Medicare services. And with American Enterprise institute. Great to have you back on the show, scott. Thanks for having me. What is the premise of this case . What is being decided . The issue whether the law means what it says. Right now the law says the subsidies can only flow to health plans sold in exchanges established by states. Most of the states didnt establish their own exchanges. The exchanges are actually established by the federal government. If you read the plain language of the law you believe subsidies cant go to the health plan. The administration is saying that it can. Many people arguing, proponents of obamacare are arguing it was drafting mistake and congress didnt intend to write the law this way but there is good reason to believe they did intend to do this. Gerri i want to show folks the actual language of the law established by under section 1311. Take a look at that. That is how obamacare as a law reads. Are we picking a 19 here . Is this something that matters when it gets to legal decisions . A nit. Congress intended for subsidies to flow to states with exchanges because they wanted governors to establish their own exchanges. They lured subsidies as lure for governors to establish exchanges. The only way to get subsidies to your constituents was to have a exchange they believe they would do that. It does matter. You cant write your own law. Congress wrote something and administration need to follow the law. Gerri i just following your logic hire. I wanted to show people how much money were talking about. So the subsidies, 11 billion this year. One trillion over the decade. Were talking about a ton of dough here. From what you say this could make a big difference. Could this be a death blow for the law . Well, probably not. I mean there is already talk among proponents of obamacare about things they can do through regulation to try to subvert any court rueing. The administration already came out and said they wouldnt respect any ruling from this court. They would appeal it and probably wouldnt respect a ruling short of a Supreme Court ruling which would be many years off. So they have issued what is called a 2j whatever the court rules here it is only applicable to the people involved in this litigation and not the public at large. Gerri wow. Thats pretty darn technical. You know the inside and out. I want to show people how many of exchanges might be at risk here. I think there is Something Like 36 federal exchanges. We have a map of this. I wanted to ask you, you had hobby lobby the other week which seemed to be a problem for obamacare, kind of a black eye for the law. If this were to go against for the administration as well what would be overall impact on the law . Well look, i think people are being impacted by obamacare and finding how intrusive it is. I think you will see more litigation from affected parties. Up until last year people were not fully affected by the law it was not fully i am presented. Now that it is fully simply minted people are coming forward and negatively affected and starting to sue the administration for different aspects. This is probably not the last of litigation that will encumber this legislation. Gerri is there anything big coming up soon . This is the biggest case. Something coming down next week is biggest near term case. I dont think in the near term it will affect the administration of law but certainly another black eye for the administration if they lose this case. Gerri we appreciate you coming on, steve. Thank you so much. Have a great weekend you. Too. Gerri for most americans the employee sponsored 401 k account is truly, it is essential to your retirement but is the popular plan providing a false sense of security . Is it truly helping people save for their golden years . Here to discuss that issue is the chief economist for the Investment Company institute, brian reed and hello lane olin. Author of pound foolish. Exposing the dark side of the personal finance industry, a book i have read by the way. Welcome to you both. Great to have you hire. Brian, i will start with you. Are 401 k s worth it . Absolutely. They are an important essential part of u. S. Retirement system. Think of then as a part of that. But if you look at 401 k s and add in iras, they have to be added in because people leave a job they will put it, move their four oy one k into ira, taken all that money together we have 12 1 2 trillion dollars sitting in these type of Retirement Assets plus another 10 1 2 sitting in additional Pension Plans for 23 trillion. Gerri that is the number we have, 23 trillion. Do awe guy we with that, and what is your criticism of 401 k s . It is sound like a lot of money but it is not enough. The middle class doesnt benefit the them. It is started as way of high earning executives to divert portion of their salary. No one intended to be part of retirement. As a result most of us have less than 10,000dollars saved. Gerri do you agree, brian. Look at totality. You cant just look at 401 k s, iras or just pensions. You have to look at all of it. If you look at 23 trillion and adjust for inflation and population growth we have six times more than every family in the United States has six times more than saved for retirement now than in 1975. Gerri let me ask you about that. What im wondering is that because were getting older and these are primary savings years . Is this because weve seen a bull market . What is the reason behind that . It is combination. Weve been working in country for nearly half century to improve retirement security. We have elderly poverty rates at lowest point they have been in 50 years. Used to be 30 of the elderly people were in poverty in the United States in the 1960s. Were down to less than 10 now. All of these features, including 401 k are contributing factors and important components to it. Gerri brian makes a lot of good points, helene. What would you say. First of all, Social Security is keeping elderly people out of poverty. Without