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American Morning

Obama Pushing Spending Freeze; "Barge of Hope" Sent to Haiti

Aired January 26, 2010 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, good morning to you. It is Tuesday, January 26th. Welcome to AMERICAN MORNING. Glad you are with us today. I'm Kiran Chetry.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. I'm John Roberts. Thanks for joining us.

Here are the big stories we'll be telling you about in the next 15 minutes.

The president is determined to freeze domestic spending for three years. He's going to make the pitch to Congress during his first official State of the Union address tomorrow night. And he's going to be making one other request to the American people.

Suzanne Malveaux with the latest developments from the White House is just ahead.

CHETRY: Also, CNN's special focus on President Obama's economic stimulus program. Our stimulus desk is working long hours poring over reports on tens of thousands of projects. We did find some pork. This case, though, it's not an earmark. It's actually pork in the can helping feed those less fortunate. But is it money well spent?

ROBERTS: A new video taken moments after the earth moved in Haiti, dazed and confused people on streets. The scope of the disaster is just unfolding. And today, two weeks later, millions are still shaken and will not go back inside. Our Anderson Cooper is live on the ground with the latest on the crisis as rescue now turns to recovery and concern grows for those left alive.

But, first, with America's deficit now topping $12 trillion, that's the debt rather, President Obama will ask Congress for a three- year spending freeze in his very first official State of the Union address tomorrow night. He hopes to erase some red ink while winning back the hearts and minds of middle class Americans who just can't make ends meet.

Our Suzanne Malveaux is live at the White House.

And when it comes to cut, Suzanne, these will be fairly, narrowly targeted. And what kind of cuts can we expect?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: They are going to be narrowly targeted and they're not specifically going to for those big entitlement programs that you see. Medicare, Medicaid, things that really the government spends a lot on. But this is discretionary spending over three years. So, it is not, for instance, going to deal with the Defense Department and Homeland Security or Veterans Affairs, but other perhaps social programs, domestic programs and the tune of $250 billion is what the Obama administration is hoping on saving in that time period.

John, as you know, this is very controversial. There are people, economics, who don't believe this is a good idea. The Republicans and Democrats are already fighting over this.

I want you to take a listen. This is the former labor secretary, Robert Reich, under the Clinton administration who believes that this is a big mistake.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT REICH, FORMER LABOR SECRETARY: I don't think it makes much sense, Larry, and I'll tell you why. The government, under the circumstances we now face, is the purchaser of last resort. Consumers are not buying. They're still scared for good reason. Businesses are not investing very much. They don't want to invest if there are not consumers out there. So, government is going to spend. You know, this is something that a lot of people have difficulty understanding.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: So, John, you hear economists are weighing in on this. But also, this is a partisan as well. You've got Republicans on one side who are saying, these cuts just -- not these cut, but rather, the freeze in spend, doesn't go far enough, that it doesn't deal with big ticket items, Medicare and Medicaid. You've got Democrats very worried that you're going to have health care, education reform -- those kinds of things -- facing severe cuts as well.

The one that this does accomplish, it puts this president and the administration closer to the right. And that is what this administration wants and needs, to attract not only those fiscally conservative Democrats, independents, possibly Republicans. We heard this coming from the president yesterday when he explained, John, one of the reasons why he felt health care had failed -- this to Diane Sawyer.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We had to make so many decisions quickly, in a very difficult set of circumstance, that after a while, we started worrying more about getting the policy right than getting the process right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: So, the president acknowledged that he needs more bipartisan support. He needs that support from the fiscally conservative Democrats, independents and Republicans. That is what he's trying to do essentially to get anything done coming this year, legislatively. That is what he is going to have to do. You're going to hear in the State of the Union a real populist message, John -- one that appeals to the middle class.

ROBERTS: Suzanne Malveaux for us live at the White House this morning -- Suzanne, thanks for that.

In 10 minutes time, by the way, we're going to be joined by CNN senior political analysts Ed Rollins and Democratic strategist James Carville. They will focus on the president's plan to win back middle class American and plot a new course for the White House in the wake of last Tuesday's election in Massachusetts.

CHETRY: All right. Well, it's four minutes after the hour, and we focus on Haiti.

Again, two weeks after the earthquake hit, rescue efforts have given way to recovery of sorts. But survivors are still in desperate need of shelter, food, aid, medicine. The U.N. says as many as a million people are homeless.

Haiti's president is now asking the world for hundreds of thousands of tents. Even he is planning to sleeping in one, he says. And the country is actually getting its biggest shipment of supplies so far today. It's being called the "Barge of Hope," 200 feet long, 80 feet wide, stacked five palates high of food, water, medical supplies, generators, other supplies, they say, enough to fill some 150 planes -- all donated by the people of Puerto Rico.

Anderson Cooper is live in Port-au-Prince this morning.

And, Anderson, as we -- as we got further away now to the south from the initial earthquake, what is your perspective on the ground? How quickly do you see things improving?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, you certainly see day-by-day improvement. I mean, yesterday looked a lot better than it did, you know, on Thursday or Friday of last week. But, you know, the needs are still great.

