republicans in congress are fast approaching the finish line on tax cuts, and purchasresidenp and the gop are already peddling ideas to pay for those cuts. we'll tell you why none of them hold up to scrutiny. and the clash between work and child care. the cost and the major ramifications for your budget and your career. how do we cope in this country? the truth is many don't. i'm ali velshi. >> and i'm stephanie ruhle. president trump says he is taking down regulations wherever

he can, including the web. critics say it is the end of a free internet as we know it. >> meanwhile, the gop is dealing with some last-second dissention before they take their victory lap on taxes. that as the president gets ready to make good on his promise of big cuts by christmas, which is where we start. >> indeed we do. this week republicans in the house and senate ironed out most of their differences in their competing tax bills, and somehow the bill seems to favor the rich and corporations even more than the dueling bills did. the top personal tax bracket from drop from 39.6% to 37%. huge, huge cuts for corporations are staying in play and would drop from 35% to 21%. now, pass-throughs, businesses which report earnings as normal personal income would drop to just 20%. which is why the gop tax plan remains so unpopular with the general public. the biggest benefits still go to the rich and to businesses, and those are made permanent. in exchange, any gains to the

middle class to the short term will expire in 2027. >> we've got all sorts of analogies that we can use but one of the better ones that i've heard is this is like a teaser rate on a credit card or a mortgage. it feels really good at the beginning, you'll see a small cut, most families will. over time any benefits, generally for those earning less than $75,000 get dialed back and you could see your taxes go up in a few years as a result, but that is not true generally speaking for the rich and certainly not true for any corporations. so i would just like to be honest about what this is. this is a deficit-financed corporate and wealthy people tax cut. >> which might be okay. >> sure. >> just call it what it is. >> call it what it is. >> so if you want to say this is a tax cut and we are betting on trickle-down economics, have at it. there you go. that's what you're creating. but to label this a tax cut, a gift to the middle class, it's not. we probably won't see a score in time, but even if we compared the analysis from the senate

bill side which is pretty close. >> similar, yeah. >> by 2027, 62% of average american families will see their taxes go up. >> this is a middle class tax cut and you said 62% of american families by 2027 would see their taxes go up. how is that a tax cut? >> compare that to the wealthiest 1% of americans. only 10% of them would see their taxes go up. >> 10% of the wealthest 1%. that's -- you know, the top 10% of people in america, a much -- they'll see their taxes go up but not the rest of the wealthy. >> ali has been asking a great question all week. who was asking for this on the campaign trail? >> when were the signs, big rich people tax cuts. >> but i remember, when president trump was during the transition, the night he slipped out of trump tower and had dinner at the 21 club, someone took a video of him. remember, 51 club, one of the most expensive iconic clubs in new york and what did he say in the dining room? i'm going to cut your taxes.

>> this is a one-page sheet of pau paper that acknowledges everything that it is not going to pay for itself. it's going to increase the deficit by anywhere between half a trillion dollars and $2 trillion. republicans will say it's going to stimulate growth so much more people will have jobs, there will be more taxes to be paid and it's all going to be fantastic. so if you're hopeful, this is a good tax bill for you. >> listen, the economy is doing very well. people don't want their taxes lowered. you've got to call this what it is. >> whatever you think about this gop tax plan, there's no debating the costs republicans are willing to incur just to get it passed. the kindest analysis that i was talking about puts the price tag at about a trillion dollars in deficit increase versus what it would have been over ten years. that might be one reason republicans are renewing calls for welfare reform. remember that?