Social Security over 50 of the elderly would not knob poverty right now of the second thing is, most of the benefits from those programs go to people at top end of earnings spectrum. So people at lower end simply are not getting enough money. Gerri why is that . They cant afford to save. For the past 30 years, incomes stagnated as cost of things like Housing Education and health care, the things i like to say you cant live without have gone up. Theyre more immediate need become more pressing than their long term needs. Gerri answer that specific question. What she is saying makes some sense. People at bottom of the income scale dont have enough money to set aside in 401 k s. It may be offered to them but cant use them. What do they say . Looking at data from Consumer FinanceFederal Reserve publish, people nearing retirement 80 have retirement accumulation. That sun changed since 199. If you look other research being done by academics on this, at set aside in some kind of retirement, either a pension or 401 k actually has been growing over last 15 years. So the average amount is about 300,000. For those near retirees. Gerri near retirees. Now you guys disagree on what the average, on balance, right amount of money to talk about when we say how much money do people have saved on average, median. The average number, 63,929. Brian you like this number. You say, hey, that is about what people have. Helene, you say median account balance is 17,630. Very different numbers. Why are they so different . Helene, i will start with you . Depends how youre counting people. Gerri right. Part of this are you only counting 401 k s or counting other assets . With housing people do have more assets but interesting you use 1989 as a year. In 1989, only 20 of the people in retirement were still paying mortgages on their houses which give them huge asset towards retirement. Today it is 40 and growing rapidly. So for instance, for genxers the number is expected to be higher with result according to Pew Charitable trusts and the Boston Center on retirement more genxers than not will not be able to maintain anything nearly standard of living in retirement. Gerri brian, last word here. Again all of this has to be taken into context. We have as many people who own their homes now as we had in 1989. Housing is very important. There are 20 trilliondollars of housing sweat available for retirement when people get there. So again, looking at just the 401 k is saying, can everybody live on just one piece of it . No, were not saying that. It is part of a overall complex retirement system. Gerri did the policy fail though . I think that is the question . Is it going to work . Will it keep americans, financially secure in retirement . Absolutely. Were building as people, begin to move away from traditional Pension Plans, the research that is being done out there showing dollar for dollar on average for every dollar lost were getting more than a dollar in Retirement Assets in 401 k or ira. That is the part of the progress. Gerri big debate. I have to tell you. People on both side with firmlyheld views. We really appreciate two of you coming on to debate it for us. Thank you so much. Have a great weekend. Byebye. Gerri we want to know what you think. Here is our question tonight. Are 401 k s a sham . Log on to gerriwillis. Com. Vote on the righthand side of the korean. I will screen. I will show the results at the end of tonights show. Your voice is important to us. During the show we want you to facebook me, tweet me, gerriwillisfbn. At the bottom of the hour i will read your comments. The Highway Trust Fund is driving closer toward the bankruptcy clip. What the Obama Administration might do to fix the fund that may end up throwing taxpayers over the cliff. Stay with us. Gerri the Obama Administration is driving americans off a cliff. That is according to our next guest who says the governments plan to save the Highway Trust Fund will only wind up blowing taxpayer dollars out the window. Here with details, steve malanga, senior fellow, man hat taken institute, author of the book, shakedown, the continuing conspiracy against the american taxpayer. We feel your pain, steve. Welcome back to the show. Good to have you here. The transportation secretary anthony fox says if there is not more money put into the Highway Trust Fund, america will get this, a slower, less safer nation, true . No. Another threat from the Obama Administration will fall apart if we dont raise taxes more which is what democrats want to do with this. Essentially what is happening, you have this trust fund that is financed by gas taxes. Gas taxes have not been going up or increasing. Gas prices have. Yes. That is the thing. But they want to increase the gas tax on americans. But see heres the thing. Were spending more and more money in the Transportation Trust fund not on highways and bridges. Weve been spending on all gnat forms of transportations including things lie bike paths, lanes. Gerri flowers, bushes. And on mass transit systems that are not really effective like light rail. So now theyre telling us we need more money and have to raise taxes. They could be reforming the system and saving a lot of money about they want. Gerri you make a really good point here. Because as i understand it, the government is providing a quarter of the nations funding. States. Gerri not doing whole thing. Not any means. Gerri this is not on our backs. Because it is not. They force states because states want some of this money, they force states to do things their way including complying with things like davis bacon act which is law requires all these Construction Projects you have to pay union wages. That raises the price by about 10 . Gerri by 10 . That is 5 billion were talking about just in federal money, an additional 5 billion. You get the money without raising taxes if you just didnt have this requirement. Gerri okay. Heres the full screen that Everybody Needs to see, okay . Highway trust fund. Take a look at this. The money goes in, 35 billion in a year, okay . How much money goes out . 