the only real option for change that these kids have? hi everybody. welcome to "forbes on fox." let's go in focus with steve forbes. rich and elizabeth, bruce jackson, rick unger and john. so steve, this is the only hope a lot of these kids have. >> absolutely, david. that's why parents are so adaamant about it. they want them to have a ticket for the future. i'm here in chicago, out here the mayor is in favor, rahm emanuel, so kids in chicago, 13% than in new york which is 6 or 7%. out here the mayor knows they are a ticket to the future. he is a great fan of them. so the more charter schools the better. and at least one mayor out here gets it even if de blasio in new york does not. >> bruce, the reason, let's be clear about it, the reasons that the unions hate these schools is because they don't have to hire union teachers. >> well, that's part of it. i'm out in denver for health care conference, but one of the things going on in chicago where i live is that they closed 50 schools and the mayor does get some credit for opening charter schools, but he's only opened a handful and the unions in a lot of people, the taxpayers are asking questions saying you know, who is owning these schools? are you just doing it for cheaper labor? so the unions are right to ask some questions here about the motives on why the charter schools are being opened in the first place. and also who is owning them? are they -- who is owning these schools? >> they are public schools owned by taxpayers, the fact is there's a lot of questions who is behind the anti-charter school movement. and in fact we know who is behind it in some cases. remember acorn, they are back. acorn with a new name called the new york communities for change, is one of those organizations getting a lot of money, millions of dollars from teacher unions to fight the charter schools. >> acorn has been accused of all kinds of activities. >> they get a 501 c 4 no problem. >> full disclosure my niece works for a charter school. have i public teachers in my family too. sisters and grandmother in the public school system. who is backing them? people who want change. people who want taxpayers to stop being abused by public service sector unions like the teacher union who have no accountability. i'll tell you the teachers in my family had routinely said that the name of the game if you are a public school teacher is get your vacation days paid for if you don't take them. your holiday days paid for if you don't take them. it's about accountability. charter schools work, stanford university analyzed it. poor families love charter schools. even the poor families saying if the charter school shuts down we don't want our kids in unsafe public schools. >> that's the point is that the poor folks that take advantage of charter schools often have no choice. this is the only choice they have for good education. >> this is a very hard one for me to argue against because i'm a very big fan of the charter schools, i'm going to acknowledge that. so maybe i can inform instead. what you've got going on here is a battle within the democratic another. you've got the teachers unions terrified they are going to lose membership and people like the president and the secretary of education arnie duncan who very much support charter schools and to speak to bruce's point i have to say, i don't care who is running them. some are for profit. the bottom line is when you look at the performance numbers the charter schools, the kids are doing better. >> and rich, the fact is the parents want them. who should be in charge of kids' education? the teachers union or the parents? i think it's the parents and so do they. >> well, the parents overwhelmingly want them. i'm so glad that rick pointed out this physicalure in the democratic party. you have people on the right side of this like rahm emanuel, governor cuomo in new york and then you have people like de blasio and part of the reason his polls are plummeting he is on the wrong side of this. how could you be against parents wanting their kids to get out of the cycle of poverty by getting a real education. >> and john, we should mention by the way, we mentioned there is this connection with the old acorn people, and the teachers union, the teachers union funding acorn, acorn putting de blasio in office. and remember, president obama was very close to acorn. it was his administration funneling money towards them. >> yeah, i mean, i may not like it, i can see why teachers are defending their turf. how ever wrong it may be. my only problem with this discussion is that too often all of the criticism is on teachers and teachers unions, and not nearly enough on disinterested parents and kids who show up to school not caring about what they are going to learn. i don't care what teachers you get, i don't care about the reforms, if kids don't care when they show up, schools will perform poorly. >> the point, the point is that the parents who put their kids in charter school care tremendously. they have to go out in the street and fight for the right to put their kids in charter schools, that does show caring. right? >> yeah. it certainly does. >> hold on. >> steve, go ahead. >> it does indeed. here in chicago there is a waiting line to get in these schools and the legislature springfield is fighting to try to stop the charters the mayor did close 54 performing schools because they weren't working. he's not going to have kids go to school that is going to trash their future. he would love more. i visited one of them and they have done the noble schools, done a fantastic job in the high school level. and then the record is clear. they perform. and parents more and more parents want their kids to go to these because this is the ticket for the future. >> bruce, shouldn't the parents be in charge? >> well, i certainly i think the parents are getting in charge. in chicago and other places