And we're still getting a lot of aftershocks. And this morning, we just had three aftershocks. There's one just a short time ago.

That certainly unsettled people and reminds people that, you know, this is still an ongoing situation, and that their homes are still unsafe. They can't go back. Most of them don't have access to clean drinking water, and water has to be handed out. There are long lines for food. It is -- it is a very, very difficult situation.

And, you know, two weeks out, much of the world feels like it's a long time, for people here in Haiti. It feels very much that this is still something that's happening every single day.

CHETRY: Is it too early, though, to talk about rebuilding Haiti? I mean, you look at all the devastation. I mean, even things like the roads unable to be cleared, clean drinking water, as you said, a problem. What's the starting point?

COOPER: Well, you know, Haitians themselves have already started doing this. I mean, you see on rubble sites, people trying to organize, you know, what concrete blocks can be saved. You see people trying to recycle everything. I mean, Haiti is a country in which just about everything gets recycled. And we're already seeing that people picking over rubble sites, and not only just removing bodies, but removing all the objects that can be saved, trying to do whatever they can.

So, that, in a very kind of ad hoc process, has already begun. As you know, there was a meeting yesterday in Canada, Hillary -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, foreign ministers of Haiti and foreign ministers from around the world met to discuss the large-scale rebuilding, within 30 or 60 days. They say they're going to have a sort of a donor pledged meeting in which countries agree to pony up a certain amount of money to help Haiti rebuild.

But there's going to be some sort of plan. I mean, you can't just be -- lots of money flowing into the country without some sort of large-scale plan. So, that's certainly what world leaders plan to be doing. But as I said, the Haitian people have already begun this.

CHETRY: Exactly. I mean, you know, people are -- many people who are taking a look at this, we're talking about, you know, a marshal plan of sorts for Haiti, to try to help it rebuild from the ground up.

Anderson Cooper, thank you so much.

And he continues his on-the-ground report live tonight at 10:00 Eastern for "AC 360," talking more about the aid, the delays, and in some cases, the growing crisis on the ground.

ROBERTS: And developing this morning in San Antonio, Texas, families are still out of their homes after the earth shifted in their neighborhood. Engineers say they don't think that it's not a sinkhole. They're calling it a slope failure. They also say they're not sure what caused it. On Sunday, when this hill shifted, the earth slid downhill into two retaining walls that sort of buckled, left behind these gaping cracks in the earth, some of them nearly 30 feet deep.

CHETRY: And these pictures, it's unbelievable. Well, our Jacqui Jeras is keeping track of all of the weather for us from across the country. And she joins us now with more on the forecast ahead as well.

Wow. I mean, it's just an unbelievable sight to see those homes literally look like they're swallowed up?

JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, I wonder if drought is related at all. You know, it's been really bad (INAUDIBLE) for parts of Texas over the last six-plus months, and I know that that can help shift the foundation of your homes and things like that. Wet weather is the story today. Primarily across the northeastern corridor, our storm system that brought all the wind and the damage and the rain yesterday is finally starting to pull out a little bit. You're just going to deal with it, New England, this morning, but by this afternoon, watch for improving conditions.

Blizzard warnings in the upper Midwest freshly expired, to be replaced by winter weather advisories, snow accumulation very light, however, the winds will keep visibility very low. And look at those wind chills, very nasty.

Out west, it's three days in a row of dry weather for southern California. Today, likely to not be day number four.

John and Kiran, back to you.

ROBERTS: Jacqui, thanks.

CHETRY: Still ahead, the president retooling his strategy as he gets set to deliver his first State of the Union address tomorrow. We're going to be talking more about it with two of our best political minds, Ed Rollins and James Carville -- coming up.

Ten minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. It's 12 minutes past the hour.

President Obama is busy preparing for his first State of the Union address. He's going to deliver it tomorrow night, and it's coming off with the big defeat for Democrats in the Massachusetts Senate race, also, an economy and chaos, and his poll numbers dropping.

So, how can the president sell his plan to the American public?

We are asking CNN's senior political analyst and Republican strategist, Ed Rollins. He's with me here in New York.

Good morning, Ed.

And also from New Orleans, CNN political contributor and Democratic strategist, James Carville.

James, hello.

JAMES CARVILLE, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Hello. How are you?

CHETRY: Great. It's great.

So, listen...

(CROSSTALK)

CARVILLE: ... the signs down here.

CHETRY: Oh, I know you're happy. I saw -- I bet I saw you marching in that parade, that huge parade down the streets.

CARVILLE: There you go.

CHETRY: So, congrats. You broke a lot of hearts in New York, but...

ED ROLLINS, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: A great game.

CHETRY: You know, we'll see what happens.

Anyway, sources say that President Obama will be painting himself as a populist, sort of proposing this three years freeze on discretionary spending that we talk about this morning, almost, James, like he's back on the campaign trail selling himself.

What is your take on all of that?

