with forbes on fox. we're king of the world! democrats are racing toward the nuclear option. forget health care, why some at forbes are warning it's what comes after health care that's really going to nuke our economy. are they right? hi, everybody, welcome to forbes on fox. let's focus with rich, the publisher, elizabeth mcdonald, neil weinberg, victoria and quentin. oz, straight to you. >> david, this procedure is supposed to be used to reduce the budget deficit. it's not supposed to be used to enact massive welfare legislation. in 1993, bill clinton wanted to use reconciliation to pass his health care reform and senator bird of all people talked him out of it and chat advertised him for it and said you got to be nuts. this isn't what the procedure is for. it wasn't until 1999 that

reconciliation was used to actually increase the deficit. this started to open the door for abuses and it could lead to massive new spending. >> quentin, what do you think? >> i think it's when your party is in power, it's majority rule. when the other party is in power, it's ramming it through and tyranny and it's really the fault of ourselves for electing people who don't act responsibly. under carter, reconciliation was used for reduction. under reagan, reduction, tax increases, reduction, what have you. starting in '91 it's been used to increase the deficit. it's been going on for a long time. elect the right people, the right things will happen. >> so it depends whose objection is getting gored, that's quentin's point. >> i don't agree with it. it was enacted in '74. it's been used since 1980. yes, legislation has been loaded up with all sorts of deficit increases, spending increases for medicare and the like. but to use it to change one

seventh of the economy is a very, very big deal. even senator robert byrd said that is a big -- abuse of power at a time when stimulus spending, that plan is being treated as a rounding error in washington, d.c. >> there are a lot of democrats who are against reconciliation right now for the reasons that it won't lower the deficit, they're worried about that. >> i got to agree with quentin. this was used in 2001, 2003, four -- >> that doesn't mean it's right. >> no, it doesn't make it right. but to say this is the time that's going to put us over the edge is like saying an alcoholic's latest sip of whiskey is the one that's going to do it. both parties have been doing it a long time. >> victoria, we've never had it done in such a massive scale with only one party voting for it. >> exactly. when you look back at history, things of this -- laws of this nature, this -- let's look at medicare and medicaid. when that went through in 1965 after 500 amendments, it had

bipartisan support. that should be the case here, too. the democrats are going against what the majority of americans are telling us they want, which is not this health care plan. >> rich, what do you think on this reconciliation thing? >> well, first of all, i hate this health care plan, but second, i want to see it fail even though they try to use reconciliation because that's going to make their failure even worse. it's going to mean the end of speaker pelosi, it's going to mean huge sweeps of the republicans this fall. so let them try it. they're going to try it anyway. let them try it and fail and then we can finally get back to some sanity in this country. >> mike oz, this is sort of the poison hill suggestion from your publisher friend here. >> rich may well be right on that point, but the misinformation that's out there is that this sort of thing has been done throughout history. that's not true. we've never had a massive piece of welfare pushed through the system on reconciliation before.

>> i think neil begs to differ. >> first of all, i got to say i'd never think i'd see mike agreeing with byrd. >> politics makes strange bed fellows. >> prosecute used this to cut taxes. the republicans will use it to cut taxes and the democrats will use it to increase the deficit. >> that's the danger. >> this is a time when it's so much worse. >> welfare -- massive welfare legislation was not the intent of this and if the abuses continue to grow, you're going to have more wasteful spending. >> that's the point. is this opening a flood gate we've never had? >> yes t could. in this casele and dime budget spending and tax cuts have been thrown into budget reconciliation measures on both sides of the aisle ever since it was first used in 1980. the danger is it could open -- david, if health care reform was such a great idea, why do the democrats think only only muster 51% of the votes?