it's not the process is not working well in the sense that if you are closing 50 schools at once and had a load of kids that had to go to different schools, they are certainly not putting a charter school back in all of these neighborhoods and also you know, how do people get in? chicago public school system has a load of issues, full disclosure my daughter doesn't go to a public school. but you don't know what you're going to get. >> wait a second. come on. >> the lottery to get in. >> bruce -- >> you cannot go to the school in your neighborhood. >> bruce, you are overstating, and i think erroneously, i think you're terrific, smart, but when i talk to people in the charter schools and in public schools it's on a lottery system. and steve's right. parents are lining up to win the winning number to get their kid in the charter school. it's only one out of ten schools are in these charter schools. why not expand. you're talking negatively. i say grow the charter schools. >> let's talk more positive and rick, this gets to your point about the battle in the democratic party between those who favor and don't charter schools. there was a huge win for charter schools this week on thursday night the governor of the state of new york, democrat -- almost said mario cuomo, his son andy cuomo the governor gave the charter schools -- it cass a kick in the pants to bill de blasio. >> it was. yes. and let's hear it for our governor, our democratic governor for doing it. he was right. i want to, i think hell's freezing over. i'm going to second something that john said. he pointed out that if a student doesn't arrive at school ready to learn, and that falls to the parents, they won't learn. charter schools are doing a better job. steve -- >> complete me get back to this. there was a movie called won't back down out of hollywood, a pro charter school movie. but it did have a big hollywood cast. it shows that you can fight and you can win. this is based on a true story. that's what's happened in new york. >> that's right. and i think de blasio is going to be defeated on this. one of the things, too, in terms educating kids if they don't go to a school that has the right environment and we talked to some of these kids, contrast what they had before and in some of these charter schools, day and night. it changed them. so you got to have the right environment and kids change, it brings in parents in a way they had not been before. so has a real good ripple effect. >> last word from the boss. thanks, gang. remember this? >> for the 375,000 people who visited the site by noon today i think that they didn't need an advertising campaign to visit. >> so obamacare sells itself, right? then maybe somebody should return the $700 million that they are going to spend to sell it. mine was earned in korea in 1953. afghanistan, in 2009. orbiting the moon in 1971. 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>> it is real money. rick might quibble with the number, this is not administration known for coming in under budget. this is a problem when government gets into business and commercial industry. there are advertising fees, there are also legal fees, all sorts of things that go in running a business. the problem is they don't have money of their own so they take it from the taxpayers. and i don't have retribution. if i get a product that i don't like or i think there has been false advertising in the private marketplace i can go to the better business bureau, i can have a claim against the company. i don't have that power with the government. >> and bruce, to the point, it's easy to spend other people's money. if you want to -- if you get that much money from the taxpayer, you can sell ice to eskimos, right? >> apparently not. >> on this money being spent, think of it as a return on your investment. people are going to get a physician, get outpatient care, stay out of the expense of hospitals. this is not a new thing when the republicans were creating health care entitlements in massachusetts with romney care and the bush medicare drug benefit they did this as well. the government spent money to get seniors signed up for the drug benefits. and that has been a wonderful program for seniors. >> it wasn't anywhere close, mike, let's face it. it wasn't close to what we're seeing. this is a national plan that is the involving so many billions of dollars. by the way, the costs continue to go up. remember, the first it was going to be what, $900 billion. now the cbo says it's $1.8 trillion. it's doubled the estimate of how much this is going to cost. >> obamacare should be scrapped. limits choice, and its costs are much more than before. so it's raising costs and limiting choice. we should not have this legislation at all. it's absolutely horrendous. >> and steve, i mean, is there any amount of lipstick that will cover this pig? the fact it's $700 million is a lot of money but i'm wondering if all of the faults of obamacare will percent veer and do more to damage the product than the advertising to help it. >> yeah, david, it's worse than butting lipstick on the pig. this is trying to make the pig miss america. it's not going to work. the fact of the matter is it's a rotten product, dysfunctional and cheating young people. they can get good insurance in a free market far cheaper. we need effective safety nets instead of a government run junk system. >> rick. >> i got to say it. you know, while i'm sick and tired of the politics from my side and yours, on all of this, five years from today you're going to see that this bill, this law changed things to the better and that whatever we're spending and marketing it will have again the great thing. sabrina, i got to say to you, i'll agree that this administration can go over budget. can you point out any administration that hasn't? >> that's a problem with government, though. look, this is -- we're not calculating