CARVILLE: Well, I think it's -- I think it's time that he'd do it. I think it's time that he'd develop a narrative and explain to the American people what it was that he inherited when he came into office and how he's trying to deal with it in a systematic way, that he has a strategy to deal with it.

And I think, for the first year, it looked rather ad hoc. And hopefully, this is the beginning of a narrative to tell the country where we are, how we got here, and what we can do to get out of this mess.

CHETRY: And it appears, Ed, that one of the wake-up calls, obviously, was this erosion of independent support that you saw in the Massachusetts Senate race. Will this populist message resonate among the people that, you know, brought him to the White House, these independents who really believe in his message?

ROLLINS: Well, I applaud him for attempts to have some fiscal restraint. I mean, he's got long ways to go in some other departments that need to be looked at than just the non-discretionary spending. But at the end of the day, he's going to make sure the Democrats are disciplined and they don't have big spending programs along side of this.

You're talking about a $15 billion cut in the first year and not much more than over to three years. I think the key thing here, though, is at least he's going the right direction.

CHETRY: You know, James, I thought this was interesting -- your opinion piece arguing that, basically, President Obama and the Democrats need to get better at finger-pointing, that they should blame former President Bush. And you wrote about President Obama eloquently argued that the U.S. was ready to turn the page on the Bush years, ready to be united, he was refreshingly naive in believing his own rhetoric. And you go on to say that being elected as a change candidate does not translate into changing Washington because nothing can change Washington.

So, do you think that the blame game is going to work here?

CARVILLE: Well, I take that page from Ed's boss, President Reagan. I'd go back and read his first State of the Union address. He did not finger-pointed at the Carter administration, he pointed his whole body at him.

And at least you've developed a narrative as to what happened -- you see, Washington has two rules when you come in office. Number one is, don't look back. And number two is, work across the aisle.

Well, so President Obama took Washington's advice. He didn't look back. He didn't develop a narrative. He didn't tell us how we got here, how he's getting out us, the plan.

He spent the whole year trying to work across the aisles with the Republicans who had no intention whatsoever of working for him. The Washington narrative and the Washington consensus is always wrong. And that is -- when people come and learn that, they have been successful.

President Reagan did not buy into it from the day he got there. And of course once you were all over these people and they say, oh gee, you're a genius anyway, I don't think that the Democratic congressional candidates has no idea, but I think the President has to develop a narrative, has to explain to people how the country got in - in the position it's in.

CHETRY: Right.

CARVILLE: And how he has a plan and what that plan is about.

CHETRY: All right we know that technically, the deficit did spiral out of control under President Bush but is there a Bush bashing fatigue. I mean it worked in 2006, it worked in 2008, is it going to work in 2010?

ROLLINS: It didn't work in Massachusetts and Reagan did it at his first speech maybe. But after that it was about what he was going to do. He was rebuilding the defenses of the country. He was cutting taxes. He was basically trying to do the same thing he is today with the fiscal stimulated budget.

I think, at the end of the day, people today are concerned about the leadership of this president and the Congress. Can they direct the country in a different place. And I think that's the key thing here. If you want to talk about the past, Democrats are now starting their fourth year in charge of the Congress. The President is now starting his second year of his term. You know at the end of the day, people want to know what he is going to do and what is his Democrats going to do.

CHETRY: And James we had an interesting - go ahead.

CARVILLE: We are doing some interesting research on how long that the Reagan Administration kept blaming the Carter Administration. And Bush came into office and blamed Clinton for a 5.6 trillion dollar surplus that was too big. We got to give it away. So, there is a lot of interesting research that is going on here. The rule in Washington is, if the Republicans do it, then it's good, and if the Democrats do it, it's finger-pointing. I am just not playing by Washington rule book.

ROLLINS: You have never played by anybody's rules, including your wife's.

(LAUGHTER)

CHETRY: James listen to this, because this really caught our eye. We did a CNN poll recently, opinion research poll here. It shows the Democrats favorability poll dropping 7 points in our latest poll. But also, this was the interesting thing, 7 in 10 Americans that were asked actually applauded the Democrats' loss of the 60-seat majority in the Senate. How big of a concern is that to you?

CARVILLE: An enormous concern. And people see -- by the way, people trying to say something, trying to get attention. And people see these bailouts and they don't understand why. And they say, well, they bailed out AIG and Goldman Sachs got a dollar on the dollar and yet there is nothing being done, you know, in their mind about people with unemployment and people losing their houses. Until this administration stands up and says this is what we will face, and this is what we did, and this is our strategy, these things are going to continue to happen. It's understandable.

ROLLINS: The critical part of that, not to cut you off -- he is, he's got to say, here's what am going to do.

CARVILLE: That's all right.

ROLLINS: I'm going to pick the ball up.

CARVILLE: Right.

ROLLINS: Whoever dropped the ball, I'm picking it up and I'm going to run forward with it, otherwise it's just more of the same.

