out. what do you like here? >> schwabs total stock market index fund, charles. this is a perfect example of why investors should just keep investing a prudent amount consistently in the market. what happened last week, the market was down and then way up. this is how you succeed in that environment? >> ben, what do you like? >> i like lots of things. mostly daigen, but you can't buy stock from dagen.

i like e.e.m., the emerging market index. that to me, it got kicked hard but now they are coming back. i love emerging markets. >> i love it as well but i love you better. "cost of freedom" continues with the place for business. fox. ♪ ♪ so forget about all the rhetoric and the wrangling in d.c. get to the heart of the debt battle. out-of-control entitlement spending. the biggest chunk of the budget by far. republicans leaders say if we don't deal with it, we will never stop raising the debt limit. some liberal democrats drawing a line in the sand, saying don't touch entitlements ever. so who is right? hi, everybody. i'm david asman. welcome to "forbes on fox." steve forbes, rick unger, mike, bill baldwin, sabrina schaefer, john tandy. $2 trillion out of a $3.5 trillion budget. more than the majority. how do you avoid dealing with it? >> eventually you ll