Gerri well, if you watch the show anytime at all ive been warning about this for some time. Now it is taking a step closer to reality. Listen to this. The government wants to raid your retirement account. Thats right. In his new budget to congress, next month, the president will propose a broad range of new tax hikes specifically targeting people who have spent years saving for retirement. Probably like you and me. Ric edelman, from edelman financial will be here in just a second to talk about that. But first, the white house has officially thrown in the towel on deficit reduction. The president s new budget contains more spending and more tax hikes. The center of the president s plan to reduce the deficit, a cut in Social Security benefits, now gone. Here with the latest is heritage foundations romania. Great to have you here. Were talking in the show tonight how the government wants to crack down, have people save less money for retirement. My question was, what do you want to spend that on . Now i understand that the president s budget will be far, far bigger than the last. How big will it be . And what does he wan to spend on . Were looking at several tens of billions in additional spending on education, on manufacturing centers. I mean if youre thinking about it, big government, government knows best and those kinds of programs that the president is trying to put out but this is no surprise. I mean the president has said in 2012 when the deficit was a trillion dollars, that he didnt think we needed to worry about the debt. So this budget just basically shows his priorities for the next year and beyond. Gerri heres what we hear. 56 billion in new spending slated. And i have to tell you, it is same oldsame old. They say they want to spend it on education, i. E. , teachers, important support group for the president. Programs for stimulus spending that didnt happen. How would you grade the ppesident on his spending habits . How effective is we our tax paylor dollars . This president has presided over the largest peacetime deficits in u. S. History. The debt, the public debt, what we borrow in credit markets has doubled during the president s first term in office. So theres a lot of spending. We have this massive stimulus package and this is another budget that tries to double down on that failed stimulus and expand government. So the president wants to increase spending immediately and his successor will have to have, will have to deal with an even bigger mess and clean up a bigger budget mess we already have. Gerri were spending more debt that is absolutely true. You have that right. But i bet there might be new tax increases in this as well. What are you hearing . Absolute certainty. I mean his last budget had about a trillion dollars in tax increases. So it might be around same amount, perhaps it could be even more. I mean the president really wants to double down, especially on retirement accounts. Which is interesting because the president also had this myra proposal. On one hand he wants to encourage Retirement Savings. On the other hand he puts disincentives in place for people on upper end for their retirement. So what is it going to be . Gerri i coin agree with you more. Well bring in ric edelman, Edelman Financial Services to weigh in on this conversation. And ric, i was so excited you were available today to talk about this because when it comes to the Retirement Crisis in this country i believe the last thing we need is the government, the federal government saying, hay you know what . Spend a little less. Save a little less. Invest a little less for your retirement. Thats what we would like to see. What is your view . Youre absolutely right, gerri. You dont strengthen the caboose by weakening engine. It is bizarre point of view and i really dont get it. The notion is we need to be creating incentives for people to save for retirement. Not putting ceilings on them to encourage discourage them from saving. Gerri i know lot of people out there, both of you would say, oh, but, gerri, the rich people, they will save no matter what. It doesnt really matter. To you first, does that logic hold water . I think it does to a certain degree but heres the real problem. If you have rich people without incentives to save, you know what theyre going so do . They will kill Retirement Plans at work which means lower paid workers wont have a Retirement Plan to contribute to at all. That is the concept. Gerri you next. Yeah, another problem is that you will have double taxation. The reason why you dont want to tax savings is that when you have these tax deferred accounts, that money gets taxed at end when people take the money out of 401 k s in retirement. If you tax them now and tax them again later, you have double taxation which discourages savings. We ought to be encouraging savings. Gerri absolutely right. I covered this for, i dont know, how long, 20 years. No one ever said to me, you know, gerri, the problem with this country people save too much money for retirement. Rick, to you as i look at this, what i see is the government saying, you know, really a 1 solution. Really there is is income inequality. Theyre introducing political rhetoric into financial policy. I think that is a big mistake. What do you say, ric . Yeah, its a real problem. We need to keep politics away from personal finances of ordinary everyday americans. If we are going to put limits or restrictions within policy, do it in a simple, easy to understand, palatable way, not confusing and complex the way the president s proposal is. So not only fails on its thesis, it fails on its execution as well. Which weve seen happen in other areas of the Obama Administration. Gerri speaking of execution, you know normally when you say to somebody, i will take away your tax break or raise your taxes and here is what were going to do with it. In this case you would expect them to say, we are going to raise taxes on wealthy people who already save for retirement and give that people to people who are undersaved. That is not what were saying at all. Well use it in the big kitty and use it however i want to use it. Am i correct . Some programs the president wants to boost like head start, his own administration put out a study that it had no real effect on those children t wasnt even helping. It is very expensive federal day care program. We ought not to be wasting money on failed Government Programs any longer. Gerri rick, do you think it would make more sense, and i had people suggest this to me recently, quite a bit in fact, to raise limits on how much people can set aside for saving, instead of bringing it down . I mean that has been the policy for years now, as you say, okay if youre over 55 you can save even more. Every year we seem to raise the limit. 