CHETRY: But this is an opportunity for the Republicans because in the same poll that favorability, Republicans 1 of 8 percent. It's still now tied with the Democrats. I mean they were really low. But how do you seize this opportunity instead of being painted as the party of no which is what everyone's been saying in Washington right now. To having some ideas that people can get behind.

ROLLINS: My argument is very much like James. I run campaigns out in the country, I don't run them in Washington. I don't think nationalizing a campaign at this point in time is the right thing to do. I want good candidates, basically going out and challenging the incumbents and challenging what they have done. And I just see -- that's who you are battling.

CHETRY: So you are saying state by state? ROLLINS: State by state.

CHETRY: All right.

ROLLINS: State by state, district by district.

CHETRY: Ed Rollins and James Carville, always great to get your take both you, thanks for being with us this morning.

ROLLINS: Thank you.

CHETRY: And by the way, CNN's primetime coverage of the President state of the union address begins tomorrow night, it's at 8:00 eastern with the best political team on television, at 09:00 the President speech live and you can watch it right here on CNN, John.

ROBERTS: A special week long stimulus project continues today, how the stimulus bill has helped people. Our Christine Romans Follows the Money for You. 19 minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Welcome back to The Most News in the Morning.

We are in the midst of a weeklong undertaking here at CNN to find out where all of that stimulus money is going. A brand new CNN opinion research corporation poll shows that most of you think that it's not really doing anything in your lives. Only 7 percent said it improved their financial situation, close to half of people say it has had no effect at all, and a fifth of them said the stimulus has actually made things worse.

CHETRY: Here at CNN, we wanted to see for ourselves where your taxes dollars are going. Christine Romans is "Minding Your Business". She's been looking into this and you found some interesting stimulus money being spent on real pork.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Real pork.

CHETRY: Not the Washington pork.

ROMANS: We know about the roads, we know about the teacher jobs, we know filling budget gaps, big tax cuts. But we know that stimulus money is also helping put food on the plates of many Americans, 196 billion for food stamps over the next five year. $100 million to update school lunch equipment for your kids. $100 million for food banks. Some of the biggest names in the food industries got big cash contract to stock food banks across the country. So we followed your money from the treasury to the plates of the struggling Americans.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

You got that? Thank you so much.

ROMANS (voice-over): Robert Carlucci never thought he would carry home his groceries in a box from a food pantry. This single father of 2 from rural Franklin North Carolina lost his job as a carpenter more than a year ago. And now, like 18 million other unemployed Americans, he struggles to make ends meet.

ROBERT CARLUCCI, FOOD BANK CLIENT: I cannot believe I am here. I mean I'm the one that's usually the one that's donating around Thanksgiving time, Christmas time. And now here I am, I'm needing that. And it was just surreal.

ROMANS: Carlucci's dinners are now paid for in part with $100 million of stimulus money awarded by the government to food companies you've heard of, like, Del Monte, Jenny O, and Tyson to make food for overburdened food banks. But the biggest influx of cash went to little know, Lakeside Foods, one of Wisconsin's largest companies. It received more than $21 million to make among other things, canned pork. Lakeside declined to talk to CNN so we went to their factory in Plain View, Minnesota to find out how employees feel about the lucrative contract.

STEVE KOHN, LAKESIDE FOODS EMPLOYEE: It's great, it helps the company out a lot.

JEROME DEFRANG, LAKESIDE FOODS EMPLOYEE: I heard they received some money but I had no idea how much it was.

ROMANS: It was enough according to our government sources to create 52 new jobs. Over all the Department of Agriculture tells CNN the entire $100 million for food companies created 195 jobs. For Kitty Schaller, head of the MANNA food bank in Ashville, North Carolina, her priority is feeding people.

KITTY SCHALLER, MANNA FOOD BANK: It is not a waste of tax payer money. The economic stimulus package has helped us to provide for the most basic need for people who are truly in need.

ROMANS (on camera): Her food bank gladly took that canned pork where demand is up 40 percent, so did thousands of other food banks across the country. But is this stimulus.

ROBERT RECTOR, SENIOR FELLOW AT THINK TANK: This is clearly a type of welfare. It's a welfare expansion.

ROMANS (voice-over): Robert Rector, a senior fellow at the conservative Think Tank at the Heritage Foundation approves of using federal money for food banks, but he argues the entire stimulus bill merely expands welfare.

RECTOR: It does help support people who have lost their jobs. And that's a good thing but it's not going to put more jobs back into the economy.

ROMANS: Steven Kyle a professor at economics at Cornell University disagrees saying there is also a ripple effect?

STEVEN KYLE, ECONOMIST, CORNELL UNIVERSITY: Sure it's stimulating the economy. That food is produced here in the United States. That stimulates the economy. Those farmers then end up with more money, and they turn around and buy more equipment, hire more laborers. Maybe they buy themselves a new Caterpillar tractor, who knows.

CARLUCCI: I'm barely making it.

ROMANS: As for Robert Carlucci, the stimulus bill may not have given him a job, but it did keep him and his daughters, Samantha and Alison from going hungry.

