still with us, larry kudlow, also joining the conversation, democratic state rep josh elliot of connecticut, but, larry, beginning with you. how bleak a situation is it. >> bleak, bleak, bleak as you can get. by the way, the principle cause, i mean, leslie was right about this, rich people, the economy's not growing in connecticut. it's in a recession. whatever estimates you make, like the national economy. >> because people play the state or what? >> people are playing the state. businesses are leaving the state. ge was the tip of the iceberg. most important. no one wants to move back to connecticut. the individual income taxes are high. the property taxes are 49th out of 50th high. the corporate taxes are 45th out of 50th high. there's a cap gains tax on top of the corporate tax. there's an inheritance tax pushing people out of the state. the more they tax, the slower it gets. timely, here's the irony of ironies. back in the early '90s, a republican governor, then independent, i don't know if he ever got to be a democrat, passed the first state income tax, that was low. the state went nut

larry kudlow reacts next. millennials want to buy homes, but they are not saving for down payments for typical houses. is that a red flag for the real estate market? that's still to come on "closing bell." you're watching cnbc, first in business worldwide. what happened? dad kinda walked into my swing. huh? don't you mean dad kind of ruined our hawaii fund? i thud go to the thothpital. there goes the airfair. i don't think health insurance will cover all... of that. buth my fathe! without that cash from - aflac! - we might have to choose between hawaii or your face. hawaii! what? haha...hawaii! you might have less coverage than you think. visit aflac.com and keep your lifestyle healthy. aflac! we cut the price of trades to give investors even more value. and at $4.95, you can trade with a clear advantage. fidelity, where smarter investors will always be. and at $4.95, you can trade with a clear advantage. did you know slow internet can actually hold your business back? say goodbye to slow downloads, slow backu

larry kudlow, good to see you. >> really, it was never about him.tory might have been paragraph 16, that said it was not about him. i mean, it was about maniford, flynn, and so forth, sure. it was never about him. i heard a conversation, you take it for what it's worth, that comey spoke a few days ago to senator feinstein and senator grassley, i believe, judicial committee people, and said trump was not under investigation. >> so were you surprised how derail it's become? he decides to fire a director who, clearly, the republicans were not big fans of, clearly, the democrats were not fans of, ten it's turned into a -- consumed all the oxygen in washington. >> it has for a few days. it has. republicans have have a lesson on firing, but a lot ask questions about timing. you know, those are good questions. >> mccain with the methane thing this week, basically, this was -- part of obama's legislation that should have been rolled back according to the republican agenda, and mccaine, himself, says, no, not voting with them, blocked it from happening, citi

let's bring in two people who have been inside the white house, cnbc contributors larry kudlow and sara. do you think when it comes to tax reform, corporate tax reform, health care, this outrange even among mccain and key republic ans will derail? >> mccain support the firing. mccain and lindsey. >> even the methods of the firing? >> i'm just going to mccain's statement. >> i've been up since 3:00. i apologize. >> there are issues. look, i think no. this is a political matter. it's not a market mat thor. does it become a policy matter? it at the very tips of the margins, brian, it could be. it could be. i think, frankly, paul ryan's statement yesterday, the day before that everybody was pushing back health care a month or two, that the senate was going to consider health care more than people initially thought. frankly i think that's more significant than the comey firing. my guess is the president will appoint, you know, consensus choice to be fbi director and those investigations will go on. >> connect the dots between comey and, say, tax reform. there's a lot of arguing, a lot of ang

cnbc contributor larry kudlow, chief economist at moody's analytics.ark, let me start by asking you that simple question. it would seem to me that one of the things president trump has done so far is create a spirit of optimism in the business community. to the extent that the chief salesman of his policies may be compromised or sidelined, does that affect that level of confidence in the ability to get things done? >> well, i would put a finer point on it. i think he's cheered stock investors because he's talked about lower corporate tax rates, he's talked about less regulation. >> he has business executives, too. the level is higher. >> well, i'm not sure. business executives are happy yerp when they see their stock price higher. it's most ly stock investors ar encouraged by what they have heard to date but the odds of getting substantive tax reform, the odds of getting substantive deregulation, the odds of more m&a ak it tift, all that have is much reduced given what's going on in washington and all the other things that are going on. i think investo

. >> let's bring in healthcare panelist, kevin, john goodman, and on set, larry kudlow.and explain to people that's not the vote for obamacare, it is a double negative. it's a vote that exclude the provision to exclude commerce from having to use all of the provisions of the new healthcare law. in other words it gives congress the ability to pick and chose for him or herself which provisions of the healthcare that they would like to have. because obamacare forced them to buy on the individual marketplaces. a self-serving vote by congress right now, that's that, the healthcare vote will be after this. >> allow them to vote on a new bill. >> does that make sense, bottom line kevin does this pass healthcare repeal? >> well you know, i think there are three key challenges to this legislation. number one is that it has been scored by the co oh, so we doesn't know how much it's going to cost on what the impact of the uninsured is going to be yet. it'll probably have an effect on the uninsured. the second is that we really don't think anybody can say what the impact on preexist