50 billion what way is that balanced . No they have been subsidizing with the general fund, the nations general fund. Nobody wants to do that anymore. Thats why they want to raise taxes. Democrats want to raise taxes. Republicans have their even gimmick. Gerri i think you better tell us about the republican gimmick here. The republicans rather than reforming it which is what they really should be talking about they essentially want to do pension gimmick if we havent seen enough of those. The pension gimmick is this, next year they tell private Sector Companies you dont have to put as much money into your pension fund as we normally require. That will raise the profits of private Sector Companies which will also raise the taxes they will have to pay. That is where the money will miraculously come from. A total gimmick. Gerri im shocked. That just sound like a bad idea. It is terrible idea. Of course it is a fiscal gimmick that doesnt solve anything. Gerri nobody is suggesting that anything is workable . Democrats are suggesting something workable, raise your taxes. Republicans dont want to raise taxes, so it is a gimmick. Nobody wants to reform the system, lets, lets focus the money where it needs to be. This Highway Trust Fund was created by president eisenhower to assure that the money from gasoline taxes would go to highways and bridges. Gerri so what do we do . You go after the projects that need help most, is that what youre saying . What im saying is this. You eliminate projects like alternate 800 million on things like bike paths. You eliminate mass transit projects in places where it doesnt make any, hasnt had any impact. Gerri high speed trains across california. Light rails is another one, right . That is 8 billion a year. You focus the money first of all on highways and bridges. Gerri i dont think anybody disagrees there is problem with the highways and bridges. The problem, how do you solve it. What do you do with it . Raise our taxes. Democratic proposal to raise taxes is huge increase. If you look as percentage it is very big number. Again as is typical in washington, there is a problem and yet nobody is talking about reform. Nobody is talking about sensibly spending money where it needs to be spent first before we do anything else. Gerri sensibly spending money. Washington. Two very separate things. Steve, thanks for coming on. Have a great weekend. Take care. You too. Gerri well, we talked about craft beer. The sales are booming. Next brooklyn brewery is here to share their most popular brews. Now if only legal would let me taste them. If you remember the professor, ginger and mary ann stay tuned. Why some folks are interested in taking a threehour tour with this man. Steve colgate. Has anybody seen gilligan . My mother made the best toffee in the world. Its delicious. So now weve turned her toffee into a business. My goal was to take an idea and make it happen. Im janet long and i formed my Toffee Company through legalzoom. I never really thought i would make money doing what i love. We created legalzoom to he people start their business and launch their dreams. Go to legalzoom. Com today and make your business dream a reality. At legalzoom. Com we put the law on your side. Gerri welcome back to the willis report. The nations beer business is booming. Has some work over here. You can probably hear that. It is all thanks to craft beer which is becoming the frothiest segment in the beer market today. Were exploring one of the nations top craft breweries with steve hindi. He built the brooklyn brewery from the ground up. And president and wrote a book. Author of craft beer revolution and how microbreweries transforming the nations drink. Great to be here, gerri. Gerri is craft beer so popular . I believe i know the answer to that question. What do you think . Like a lot of categories people are looking for more from their beer than they used to. Gerri it tastes better. A lot of great flavor, different styles. Seasonal beers and, innovative, creative vergings of beer. Gerri so tell us how big brooklyn brewery is now in terms of sales . I started brooklyn brewery in 1988. It has been6 years. Well do about 26 years. We do 60 million this year. We sell half in the United States. We export to about 20 countries around the world. Gerri im looking at all this beautiful beer. Let me tell you there is all kinds of special stuff here. Wonderful things. But i cant drink a bit of it because legal tells me that im not allowed to do it on a tv. So youre just going to have to pretend. I will smell it. What is that . This is a wheat beer that we do with rownyc. The company that does green markets, the farmer markets in new york city. This is made with grain that was grown in up state new york. It is a truly local beer. Gerri its a local beer. What else do you have here . I see, this looks pretty fancy pants . That is a belgian style beer called brooklyn noir. It is a dark beer made with belgian yeast and age it in bourbon barrels for six months. It goes in this bottle with the second yeast, a champagne yeast. And reeferments into the bottle. Gerri unbelievable. Are you able this is really tasty beer. Gerri are you able to charge for for these specialties . This beer would sell 15, 20 a bottle which is a beautiful thing if youre in the beer business. Gerri summer ale, one my favorites. Summer ale is our biggest selling seasonal. It is our second best selling beer and it is incredibly popular. People love it when they see this beer on the shelf because they know that summer is here. Gerri it is really lovely. Yeah. You want to smell this . Gerri i want to smell that one too, as we know i cant drink it because legal wont let me i think r drink it. It is friday. Gerri you will get me in such trouble, wow. I always like the smell of beer better than i like beer. That is good. Gerri it smells so fresh. It is very nice. Where do we go next with the craft beer m