CARLUCCI: My kids have to eat. We all have to eat.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS (on camera): So over all $100 million of your stimulus dollars for food companies that helped create 195 jobs. That's according to the Department of Agriculture.

And very happy to give you an update from Robert, he just got a new job after being out of work for 13 months. He is a carpenter and will be building log cabins.

ROBERTS: I'm curious, what happens to these jobs after the money runs out. They can't be self perpetuating can they?

ROMANS: No, in many cases they aren't. We've tried to talk to the food companies, interestingly, to see how long those jobs would last and if they were able to put on new shifts or if it was over time for some of these workers, these companies, these big companies well named - well known companies, big name companies, they did not want to talk about their stimulus cash grants. They would not talk to us.

CHETRY: In some cases they weren't designed to last forever, they're suppose to just sort of be a stop gap until things can improve.

ROMANS: And in this case, this is about jobs but it's also about helping millions of people who literally cannot feed themselves because of the economic crisis. So this is one of those things where the economic benefits are not measured in jobs, but also measured in the number of people like Robert Carlucci of is able to get a little breathing space before he got that new job.

ROBERTS: Christine, thanks so much.

ROMANS: Right, sure.

CHETRY: All right well, tomorrow in American Morning can a $5.5 million resort town restoration project, be a good use of stimulus aid? We are going to find out why one woman is very grateful that the government is spending the money. Also coming up tonight, Campbell Brown, 08:00 o'clock is the stimulus working for the average American. An exclusive interview with the man that President Obama picked oversee the stimulus plan. And then later at 10, AC360 investigates why stimulus money is being wasted unnecessary road signs. And you can get more in depth information on everything we've uncovered by going to cnn.com/stimulus.

ROBERTS: And our stimulus week continues this morning in just a couple of minutes. We're going to be talking with John Fedderman, he's the mayor of Braddic, Pennsylvania. He's got some extraordinary challenges facing him after most of the steel industry moved out the size of his town was reduced by 85 percent along with it a lot of the money, the jobs, it's a bad situation, how can the stimulus help him? We'll find out. 27 minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Coming up on the half hour now, and this just in to CNN out of Afghanistan. A Taliban suicide car bomber has struck just outside the main gate of U.S. military base camp Phoenix in Kabul. Afghan NATO official say at least 6 people are wounded. No word if those wounded are civilians or soldiers. The AP says it received a text message from the Taliban claiming the responsibility. That attack comes just days after deadly attacks on Afghanistan government buildings in the capital.

CHETRY: Well French lawmakers are now considering a ban on burkas, this are the full body coverings worn by some Muslim women. Parliamentary commission is calling the burka a symbol of female subservience and an affront to French values. The ban would make it illegal to wear a burka in hospitals, schools, and on public transportation, but it would not apply to women simply wearing one in public.

ROBERTS: And President Obama insists that he is not concerned about a second term in office. He will deliver the first official state of the union address of his presidency tomorrow night with his poll numbers slipping and millions of middle-class Americans suffering in a sluggish economy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: You know, I would say that they one thing I'm clear about is I would rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president. And I believe that.

There is a tendency in Washington to think that our job description as elected officials is to get reelected. That's not our job description.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: The president's proposals for tomorrow night, doubling child and dependent care tax credits for families making less than $85,000 a year.

This week our stimulus project is keeping tabs on where all that stimulus money is going. Truth be told, you'd be hard pressed to find a town more in need of economic stimulus than Braddock, Pennsylvania. It was the site of Andrew Carnegie's very first steel mill, a thriving industry town of about 20,000 people. Now, just 3,000 people remain. Unemployment is sky high, and on Sunday the town's biggest employer will close.

The mayor of Braddock, John Fetterman, joins us now from Pittsburgh. Did I overstate the case there, John?

MAYOR JOHN FETTERMAN, BRADDOCK, PENNSYLVANIA: No, absolutely not. The biggest employer, which is the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, they are closing their hospital in town and not only will we lose jobs, we will actually lose our access to health care for many residents as well.

ROBERTS: Sketch out the economic situation there. How are the folks doing?

FETTERMAN: Our unemployment average typically tracks about two and a half to three times above the national and the county average. So we are comfortably in the 30s there. And that does not factor in the more recent development of the many jobs that will be lost by the hospital closing this Sunday.

ROBERTS: So you have gotten some stimulus money. How much have you got and where is it going and how much has it helped you, if at all?

FETTERMAN: It has helped a great deal. We got about $250,000 to upgrade our sewer system to be in compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency. Not particularly sexy kind of things or headline grabbing but still necessary in a community like Braddock where we are unfortunately having to raise property because of the revenue loss when the hospital leaves.

And then we also got a smaller grant of $30,000 which allowed us to hire an addition 30 young people last summer, which was very beneficial, too.

ROBERTS: I saw you on television almost a year ago now saying we have green projects and shovel-ready projects that we could use money for. Have you gotten any money to fund those projects?