17,500 for most folks you can set aside. Why do we have limits . Why not let people set money aside . Lets face it that money goes back into the economy. Theyre investing through mutual funds in companies all over the country, frankly all over the world . Youre absolutely right, gerri. We have to remember why we left the europe and came to america in the first place. It is because it is the land of opportunity. There is unlimited potential in the United States. You can be anything that you want to be with no restrictions, no ceiling, no limitation. Why on earth would the government want to create programs that put a ceiling on the American Opportunity . Gerri and you . The one ceiling we do need is a debt ceiling but Congress Actually handed the executive a blank check. So while American Families are cutting back to live within their means, the government has eliminated, raised debt limit for entire year. That is real problem. If we have one ceiling it should be on the national debt. Gerri thats a great point. Before you guys go i want to show some number here. Average 401 k balance according to fidelity, 89,000. Center for Retirement Savings, Retirement Research at Boston College says it is far lower, 42,000. Not enough money. We need all the help we can get from the federal government to save more. We dont need barriers. Great job both of you. Thank you. Thank you. Gerri and now we want to know what you think. Heres our question tonight. Are Retirement Plans under assault by greedy politicians . Log on to gerriwillis. Com. Vote on the righthand side of the screen. I will show the results at the end of tonights show. Another example of the crisis in the public pension system, the public pension system. Detroit today filed its plan to dig out of its 18 bell dollars debt. The citys 18 billion debt. The plan which the court must approve before it can get out of the biggest u. S. Bankruptcy in history. Fire and Police Officers take 10 cut. City employees take 34 cut and bondholders would recover only 20 of their money. Kevyn orr rewriting all pension rules. Did sony steal from American Idol contestants . We warned you about the recall of hot pockets with meat described as unfit for human food but are there hidden dangers in the meat . Details coming up. Power consumption in china,. Lipper aver t. Rowe price. Inest with confidence. Quest a prospectus or summary prospectu with investment informion, risks, fees and expenses to read andonsidecarefully befinvesting. With investment informion, risks, fees and expenses so ally bank has a that wothats correct. A rate. Cause im really nervous about getting trapped. Whys that . , mark . Go get help i have my reasons. Look, you dont have to feelrapped with our rai your rate cd. Ifur rate on this cd goes up, yours can too. Oh that sounds nice. Dont feel trapped with the ally raise your rate cd. Ally bank. Your money needs aally. Gerri do do you really know what is in your meat . Nine Million Pounds of beef in hot pockets across the nation. There they are right now. Well the slaughterhouse responsible for food unfit for humans, that is what it is called is being bought out by another meat company. Is there ever a good reason to eat processed meat or have we having a cow over nothing. We have attending physician from Winthrop University hospital. Doctor, thanks for coming on the show. Ive been laughing because weve been laughing about this story but it is not funny. I know people who eat these products all the time. Is it concerning that the folks who produced this thing, that it is changing hand in the middle of what is a huge investigation . I mean absolutely, its a huge concern, gerri. Im so glad we are actually talking about this topic, processed meat, fried foods, saturated fats is huge health concern. There is huge study that came out earlier last year looking at 10 countries, that were thousands of people in the study, 13year followup, red meat, processed meat, particularly saturated fats, all of these result in early cardiovascular deaths. A huge number of cancer are linked to eating red meat. Gerri in this country we find lack of inspection is one of the big props. In fact the Agriculture Department apparently has a shortage of inspectors in meat and poultry plants all over the country. Were hearing reports, that it is not that they dont have the positions open, they do. Theyre just not filling them. At end of the day work is not getting done. Is this concern to you as well . Its a concern. Alsonene of the big problems it is about access, availability and costs. Unfortunately processed meats tend to be much cheaper than organic meats, healthier meats. There is lot of problems with meat. We dont know what is in meats. There are very toxic chemicals that are linked to a number of cancers, breast cancer, prostate cancer. Bowel cancer in particular. Gerri i hear what youre saying but if you make me stop eating my bacon it is over. Here is what the company that is really in the crosshairs of regulators, here is what the ceo of this company had to say. We will not do any previous practiies. Were starting a new operation with new usda license and new protocols from scratch. Theyre promising to do better. But a lot of people are skeptical how this stuff is processed and put together. What is it about processed meat in particular