that imposes work requirements on americans who receive public benefits. here's seema verma, the president's administrator at the centers for medicare and medicaid services. listen. >> cms has long bloefd thelieve meaningful work is essential to the economic self sufficiency. self-esteem, well-being and improving their health. why would we not believe the same is true for working age able-bodied medicaid enrollees? >> the problem is critics say that that's just a way to reduce spending by kicking americans off government programs like medicaid. this is being brought up now in the same breath as an expensive tax cut is no accounted a. for facts sake, will mandating work on welfare recipients actually save money? the gop tax plan will blow a trillion dollar hole in the u.s. budget. almost every independent analysis of the tax legislation

says so, but republicans say that much-needed welfare reform will help pay for it. how? in part by mandating work requirements on all able-bodied americans who rely on the government safety net to survive. for starters, only 7% of federal spending goes to programs like food stamps, temporary assistance and medicaid. even so, there isn't much fat to cut out of these programs because most of their recipients already work. take medicaid, for example, which gets more funding than all other support programs combined. it subsidizes health coverage for 74 million low income americans and others who qualify because of a covered disability. researchers at the university of michigan found that close to half of michigan enrollees held jobs in 2016 while another 22% did not because they had qualifying disabilities or were in school or retired. but 28% of michigan enrollees were technically out of work and so should be ripe for a gop work

requirement, except that figure includes a vast majority of beneficiaries with chronic mental or physical health conditions that could prevent them from holding a job and those findings have been replicated in surveys conducted nationwide. the kaiser family foundation identified 14% of all medicaid enrollees nationwide, 10 million, that could be affected by a mandatory work order. and of those 10 million, kaiser said most had legitimate reasons to be out of work. but about 300,000 of them, about 0.4 of 1% of all medicaid recipients could be pushed off of medicaid under a gop work mandate. even the conservative heritage foundation admits work requirements for medicaid wouldn't raise a significant amount of money. look, if republicans want to reform our public assistance, let's have that debate. but to do so on the false premise of saving a buck or, worse, paying for a tax plan that benefits the rich off the backs of the poor, that's just ugly. >> just a little clarity here.

0.4 of 1% of people that receive medicaid are the people who could work. that's what we're talking about, right? that is the poorest of the -- the toughest and the people in the worst circumstances in the country. that's who we're looking at squeezing for that wealthy people and corporate tax cut. i'm not saying we shouldn't reform medicaid and if you want to have -- like i said, if you want to have a medicaid work requirement conversation, great one to have, but that's what we're looking at doing. we're looking at squeezing medicaid recipients to pay for a tax cut for corporations. >> and it's the timing because in that tax plan analysis, it talks about gdp growth and that is based on the assumption that there will be infrastructure spending and welfare reform. so, remember, you are cutting the estate tax, the tax on the richest of the rich people. >> the amt. you're doing all that dinkind o stuff. >> and on the heels saying the most vulnerable who have chronic mental and physical disabilities. >> and those numbers just don't bear out.

there are eight states that are actually already asking the federal government or saying that if they are in a position to impose work requirements, they will do so. arizona, arkansas, indiana, kentucky, maine, new hampshire, utah and wisconsin. they have already submitted requests seeking work requirements for medicaid enrollees. >> and i guess we're assuming that there are job opportunities for these people. >> that's the other thing, yeah. the whole thing is a little weird. meanwhile, the trump administration scored a big victory for its anti-regulation crusade, this time on the internet. in a 3-2 partisan vote, the federal communications commission overturned an obama-era rule regulating the internet like a public utility. the fcc move sparked nationwide protests from supporters of net neutrality. they want internet service providers to treat all traffic equally, utility style, and that the idea is being backed by big players online like google, amazon, netflix. but large internet providers like comcast, the parent company

of nbc news, applauded the fcc decision. they prefer light touch regulation of their business. but critics, more than critics warn they're going to now be free to create fast lanes and slow lanes online and block or slow websites. listen, my children would love light touch parenting. that's not an option. everyone wants that. >> i get it. they don't want the government regulating them more than they feel they can regulate. the issue here to me is not that you're going to pay more for your sbrninternet because you generally will over time. the issue is now innovation. >> especially now that the internet offers you more. >> look at facebook, started in a college dorm. you look at google, you look at all these companies. what if we have the unintended consequence of this is because the companies that are incumbents, the rich companies now will be able to pay for these fast lanes if they are invented, then the new startup, if you and i want to start up the next facebook, we can't because somebody is going to be paying a billion dollars for a fast lane on comcast or on at&t.