what it's costing to the private marketplace. my husband has his own business, he has a small advertising budget. and more of our money is going to the government so they can run their business. it's an issue of fairness. >> rich, it's not pundits like us or advertisers that's going to make the deal. it's people whose lives like sabrina's husband's business are put on the line because of this. >> yeah, and paralyzing the whole economy. i agree that five years from now things will be better. it's because obamacare is going to blow up and pave the way for a free market system. probably a good thing. >> creative destruction. coming up next, homeowners beware. a new epa proposal may give government regulators the power to grab your land. >> this land is your land this land is my land ♪ ♪ from california to the new york highland ♪ ♪ from the red wood forest [ chilen yelling ] [ telephone rings ] [ shirley ] edwa jones. this is shirley eaking. how may i help you? 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[ male announcer ] with nearly 7 million investors... [ shirle] he's right here. hold on one sec. [ malennouncer ] ...you'd expect us to have a highly skilled call center. kevin, neill holley's on line one. ok, great. [ male announcer ] and we do. it's how edward jones makes sense of investing. ♪ but with so much health care noise, i didn't always watch out for myself. with unitedhealthcare, i get personalized information and rewards for addressing my health risks. but she's still gonna give me a heart attack. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. way. is it time to say bye-bye to the epa. the maker of candy crush getting crushed the epa making themselves at home in your home. the agency proposing a new rule to save wetlands. some call it one of the biggest government land grabs in history. john, you say this is more reason we should abolish the e p, a. >> we should abolish the epa precisely because we want to help the environment. the epa is a barrier to economic growth, yet economic growth has been proven time after time is the best way to fix the environment so. abolish it and help it. >> rick, abolish the epa? >> i don't think so. i got to tell you, this is so dramatic i actually sat down and read the regulation that is being proposed. fascinating reading. look. you guys are overstating this. there has to absignificant nexus between whatever would be on the private land feeding into the public waters. the chances of that happening with your swimming pool or your pond are virtually none. >> you know, it's not just us. david vitters, senator -- in fact it is a big land grab. it's true tepa often goes beyond, it even requires dairy farmers to prepare themselves for what is it called, milk catastrophes. >> i like how they send s.w.a.t. teams into milk farms. if i crack a rotten egg is it going to show up. kidding. i kind of agree with rick unger, this is clearing up rules about water pollution. i don't want big corporations polluting the streams and rivers. >> mike, these are the -- the epa has such power. these are the geniuses that promoted that guy john beale who turned out to be a fake and he's now serving time in prison. he was a big shot at the epa. >> what this regulation is about the supreme court has overturned over the past several years, two big rulings by the sixth circuit court. the court wanted to rule that waterways didn't have to be navigatable. the supreme court said no, you're wrong. this is about expanding that so the epa has more power. >> should we abolish it? >> we should, david. and the agricultural department in fact is trying to get the head of the epa to pay visits to farms which she is finally starting to talk to farmers and recognize irrigation ditch is not the mississippi river. the fact of the matter is we have wetland regulations, which have been abused against property owners by the army corps of engineers. property rights over government rights. >> five seconds quickly. >> this is a problem of process, democrats fail to get any meaningful environmental legislation through so they push it through the epa, the clean air act, it happens time and again. >> good stuff. thank you very much. from big name companies to just released prisoners, why they may be proving america's officially in an entitlement nation. first, after the hype, the crush, the maker of candy crush going public but the stock went sour. the hot names that will sweeten your profits coming up. we asked people a question, how much money do you think you'll need when you retire? then we gave each person a ribbon to show how many years that amount might last. i was trying to, like, pull it a little further. [ woman ] got me to 70 years old. i'm going have to rethink this thing. it's hard to imagin how much we'll need for a retirement that could last 3years or mor so maybe we need to approach things dferently, if we want to be ready for a longer retirement. ♪ visit truecar.comoney,com,t and never overpay.yer's remorse. a good deal or not. "okay, this is the price,"sman comes and you're like.ells you, you have a basket of crush stuff. >> wall street analysts like this health etf. >> you like it? >> i think taking advantage of gm. >> worried about the balance sheet. >> wonderful stuff. that's it. have a great weekend. here comes eric bolling and "cashin' in." the united states of america or the united states of entitlement from her -- >> everybody in cleveland got obama phone. >> to him. >> tax dollars. >> to them. prisoners getting free phones from the feds on your dime and it doesn't stop there. big corporations now depending on food stamps for the bottom line. we report, you decide. plus, it's obamacare versus is the free market and our liberty hangs in the balance. the supreme court slamming the gavel on companies opposed to obamacare for religious reasons suggesting they stop whine and start paying up if they don't like