. >> larry kudlow were sitting here, he'd say something like corporate profits are the mother's -- >> he's also say stocks. there's a lot of things we can strikewhileitshot trot out, but they're not reality. >> giving you the data. no, you're giving me data that's managed to include. >> who's managing it? >> i'm giving you data from the london school of business. >> josh, josh, you got to listen. very carefully. numbers can tell you anything you want them to tell you. i tell you look at cycles. >> the only numbers that exist. gdp versus stock. >> somebody help me. >> there's not another set of numbers. >> this is a difference betwe between -- and practical knowledge. you've got to look at cycles. how the economic data. >> we don't disagree on that. you're making a different argument. you're shifting what i'm saying. i'm not deny iing that for economic cycles. >> stock market cycles a dove tail economic. >> there's no disagreement. the question is do investors require greater than 2 or 3% growth in order to make money and the answer is no and this does not negate the fact there are cyc

joining us is larry kudlow. layrry, great to see you this afternoon. the reflation trade has not been on. the dollar is moving in the opposite direction. >> core inflation has come down. i don't think it's a big problem. having said that i love the budget put out by mulvaney. your tax cuts are in there. 3% economic growth so there's some on there. and what he said yesterday, this is a wonderful way to portray this. the measure of success is not how much cash or government or welfare assisted it's how many people we put back to work. that's why it's an economic growth bucket and they'll try to redo the bill clinton welfare reform which had been decimated in the last 10 or 15 years and they're spot on to do that. spot on. >> layrry, are there enough people out there to be put back to work, to close the gap, a big gap between economist forecast for growth and what the administration seems very competent of doing over 3% growth. >> well, look, you've heard me say that, those numbers, how many people are out there is very hard to estimate. edded $15 million

larry kudlow's here to weigh in after this, and later, hottest area in the increasingly competitive single renting single family houses is heating up. we'll be right back. stay with me, mr. parker. when a critical patient is far from the hospital, the hospital must come to the patient. stay with me, mr. parker. the at&t network is helping first responders connect with medical teams in near real time... stay with me, mr. parker. ...saving time when it matters most. stay with me, mrs. parker. that's the power of and. >>> historic day on wall street, how's that? >> a record, i think. >> that's not the story, the s&p up to a new high at 2399. the nasdaq up 25 to a new high of 6100, and the russell 2000 up eight points today. larry is here to talk taxes and how the process works, lei, but first incite on how this health care bill gets through the senate, how quickly? >> thank you. it's important. you can see senator mcconnell, the leader, he's going to truncate the process. if this bill passed, i thought it would be jammed through the senate, but i think the speed will be there. they are going

. >> cnbc larry kudlow is here on the set. >> they never ask me what's up with that. >> 43 people who's names you would know if we were at liberty to release them. steve thank you so much. >> didn't ask any of my friends either. come on. well we're talking about tax cuts, if you get the corporate tax cut over point gdp, i don't know it may start next year or the year after. you're already seeing, i know it's soft data, but business confidence has been rising and so forth, small business confidence has been rising. you're going to give a massive reduction in the corporate tax rate. you're going to give in sent t.v.s to bring the number back home and allow for me the expense for new business equipment, that goes to the weakness in the economy which is capital stock. >> we had -- donald trump's plan for taxes based on kansas and their taxi revenue has known gone up but have gone down a lot. tax cuts did not lead to more tax revenue at least not yet. >> or growth. >> or growth. >> look, i don't know anything about kansas, i can't argue in the basis of kansas. i can argue this on the basis o

think of larry kudlow.esy to think about weakening the dollar to export more and then you're thinking about if we do tariffs or any type of protectionism that it comes back to haunt us because it's reciprocated by other places as well. these are all things that need to be explained in a way that makes it more palatable. >> sure. you mentioned the concept of reciprocity, and that frankly is one of the things that's missing from trade regimes. we're not in a reciprocal mode at all right now. take orders. we only have a 2 1/2% tariff on autos. the eu has a 10% tariffs on autos. how do we get them to drop their 10% tariffs to get rid of our 2.5%? we go we don't have much to try to agree gree prchl instead of worrying about reciprocity for certainly we do now, maybe we need to -- the status quo already is not balanced properly. and i'm not surprised because when you're the biggest and wealthiest kid on the block, i guess, our going it almost like our largess being can be taken of from time to time. >> i think fo

i want to put on the screen set by ted cruz who sat on larry kudlow these things.s of failure at the catastrophic. they are willing to sit down in good faith. senator cruz is a prominent name, but not known for pulling the caucus together. it's important someone like him is stepping up right away. >> he is right. that's exactly what republicans have done. this is a disastrous plane and it is. dave this insurance. for insurers leaving people with no option at all. it's been a failure. the question as to what the gop put in place? this is something i just don't hear anybody saying. the republicans need to start being honest with the american people insane if you want coverage that includes preexisting conditions and doesn't have lifetime benefits, this is not going to be cheaper. we will not promise you cheaper health care. we've got to look at health care differently than we have. they look at nsa right. the truth is we have come to the place in a culture where we look at health insurance and access to it affordably in the same way we look at access to roads, bridge