>> quentin, go ahead. >> i think there is a context here we should note. remember jim dement last spring saying that we can make this his waterloo. as recently as this week we had the republican national committee showing slide to their fund-raiser of obama in white face, like obama was the joker and how he can use fear and ego to get money from the people to make ourselves richer. they're in a position of continuous opposition and not trying to solve the national problem. >> it is a critical national problem, as is the debt, victoria, and the debt and deficit are foremost concern in people's minds right now. >> exactly. that's what the party in power is ignoring. that's why they have to ram rod this thing through. completely ignoring the vibe that's out there of the american people who are saying, look, we don't want to pay more taxes in the future. we know that's what's going to happen despite lofty projections about the future. it's a political gimmick. >> rich, aren't you playing with fire here if you agree with

victoria on the dangers with spending so much, if you think reconciliation is a good way to get democrats to lose, that's playing with fire. >> david, they're going to do it anyway. there is nothing republicans can do to stop them at this point. >> but the democrats might stop them. it's not the republicans. it's the democrats. >> we've reached a tipping point, i think in the lectorate where this kind of rampant spending no longer works. you've seen it in the tea parties, obama poll ratings. i have faith in the american people. >> one at a time. >> i'm sorry. the point is that vicky makes a great point. social security reform, welfare reform went through with bipartisan support. the dems don't think they can get 51 votes. both sides of the aisle all agree we need health care reform. is this the reform that's needed? >> hold on. we want to stay on the money here, on the money issue itself.

>> the best thing to compare reconciliation to as obama wants to use it is pay-go. remember that? that was legislation that was supposed to be we're not going to have tax cuts unless we know how to pay for it. every time they get to that point, they raise the creeling and ignore it. this is the same thing. >> this may be the new way of doing business inside the beltway. that would lead to massive overspending. >> i think that health bill is a bad thing. but i think they'll get it through and i think that rich is actually wrong. i don't think this is going to hurt the democrats in november because i don't think -- >> democrats think it's going to hurt democrats. >> i think the -- it would obliterate any shred of integrity if they continue to use budget reconciliation in the future and for health care reform. >> victoria, go ahead. >> i absolutely agree with liz. it's a gimmick that ignores the reason we have a two party system, the reason we go to the polls and vote. it says we're going to ignore that and push this thing through. and we can see lots of

legislation being done this way in the future. cap and trade could be the next thing. >> go ahead. >> you want to talk about money, since january of 2009, the democrats raised $450 million. the republicans have raised $225 million. they are behind and they are using fear mongering to try and raise more money. they find being the party in continuous opposition is great for raising money. death panels, all that fear. they said it this week, and they aren't trying to seriously make a policy. >> it is about the money, but the money that we're all spending was that is putting us into debt. >> obama is using all those accounting gimmicks. ten years of taxes to pay for six years of health care. all that sort of stuff, it's about spending and faulty accounting. >> david, the republicans do have their own ideas. the blair house summit really was just the president's form of

reconciliation as a prelude to ram through health reform on a simple majority vote. pretty dangerous. >> tea partyers planning something right now as democrats rushing to pull the nuclear option trigger. stick around for cashing in to find out what it is. plus, giving your tax money to foreign companies will create jobs here at home. do you believe that? that's a flip side from forbes and it's coming next.

hi, everyone. from america's news headquarters. i'm jamie colby. developing right now, a top taliban commander is believed to have been killed in a pakinstani air strike. it happened in the country's northwest tribal area. the commander said to be close to al-qaeda's number two leader. if confirmed, it would be the latest blow to insurgents in afghanistan. and bomb blasts on the eve of parliamentary elections in iraq. it happened in the holy city of najaf. a car bomb exploded near a bus filled with religious pilgrims, killing at least three people, injuring 50 others. dozens were killed this week as insurgents vowed they will disrupt tomorrow's vote. i'm jamie colby, join us for america's news headquarters at 1:00 p.m. eastern and i'll send you back to forbes on fox for all your headline, go to foxnews.com. keep it here on fox.