we as a new startup won't be able to do that. so all of the innovations that we have come to appreciate and love on the internet, we may freeze it in time. this may be the internet for the next 25 years. some people say relax, that's not going to happen, but we don't know. >> there's an economic case for ending net neutrality. some economists argue that consumers could benefit because these big companies will do so well, but generally speaking, large companies do not pass their profits on to consumers. we also have to -- >> they pass them on to shareholders. >> and making america great, the internet has changed so dramatically in the last few years, for most of us it is now a utility. it wasn't a few years ago. >> and the argument that the internet service providers need this to be profitable, i'll remind you they were profitable, they were profitable before net neutrality came into place in 2013. it's sort of like the tax cut that companies don't need right now. this isn't really the issue. if that's the argument, these

companies are actually profitable. coming up, bitcoin. i can't believe i have to keep on talking about this. but there's also a crazy stock market out there, one you shouldn't ignore. i'm going to talk about what you should do both about about bitcd the stock market. and the high cost of health care. the tension between providing for your family and caring for your children can have major implications for your career and the economy. that's next. we are the tv doctors of america, and we may not know much about medicine, but we know a lot about drama. from scandalous romance,

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welcome back to "velshi & ruhle." america's working families know it to be true. one of the biggest drains to their household budgets is the cost of child care in this country. >> millions of working parents balance the need to work to provide for their families with the cost of safeguarding their children. and for far too many, it's a huge struggle. >> all right, guys. i'm bringing the chicken and then it's bon a pettit.

>> after a hard day's work she savors these precious moments with her children. the single mother of two lives paycheck to paycheck and struggles with the high cost of child care. >> it's insurmountable like how much i have to spend on child care. >> she chooses to work a temporary job as an administrative assistant. it keeps her schedule flexible enough for her 7-year-old daughter, savannah, and 9-year-old son. each week she implies a baby-sitter to cover her gap time, the few hours between when her children get out of school and when she comes home from work. still it can be difficult. >> your children are off from school for an entire week and you have to work. you're talking about hundreds of dollars for one week and i have two children. >> she is not alone. the rising cost of child care is being felt all across the country. according to a new report from child care aware of america, an

advocacy group, the national average cost for child care is nearly $8,700 a year. single parents pay 36% of their income for child care expenses for one child while married couples may 10%. >> child care is an invisible economy that's just so there that you don't even think about it as a critical part of the economy. >> ellen is the president of the families and work institute, a research and policy think tank. for decades, she has studied the impact of child care costs on the workforce. >> businesses say they have gotten involved with the exception of emergency care that you only have a few days a year. have you seen a real shift in corporate america? >> the only benefit that we've seen increase is helping parents pay for child care with their own pretax dollars or dependent care assistance plans. >> at least 50% of companies say they offer some form of help to their workers, whether it's tax-deferred options for employees to pay for child care

or referral services. but only 7% say they actually provide child care options at or near the work site. >> 35. >> 26. >> oh, is that a 2? >> for parents, it's all about changing people's attitudes toward child care needs and finding a reasonable solution that will help families. >> i think that somewhere in congress or in government it would be good for people to take into consideration that parents, you know, are struggling to try to manage work/life balance. >> yeah, they are. last year u.s. businesses lost 4.4 billion from employees calling out to deal with child care. meanwhile, company child care programs can reduce employee turnover by 60%. ali, this is such an important issue. >> sure. >> because we talk about women, why they're not in the workforce, why they don't go back to work. it's not just wanting to stay home and care for your children,

there are scores of women -- >> it's the ability to have a choice. >> -- who simply cannot afford to go back to work. remember we were talking about school programs getting cut. the government was saying there's not evidence that after-school programs are helping kids do well in school. some of them are helping working parents, dropping their kids off early, letting them stay late. there are not jobs that exist from 9:30 in the morning to 2:45. so when we talk about child care, it's about maternity leave and paternity leave. >> it's more sophisticated. >> that's the tip of the iceberg. >> every other developed country in the world does this. it's the same thing as the health care debate. other people have figured this out. it's not just the 60% turnover rate that it avoids. we're at a low unemployment rate in this country. there are women who are simply not part of the workforce because of the decisions that they have to make like you describe because they can't find the ideal job that starts at 9:30 or 10:00 and gets done by 3:00. in a country where we're talking