FETTERMAN: No. That's an excellent point, and that brings me to what I believe about the stimulus funding, that it's greatest potential I think could lay ahead by funding these projects. When UPMC bailed on our town, we have a 300,000 square foot hospital in town that will be vacant in about four days.

So these are the kinds of issues that towns across the country are dealing with, and we need that kind of quick responsive deployment of resources to help us not get back on our feet, but just maintain where we are at now. So it's a very serious situation.

ROBERTS: Mr. Mayor, about 200 of your colleagues met with President Obama last week, and one of the messages that they had about the stimulus package was all the money is will be given to the states, and why not bring it to the municipal level and give it directly to cities and directly to towns. Would that help?

FETTERMAN: Amen. That would be tremendous. I would be more than happy to compete on the merit of the ideas and projects that we have not only in Braddock but in Alegeny County. We have shovel-ready projects that could be a real shot in the arm to not only my town but also to the region as a whole, which really suffered greatly.

And then when you consider the amount of resources that went to the banking bailout and the amount of resources that went to areas like Braddock, there's just a grotesque disparity, and I think that's part of the thing that needs to happen in order to bring the country back around to this administration's agenda.

ROBERTS: Tough times in Braddock, no question. Mayor Fetterman, thanks for being with us. We'll keep following what's going on there and we'll check back with you from time to time. We really appreciate you coming in this morning.

FETTERMAN: Thank you for the invitation.

ROBERTS: Let's bring in our money panel right now for their take on what the stimulus has or hasn't done to help towns like Braddock, Pennsylvania, Chrystia Freeland, who is a managing editor at the "Financial Times" is with us, along with Lakshman Achuthan, he's with the Economic Cycle Research Institute, and of course our own Christine Romans is with us this morning.

So Chrystia, you heard what the mayor had to say. Is he the sort of person you think stimulus funds could help and be of some benefit to?

CHRYSTIA FREELAND, MANAGING EDITOR, "FINANCIAL TIMES": Yes, I thought he was great. Really, really clear about what the stimulus had done practically in his community. And I loved his willingness to say, look, I have projects and I am prepared to bid and compete.

I thought his closing point about the Wall Street bailout was incredibly politically acute. I think the political problem with the stimulus isn't so much that it hasn't had an impact, because you just found a community where it had a concrete impact. It is that sense of justice and that feeling of maybe we are having our sewer worked on, but we see trillions of dollars going to Wall Street.

LAKSHMAN ACHUTHAN, ECONOMIC ANALYST: Absolutely. You cannot compare those two needs, right, very easily on the kitchen table.

But there's a harsh reality here that goes way beyond what the stimulus can do for Mayor Fetterman's town, and my heart goes out to what they are going through, and that is when you have a big recession, you lose a lot of jobs and you have bankruptcies, and so your revenues plunge.

ROBERTS: They were losing revenues long before the recession.

ACHUTHAN: Well, and they're in manufacturing and steel, which is another sector of this economy which has been taking it on the chin for many decades, not just this recession.

But that problem is resulting in him having to raise taxes now in the middle of all of this, which is a nightmare. And that's not going to go away even if there is a stimulus to help them through the patch, that problem is going to be there for years ahead.

CHRISTINE ROMAN, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Two solutions you keep hearing about are health care jobs, is retrain for health care, although he is losing the big health care facility. And that's another big issue, health care, especially hospitals are having a hard time making it through.

The other thing you keep hearing is about green technologies and green innovation. But you talk to labor economists, and they say it takes a generation to build that out. It's like going from stagecoaches to locomotives. It takes a generation to do that. There are jobs especially these manufacturing towns that you need right now, and where are the solution right now -- did he say 30 percent unemployed?

ROBERTS: He said they are at comfortably at 30 percent unemployment.

FREELAND: Yes, I think another solution which is the least comfortable at all but has been historically the saving grace of the American economy is Americans are incredible mobile, probably the most mobile people of any industrialized country. And so they have to move to where there are jobs.

ROBERTS: Hold that thought, we want to come back and explore that a little bit further. Stay with us. It's 38 minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: We are back with our stimulus project panel this morning.

And we were talking about this during the break, the problem for Braddock and so many other rust belt towns goes well beyond what happened in the recession. A lot of their work went offshore, and housing prices collapses.

And if you listen to people like Nouriel Roubini, an economist at the Stern school, he says we're going to have a deep, long, U-shaped recession, and the stimulus bridge will only get halfway across there. So what do you do?

FREELAND: People have to move out of Braddock, I think, is the sad thing.

ACHUTHAN: And start all over again, because nobody is going to buy the house?

FREELAND: Well, it's a longer term problem that a town like that is facing, and the housing is a huge barrier to that labor mobility.

ACHUTHAN: If you step back, over the last ten years manufacturing employment has gone from 18 million people to a little under 12 million people. That trend has very little to do with this recession we just went through. That trend will not be cured by the recession ending.

And so you have to retrain these people, and that's a compounding issue on even moving out.

ROMANS: We lost millions of jobs in manufacturing, and we are still 7 million jobs in the hole from the recession. When we talk about retraining I get so nervous, because retrain them for what exactly?