where are the stimulus jobs? overseas. that's not republicans saying it. it's several democratic senators who claim the president's green stimulus projects are sending jobs and tax dollars to foreign companies and they want it stopped right now. but neil weinberg says we need to give foreign companies more of our money to help get americans working. what a contrarian notion. >> david, if we're going to spend money, our tax dollars on the stimulus, we might as well get the best bang for our bucks. we might as well buy what's best. this economy benefits tremendously from free trade. if we start saying we're just buying american and the chinese do the same and everybody else does the same, then the international trade system will collapse and that is a really bad thing. >> our tax dollars going to foreign companies, it doesn't seem right. >> this is what's going on and it's basically stimulus money

spent on manufacturers in china to build wind turbines for about 28 wind farms here in the united states, creates 3,000 jobs, 330 jobs here in the united states. 300 of which are temporary jobs. i'm not a protectionist. but china keeps its currency dirt cheap against the dollar. it has slapped tariffs on our goods and basically pays a nickel an hour for labor. yes, the turbines are cheap. but at a time when the country -- they are manufacturing great products, i just think sometimes we need a little more help for our own manufacturers. >> 80% of the first $1 billion of our tax dollars went to foreign companies for this wind farm thing. that doesn't seem right. >> no, it's not. it's one of the most stupiddist things washington has ever done. most stupidest things. but, i will say this, this must be the reason obama's funneling money there so they'll buy our treasury bonds 'cause he's got to float a lot of treasury bonds

to support all that money he's borrowing. >> victoria, what do you think of this idea? >> it's the inherent conflict in obama's decision to prioritize so-called green jobs. because a lot of the talent and a lot of the cheap manufacturing is going to come from overseas, china, japan is another place where we're sourcing from. it's a conflict. it's a catch 22 that he can't get around when we should be looking at what does america need? we need better roads, highways, bridges. we have an ailing old tired infrastructure system and that needs to be improved and those create immediate jobs. you get guys on the street working. those are immediate temporary jobs. >> quentin, don't send our tax dollars to foreign companies. >> it would be even more stupider to start a trade war, david. and we don't have to do that. look, we're a little behind in this industry. the reason we kept buying from china is we don't have the

skills here yet and we might be able to do that. but that will take time. you do that by feeding start-ups. you can't give it to big companies. why is that? big companies overseas, it's domestic. u.s. companies have manufacturing in china. chinese, japanese companies have manufacturing in the u.s. we can seek to have those jobs brought here. >> but john, maybe some of that money will dwindle out, but 80%. 80% of our tax dollars going to foreign companies. you good with that idea? >> i think it doesn't create any american jobs, but the money that's spent on american companies also doesn't create any american jobs. the government is throwing $3 trillion against the wall so far in the last two years. so far this week's job report is down again. we're still losing jobs here. that's $3 trillion to 0 the score so far. somebody has to wise up here. look, you can't even tell who is a foreign company these days anyway. who owns a company is up to the shareholders trading in the stock market. so what's the difference?

>> in pennsylvania, that could make these wind turbines. i always thought the biggest was congress itself. >> those with the wind bag. >> but they could help with wind energy. i'm joking. i agree with maybe the better bang for the buck is what vicky is talking about and some of the stimulus money helps create jobs, but it's not the way to go. >> victoria, you go ahead. >> the difference here, i'm not a protectionist, like liz said, but the difference here is this money was raised and promised to create u.s. jobs. that's the conflict here. that's why this is a different situation than saying, hey, toyota is a multi national company. they hire people in the u.s., too. that's why this is different. >> it is a bank shot. it's not a direct line, our money going to create american jobs. it's a bank shot and anything that's diverted like that is hard to prove. >> to say you're not a protectionist, but you're against this being competitive is like president obama saying that he's for free enterprise. >> come on.

you can be for free trade and not be for sending tax money overseas. >> you start a trade war, this is the way you do it. >> it's not starting a trade war. come on, we're not talking about shutting down trade with china and saying no money goes to china. >> money to companies does not make jobs. the only way to make jobs is get small businesses hiring again. they need bank loans. >> foster small business, foster education, build it up now, we can catch up in this industry that would cost less and benefit more. >> last word from wasn'ten coming up. you heard the post office is going to cut out a full day to cut costs. now that's ought everyone should do the same to save us money. that's coming up next.