that is so harmful . On this subject, gerri, it words are cheap and all in action and regulation of course. The problem with processed meats, a lot of chemicals are added to meat to result it being processed. Cured meats, smoked meats. Any meats in Plastic Packaging contain a lost salt and chemicals. Gerri theyre preserving it in part, right . Thats right. Essentially the processed meats are processed in order to make the food have a longer shelf life and also potentially to make the food more palatable. These are not high quality meats. We also need to make the not just processed meats. All red meats increasing risk of cancers. Gerri can it be all things in moderation . Absolutely. The study that looked at this, huge study looked at processed red meats, they are advising patients who ate more than 1 off grams a day at great etf risk. gerri how much is that . That essentially equals two sausages and rash of bacon. That is 160 grams of processed meat. Gerri sausage and bacon in one day, that is not nothing. They said you should take 20 grams or less. A rash of bacon will get you 20 grams of processed meats. Anybody more than youre exceeding government guidelines that came out of the study. Gerri so to get down to kind of brass tacks because you talked about the diseases i could ultimately get, right . Sure. Gerri i would over time develop, so what is it that these processed meats do to your body . Well these processed meats contain chemicals called carcinogens. Carcinogens are chemicals that result normal cells changing into cancer cells. We know there are many chemicals like that. Organic meat carries much less of a risk. These chemicals are in processed meat. There is lot of hormones in processed meat as well. Theyre not controlled. Half the time we dont know what is in there. The salt, the resulting in the preservative process, those could also add to cancercausing cells. Its a big problem. It is a big problem. Gerri try to keep my bacon consumption under control. Dr. Phillip stick to broccoli. Gerri so boring. Thank you for coming on tonight. Appreciate your time. Youre welcome. Gerri later in the show, is the left encouraging a nation of slackers . Housing numbers continue to disappoint but is it only weather to blame or is Something Else going on . Is the house of cards about to collapse again. Here we are, me and you on the road and we know that it goes on and on [ female announcer ] youre the boss of your li. In charge of makingemories and keeping promises. Ask your financial professional how lincoln financial can help you take charge of your future. Oh, oh, all the way oh, oh gerri takes another hit. Will bad numbers bring down the rest of the economy . Expert advice for buyers and sellers next. What is this place . Where are we . This is where we bring together the Fastest Internet and the best in entertainment. We call it the x1 entertainment operating system. It looks like the future we must have encountered a temporal vortex. Further analytics are necessary. Beam us up. Thats my phone. Hey. [ female announcer ] the x1 entertainment operating system, only from xfinity. Tv and internet together like never before. Gerri another hurdle for housing today. Of sales of existing homes plunging to their lowest level in 18 months, dropping over 5 month to month so are more serious days ahead for housing or is this just a blip on the radar . Joining us with advice for buyers and sellers is brian from halstead properties. Thank you, brian. This is not pretty. This is not what we led to believe would happen. We thought housing would go through the roof. Here we are at 16 down. How do you explain it . There is no max market. We all know that. Gerri yep. I think this is more of a blip especially in certain regions. What weve seen, there is no inventory out there. Peoples incomes have not increased way we want them to. Gerri no. But housing prices and homes value have. People have more equity to dip into but still hard to get those loans. It is really tough right now. Gerri so there is a lot of headwind. There is. Gerri experts said, gerri, that Winter Weather it just killed the market. We cant get anything sold. That is part of it. Some. Numbers weve seen. These were sales done two months ago. So that is novemberdecember. Christmas shopping and all of that, gets colder. People go inssde but the fact is, certain markets, houston, new york city, im in it every day, through the roof. Gerri really . There is just nothing to buy. Gerri so the prices drift ever higher because there is no inventory . Thats it. It is really, you know, that is what is driving it. Gerri i want to hear from an economist we talked to the other day. All right. Gerri this is fellow is optimistic about the u. S. Economy, American Economy and believes housing will drive it forward. This is jason benerly. Listen to this. Sure. Were optimist for housing for a fundamental reason which is were underbuilding housing. The Adult Population is growing in the u. S. Growing by a million and a quarter per year. There are teardowns in housing that are roughly 300,000 per year. So just to keep up with underlying demand, we need to build housing at about a 1 1 2 million rate and were not. Other len oy building it at half of that rate. Gerri so there is jason and he is saying hey, im so optimistic about this market i think housing alone pretty much is going to propel the u. S. Economy by 4 this year. 4 gdp growth. Do you see that . That is a lot of growth. Look, some ssy the howing market got us into this mess. Gerri yes. And getting us out of it too. Gerri that is big thinking from the government and this is why government always supported housing right. Sure. Gerri once you get people buying housing and theyre buying furniture and rugs, upgrading. Absolutely. Building of homes which we dont have enough of right now. Everyone said we would have this big second wave of foreclosures. Gerri, where were they . Thank god. Still a lot of inventory on bankers books. Weve seen that. But you know we talked about the Housing Starts number.