ACHUTHAN: Well, in the early 90s we were very pessimistic also, and that turned out to be a ten year expansion. And I don't think at the beginning of the year anybody thought we were going to add 20 million jobs and going to have the longest expansion we have ever had and we will create this whole new industry of high tech stuff.

ROBERTS: The development of the west left behind with it a lot of ghost towns. Is the restructuring of the American economy going to do the same thing here, and hanging on, as lovely as Braddock might be, trying to recreate the town and rejuvenate the economy is a losing proposition that you can't even begin to address?

ROMANS: Pittsburgh is having a renaissance...

(CROSSTALK)

ACHUTHAN: On Roubini's point of a long U-shaped or trough recession, I want to point out something that's in the data. When we were in the recession, it went to minus six GDP, and right now we are will get GDP coming up in the fourth quarter at about in the four or five percent range. That is ten point swing? That is not a small thing.

FREELAND: Are you saying Nouriel might be wrong, that it might be a V and not a U?

(LAUGHTER)

ROBERTS: The employment track will be long.

ACHUTHAN: Even on unemployment, look at what is happening here. As bad as the numbers are, we are about to see jobs growth right here, right now. That's a couple quarters after the recession ends. The last two recessions we waited over a year and a half.

ROBERTS: Just a quick point here because we have to leave it, final point -- giving money directly to towns and municipalities instead of states, good idea, bad idea?

FREELAND: I think it's a really good idea. I think that one of the lessons of the stimulus is the closer you get to the actual jobs the more instant the impact.

ROMANS: I don't know if governors will like it, but guys like our mayor in Braddock will like it. ACHUTHAN: The stimulus is not a failure, it's helping out in a lot of important places, but it's not the reason we're having a recovery.

ROBERTS: Lots more to discuss on this topic. We'll see you again tomorrow. Thanks so much.

And tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," can a $5.5 million resort town restoration project be of good use of stimulus aid? Find out why one woman says she is grateful that the government is spending the money.

And coming up tonight on "CAMPBELL BROWN" at 8:00, is the stimulus working for average Americans? In an exclusive interview the man that President Obama picked to oversee the stimulus plan will give us his thoughts. And then later at 10:00, "AC 360" investigates why stimulus money is being wasted on unnecessary road signs.

And of course you can follow the stimulus project all week on CNN and on CNN.com/stimulus -- Kiran.

CHETRY: All right, well, it's 45 minutes past the hour.

When we come back we're going to be talking about the extreme weather we have seen lately, the rain and high winds in many places and the snow making for quite a travel nightmare. We're going to check in with Jacqui Jeras and Rob in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Forty-eight minutes past the hour.

A look at New York City this morning, where right now it's 40 degrees, and going up five degrees for a high of 45 a little bit later today. And meanwhile, our Rob Marciano is in Steamboat Springs, Colorado where it is much colder than that but I am sure much more fun right? If you're a big ski fan?

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, well, it's a dry cold. So even though it's five or six degrees...

CHETRY: Right.

MARCIANO: ...it's doesn't feel so bad.

CHETRY: It's a dry cold all right.

MARCIANO: Yes, a great place to have a weather conference, we do it every year. This is the 21st year, you know, the big politicians have their conference in Davos, Switzerland. Why not have one here in Steamboat.

Let's break down a little bit of weather for you, big storm across the northeast. That roll through yesterday now beginning to wind down the back side of it and bringing in some cold air and some winds so that will slow down some air travel. Also some snow for the most part, light lake effect snows, but the blizzard warnings from yesterday out in the Midwest have discontinued.

Another piece of energy rolling into the West Coast, some rain expected for southern California and snow in the mountains. We still have avalanche warnings that are up for parts of Utah with this particular system. And the cool air will be sliding all the way down to the south.

Winter storm watch is up for parts of Oklahoma and Kansas and Nebraska with this next system. And the mid-Atlantic might see some snow as we get towards the end of the week.

As mentioned the New York Metropolitan Airport will see some delays because of wind, Salt Lake City will see some delays as well, as will San Francisco and Los Angeles.

All right, one of many things we're talking about here later today we're going to talk about climate, some of the -- some top climate scientist are out here. And I got to talk to one of them yesterday, Jim White and asked him about the IPCC report. You know the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change.

There was a bit of snafu the past week or so where they said that the glaciers in Himalayas we're going to be gone by 2035, well that ended up being bad science. And this is what Jim had to say about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIM WHITE, UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO: Too much is riding on the fact that we get it right as scientists. I know that they got it right in their scientific literature; we just put down wrong in the IPCC report. But that itself is inexcusable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARCIANO: It is inexcusable and it's hurting the credibility somewhat of that Nobel Prize winning organization and it's frustrating climate scientists here certainly in the U.S.