>> the forbes plan to save you money and our economy at the same time. also even if the government

first it was the post office saying make cut saturday delivery. john rutledge says we should cut all government workers to four days a week. >> why not three? look. we need to put the burden of the government budget on the people who collect the money, not employees only, but the lobbyists, too, and the productive obviously there is not up to private standards and the pay is higher. so let's shrink the government with a hammer if we have to. >> so we're not getting now what we should be getting out of them, why don't we cut their days down to four or three? >> because you start out with that oh, government is so bad, these people are awful idea, then you have some exceptions. you want to cut the f.b.i. agent? you want to cut the secret

service? how about the irs? how about the doctors in the v.a. hospital? it doesn't work like that. i think government people actually work hard, but i'm agents biased. my wife works for the city of san francisco in a library. maybe you don't like libraries, i don't know. this week, she got laid off. 20,000 people in san francisco got laid off. they're going to get rehired. they're going to have their pay cut by 6% and the city is going to figure out procedurally how many they got, how many leave and where to go from there. the budgets are too big. >> how about the irs, i'd be all for cutting the irs folks back, wouldn't you? >> i don't know. we probably got a pretty good bang back if they go after tax cheats. i think that we are living way beyond our means right now and one of the ways we're doing that is spending. a big line item on the government's budget is salaries. i don't know that going down to four days is a great idea because the problem is everyone is going to get benefits. right now benefits are a huge part of government pay. but i think what we should do is

reduce government. whether that's four days or three days or fewer people. >> you don't want to reduce productive. i have to highly say this point is that a lot of government jobs are in education or security are crucial and you want them in office five days a week. i think that there should be cuts in the form of perhaps salary cuts, but i think that productive should remain high. >> cuts, we're talking about bureaucrats. again, the problem is that when it comes down to cuts, they cut the least powerful, the librarians and the teachers and they leave the corrupt folks at the transportation agencies, that sort of thing, with their jobs. >> i would submit that you can't have real productive if jobs are guaranteed by the service employees union. it just doesn't work out. the other thing is pensions. pensions are just way out of line in the public sector. so these have to be brought into the line with what's private intersurprise is paying. >> john, you walk through the government -- the federal government offices in washington, department of hhs, department of agriculture, and you see dozens, hundreds, thousands of workers just

pushing paper. those are the people we're talking about. >> absolutely. what we can't forget is that when a lobbyist goes for a new program, that program ends up hiring people and those employees are the representatives of that program. we have to introduce some pain into the government spending so that it can shrink like the private sector. >> wasn'ten, can't we prioritize, keep the librarians and fire the bureaucrats? >> keep my wife working? i'm all for that. who hires the lobbyists? the private sector. it's up to us to act responsibly. elect people who will not take the money. that's what we have to do. >> the last word, the post office might not deliver you every day, but our informers have the stock they say will deliver profits all week long and all yearlong. that's coming up.

>> we are back with our informers and their stock picks that will work for you every single day of the week. mike, industrial company. >> its stock outperformed the overall market by a margin of five to one over the last ten years. and analysts have been quietly raising their estimates for this year. the ceo has been buying a lot. >> they make things, water meters. techy stuff. >> a manly company. >> i like that stuff. i don't like this company. i don't know where mike is getting his data from, but the ceo, who also happens to be

chairman and president, paid himself $17 million and he also has been selling stock. >> mining equipment? >> it's manly stock here. they make mining equipment. it is reasonably priced. this is nice way to get that. >> at the same time here, what i'm worried about is that they had a really sharp pull back in february and then rebounded sharply. so i think you missed the boat on this. >> you also have a company that makes things, container ships. >> this is the way to go. >> c-span, not to be confused with the television station. >> china will be making a lot of goods and buying a lot of goods, you need those ships. >> mike? >> too much debt and the losses are too big. >> what do you think about the losses. >> i understand that they have some losses, but they have long-term seven year leases with many of the major big companies, so i think it will be good for the long-term. >> container ships are the best way to move things. >> i guess if you got something big to move, go with that. >> all right. that's it for forbes on