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DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING "Cost of Freedom Recap" CONTAINS STRONG OPINIONS WHICH ARE NOT A REFLECTION OF THE OPINIONS OF FOX NEWS AND SHOULD NOT BE RELIED UPON AS INVESTMENT ADVICE WHEN MAKING PERSONAL INVESTMENT DECISIONS. IT IS FOX NEWS' POLICY THAT CONTRIBUTORS DISCLOSE POSITIONS THEY HOLD IN STOCKS THEY DISCUSS, THOUGH POSITIONS MAY CHANGE. READERS OF "Cost of Freedom Recap" MUST TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR OWN INVESTMENT DECISIONS.

Congress Passes Last-Minute Temporary Spending Bill to Avoid Shutdown

Charles Payne: It is ridiculous. They're doing the people's work except they never go to work and now as we get to crunch time, real important moments in this country it's okay. Something really should be done about this, there should be a greater sense of urgency to get these things done and then we won't end up with laws and bills that we regret later on.

Danielle McLaughlin: There's a reason why GOP leadership has a 22 percent approval rating and I think the Dems are about 29 percent- people are horrified about what's happened in this first year of the Trump administration. Healthcare reform became healthcare sabotage and this tax bill is meant to go into effect on January 1 but we don't have any regulations that will implement it. There are some problems here.

Ben Stein: I think Congress gets much less respect than is due. They work very hard, they're not paid very much, they are really struggling to get all of the things they need to get done while balancing their respect for the consistency and respect for the whole country. I don't believe that this is a problem of laziness, I think the problem is a divided government.

Charlie Gasparino: I would say that the problem with this tax bill is not the amount of time they did or did not put into it or that they didn't work hard enough. It was just too many cooks in the kitchen obviously and what you have here is a convoluted method.

Lawmakers on Both Sides of the Aisle Resign Over Sexual Harassment Allegations

Danielle McLaughlin: I think this is just a fundamental difference in the timeline because a corporation that has somebody who is a figure head- their brand can go down the tubes really quickly with these allegations, but somehow politicians seem to be a little bit more like Teflon. 264 of these complaints since 1997, I think there's more reporting of 20 or 30 more politicians who had these kind of allegations.

Ben Stein: Well I think that we've got the whole situation upside down. I don't see where there's a problem with a slush fund if the slush fund is paying for things that we don't know even occurred in the first place. I'd like to see us get back to the standard of innocent until proven guilty. I don't like the idea, the whole thing of being found guilty as soon as something is alleged against you breaks my heart.

Charlie Gasparino: There's two stories here the whole response to the sexual harassment issue and then sort of delineations between Roy Moore versus Al Franken doing some stupid stuff. We should point out if a corporation starts paying these things off just the allegations- it's coming out of the shareholders' pocket not the taxpayers' pocket. The minute you involve taxpayers in something like this there are red flags.

Charles Payne: They will seize on anything not to get the work done kick the can down the road no matter what the topic is. There was a period in this country where people were actually hung because of crowd mentality and I think one of the reasons we became the greatest country in the world is because we have a constitution and a rule of law. Now you can lose something in the court of public opinion. But congress should not be paying these things out any congressman whose involved in it should pay the taxpayers back.

New Debate as President Obama Takes Credit for Booming Economy, Job Growth Under President Trump

Charlie Gasparino: It's Trump's economy now and here is why: generally economic expansions over the last seven years it should have been done around the time he left office and the amount of growth that came post-Trump -- if you look at the wage growth there's been wage growth. He says no more regulations, it's a massive tax cut and you got to give him credit.

Charles Payne: President Trump unleashed this economy. This is Trump's economy and it's on fire.

Danielle McLaughlin: I'll say it's mostly Obama's, but I will say seeing stock market, there's enormous amounts of business confidence, consumer confidence and GDP is also on an incline. All I'll say is if you take a 7 or 8 year view, after we got out of the kind of hole and we had the stimulus package there were indicators of the economic health that is continuing under Trump that. We came out of this recession because of President Obama.

Ben Stein: Well, I think Mr. Obama gets the credit for very sound fiscal and monetary policies when the economy was struggling although I think Ms. Yellen gets credit, she should go down in history. But what I'm looking at and worrying like mad about is inflation. When we are running hyper stimulating government fiscal policies in the midst of full employment, that almost always leads to inflation.

Stock Picks

Charles Payne: Wynn Resorts (WYNN)

Ben Stein: SPDR (SPY)