All right, we're talking about that -- I also got to profile an Olympian. And not just any old Olympian you see, five-time Olympian, that's - he's one of only three guys that's been able to do that and he is going to the Olympics to compete in Nordic Combined (ph) that is cross-country skiing and ski jumping. I mean, these guys have some -- they are adrenaline junkies for sure. But a unique combination in his sport and he may very well be the U.S.'s best hope to medal in this sport ever when Vancouver also around in a couple of weeks and we'll air that report then.

I am not much of a cross-country skier, guys, as you can very well see, but we did our best for television there.

ROBERTS: There you go, well, that's a good job of trying to keep up there, Rob.

CHETRY: Yes, that seems cross-country stomping. ROBERTS: Yes, you weren't that far behind there. That's very good. Thanks Rob.

MARCIANO: Well, you know it's pretty sad.

CHETRY: There you go, you like the thrills of the downhill. You can't be bothered with the cross-country stuff.

MARCIANO: Exactly.

ROBERTS: Two weeks today the earthquake hit in Haiti the biggest medical challenge is going forward. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta is live in Port-au-Prince for us this morning. Stay with us.

Nine minutes to the top of the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: Welcome back to The Most News in the Morning.

Right now there is still a desperate need for shelter in Haiti. The U.N. estimates that as many as a million people are homeless.

ROBERTS: They are pleading for tents. Even the president, President Preval has vowed to live in one. He has asked the world for 200,000 tents.

Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta's live in Port-au-Prince this morning. And Sanjay, you have been there now for a couple weeks. You've seen things on the ground. What are the biggest challenges going forward?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the medical challenges remain. I mean certainly there's a lot of people who still need medical attention that aren't getting it. There are people who have chronic conditions even, you know, heart disease, diabetes and lost their medications and simply aren't getting care. And those can turn into big problems if they're not addressed.

One of the larger issues with regard to this relocation project is that you do have hundreds of thousands of people who are simply without homes. Where exactly do you move them? And what are their lives like during this period of reconstruction? Are they working? Are they going to have access to medical care?

And what if hurricane season which starts in May, by the way, as well, some of these relocation areas are areas that have been previously were affected by hurricanes. So this is all part of that planning process.

That's to say nothing of the need for more nurses, the need for rehabilitation doctors and eventually need for prosthetics as well. Estimates over 100,000 amputations possibly performed.

CHETRY: One of the other things that we have been talking about, Sanjay, is just the overwhelming demand. These hospitals are being overwhelmed with patients, and some of them that are still waiting for medical care. Are you finding that the critical patients are getting the attention they need?

GUPTA: Yes. You know, I think the critical patients are starting to get the attention. What was interesting to me and maybe not that surprising is that there seems to be a plethora or a lot of certain things and still not enough of others. For example, at General Hospital there are more surgeons there now than they really need.

And I think it's sort of interesting, it's this idea that a lot of people have seen the images, heard the stories, come down and want to help, but now they are not sure what to do with all these doctors. They are creating mobile surgical units and sending them out of Port- au-Prince in some of the surrounding areas.

But you know, with the critical ill patients, at this point, two weeks out now, either they survive and got the care they need, or they didn't. Two weeks has really been a defining period as far as how those patients are treated.

ROBERTS: Sanjay, a minute ago, you mentioned amputees, and that's a society there in Haiti that is labor intensive. A lot of things are done by hand, and there are going to be hundreds if not thousands of people who are missing one or more limbs. What about rehabilitation for them? What about prosthesis? How are they supposed to go forward?

GUPTA: You know, I don't know the answer to that, John. It's interesting, keeping in mind that we are talking about Haiti, here. And even three weeks ago, before this earthquake occurred, the things you are talking about simply weren't very good here. If somebody was disabled, had been an amputee before this, their lives are terrible. I mean they can't work. They can hardly get around. Nothing is wheelchair accessible.

This isn't a society that allows for people who have some sort of disability like that to be able to function well. So, it's going to be even worse I think at least in the short term with some estimates, up to 100,000 more amputees possibly in Haiti and primarily in Port- au-Prince.

I don't know. I mean prosthetics is going to be a big part of that. With the prosthesis, it's not just a onetime deal. You have to fit those prosthesis a couple of weeks or several weeks after the operation is performed, it has to be refit. And as a person grows, it has to be resized.

Are they going to develop the infrastructure to be able to take care of these amputees long term? I just don't know the answer to that. I know there's a lot of interest in that but I think we're going to have to wait and see.

CHETRY: Right. I mean just think about it. Back here in the states, I mean between all the therapies and the occupational therapy and all the physical rehabilitation that you go through, as you said, it's not just as easy as fitting a device.

So a lot of challenges that lie ahead.

GUPTA: Yes.

CHETRY: Sanjay Gupta checking in with us from Port-au-Prince this morning. Thanks so much.

ROBERTS: Thanks Sanjay.

It's two and a half minutes to the top of the hour. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBERTS: Continue the conversation on today's stories; go to our blog at cnn.com/amFix. That's going to wrap it up for us. Thanks so much for joining us. We will see you again tomorrow.

CHETRY: Meantime, the news continues. Here's "CNN NEWSROOM" with Kyra Phillips -- hey Kyra.