about goosing economic growth just a little bit so everybody does a bit weathbetter, we need workforce. if you were to do what pretty much every other country does, child care, maternity benefits, paternity benefits, these companies would save money on absenteeism, save money on training people and not having them leave, only 7% of companies offer some kind of actual child care program and we would have more women in the workforce. >> and for families who are on assistance, welfare programs, if they had different options like programs to help you with child care, those mothers and/or fathers could actually go out, get jobs and maybe get off the system. >> you know, the s&p 500, they studied this. if the labor participation rate of women in the united states kept pace with top countries in this area, like norway, for instance, our economy would be 1.6 trillion dollars larger. so there's -- whether you look at it at a macro level, a gdp

level, a corporate profitability level or a family level, better child care is a win for everybody. there's just no downside to it. >> we appreciate your talking about ma ternternity and patern care. but it's not about 12 or 18 weeks, it's 18 years. coming up, another tie-up in the u.s. media, this time between disney and fox. president trump pledged to block the at&t/time warner merger. what do you think he'll say about this one. >> i wonder. and stocks are on a tear while bitcoin is soaring to crazy heights. one of these things i think you should ignore. the other one you really need to look at. i'll tell you about it on the other side. life happens.

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welcome back to "velshi & ruhle." two weeks ago we highlighted how mergers are changing the media landscape. this week we got another reminder of that. disney announced that it struck a deal with 21st century fox to buy its entertainment assets. they include fox's movie

studios, cable channels fx and national geographic and a controlling stake in the hulu streaming service. the deal would make disney an even more dominant player in media with the potential to produce a total of one-third of u.s. movies. disney says it plans to take all of that content and roll out two new digital services in 2019 to compete with netflix and amazon. interesting why? because this is a horizontal merger, the kind of merger that the doj, regulators get concerned about because it could create a monopoly. >> too much control, yeah. >> remember, two weeks ago regulators said they weren't sure if they were comfortable with at&t/time warner, which is a vertical merger which in the past people were okay with because they do two different types of businesses. president trump seems to be okay with fox/disney, not okay with at&t/time warner, home of cnn. noteworthy. >> fox is connected to rupert murdoch who has shown a great deal of support to the trump. the news helped fuel a five-day

string of record closes in the stock market. the dow nearing 25,000. in all the dow has gone up more than 30% since donald trump was elected president more than a year ago. i'm sure you've heard him reminding you of that. >> listen, it's a big win, it's a big positive. in the meantime, bitcoin surged past $17,000 this week up from $6,500 a month earlier. if you are one of those who was lucky or foolhardy enough to speculate on bitcoin's rise or you cashed out or bought goods and serves with it, bravo to you, it's a win. >> bitcoin is very hard to justify as an investment. i see no reason to be able to do that. the stock market is a real investment, but it's gone up a lot. you should look at your 401(k), get your password, log in and find out if you're balanced the right way. nobody ever wants to sell stocks into a market that's going up, but you have to keep your investments in balance. we'll talk more about that in coming weeks but take a look at it. >> that will do it for this week's edition of "velshi &

ruhle." you can see us every day at 1 11:00 a.m. >> have yourselves a great rest of your weekend. >> bye-bye. you need to buy a car

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good day, everyone, i'm alex witt here in new york at msnbc world headquarters where it's 1:00 in the east, 10:00 a.m. out west and here's what's happening right now. calculating the tax cuts. if the final republican bill is such a big win for average taxpayers, why do the majority of americans oppose it? president trump speaking just moments ago about the cuts. we'll bring you his remarks. forbidden words. a new cdc ban on the use of seven words and phrases in documents. why planned parenthood calls the word play reckless and unimaginably dangerous. >> there is absolutely no collusion. i didn't make a phone call to russia. i have nothing to do with