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American Morning
Tax Breaks for All; Assange Arrested in London; One Big Tuna; Fed Stuck with Bad $100 Bills; Face Your Fear
Aired December 07, 2010 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and thanks so much for joining us on this Tuesday, the 7th of December. I'm John Roberts.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Carol Costello. Kiran has day off. It's mighty cold out there so bundle up and let's get right to it.
ROBERTS: Breaking news from London this morning: the founder of WikiLeaks arrested by British police. Julian Assange surrendered in just a few hours ago, expected to appear in court within hours. A live report from London coming up in just a moment.
COSTELLO: Plus, the president and congressional Republicans striking a deal on the Bush era tax cuts. Everyone gets them for more two years, even the richest Americans. A lot of Democrats don't like it, including the president himself. We will have a live report for you from Capitol Hill.
ROBERTS: And it has taken a sharp turn for the worse -- sad word this morning that Elizabeth Edwards has stopped treatment for the cancer at the advice of her doctors and she is resting at home with her family. Dr. Sanjay Gupta here to talk about her long courageous fight and what she is up against now.
Well, the president and congressional Republicans have reached a deal on extending the Bush era tax cuts. It's a two-year extension and everyone gets the break, even the wealthiest Americans.
COSTELLO: And also part of the plan, a 13-month extension of unemployment benefits and a 2 percent cut in the Social Security payroll tax next year.
Brianna Keilar live on Capitol Hill this morning.
So, Brianna, the president is having kind of a tough time selling this deal to his own party. So, what do you think might happen?
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're going to find out more today because this is when members of Congress come back to Capitol Hill and they're going to be meeting and they're going to be mulling this over. And all you have to do is look at the responses, the reaction coming from Democrats and Republicans to realize that the issue the president has right now very much with Democrats. You have Republicans like John Boehner saying that this is an encouraging move. And then sort of an icy response coming from the spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who basically just said, well, Reid is going to be taking this and reviewing it with his caucus, not exactly a ringing endorsement.
And so many Democrats, especially liberal Democrats especially in the House of Representatives feel like President Obama gave away too much here. Some of the liberal Democratic base, in fact, saying that they think that he caved, John and Carol.
COSTELLO: More than he caved. They kind of think he didn't show much courage.
ROBERTS: So, what specifically is going to be the big sticking point? Is it going to be the fact that income above $250,000 will continue to be taxed at the rate that it's taxed at now?
KEILAR: So, that is a big one. And that always has been, especially when you look at the way polls show most Americans, majority of Americans, were fine with letting those tax cuts expire for wealthier Americans.
But the other big issue is going to be maybe something we haven't talked about as much. The estate tax, which was zeroed out under the Bush era tax cuts. It was supposed to go up pretty high, above 50 percent on inheritances.
This is what, you know, is referred to sometimes by Republicans as the death tax. It's going to go now to 34 percent, but only for inheritances above $5 million. So, if you were to have an inheritance that's $5 million or less, you don't pay taxes on it. And we're expecting that especially liberal House Democrats are going to say, you gave them these extended tax cuts for the wealthy and you also gave them this estate tax? This is not for the middle class.
COSTELLO: You know what I can't help thinking, too, these tax cuts have been extended two years but you could lay bets that in two years, they'll be extended again. There's no guarantee, right?
KEILAR: And --
COSTELLO: And we haven't paid for anything.
KEILAR: Yes. And let's talk about the cost. I think it's in the realm of maybe $600 billion to $800 billion. I mean, this is somewhere akin to the cost of the stimulus. And yes, the other thing is, with the two-year extension of these tax cuts, it puts it right in the middle of the presidential cycle and this becomes a huge political issue.
COSTELLO: Brianna Keilar, thanks so much.
Christine Romans is here so we can talk about this some more.
So, this is deficit spending that's going to pay for the proposed tax cuts for the middle class that the president wants.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And remember how everyone hated the size -- so many people on the campaign trail in the midterms hated the size of that stimulus, the stimulus, that stimulus, we paid for -- this is as big as the stimulus, $600 billion to $800 billion, not paid for. Brianna makes a great point bringing up the estate costs.
(CROSSTALK)
ROBERTS: -- though goes in the pocket of Americans as opposed to going in the pockets of business.
ROMANS: Well, about half of it considered stimulative. The unemployment benefits are part of that, $57 billion for that. But $88 billion for the estate tax.
That's something that liberals are going to be very upset about. They're going to be upset about the fact that the president caved, didn't get enough for the working poor and got all these concessions for wealthy Americans. Poll after poll show that people didn't support it.
ROBERTS: So, when you say that the reduction of payroll tax will be stimulative, other people argue that, hey, putting money back in people's pockets via an income tax rate is stimulative, as well.
ROMANS: What most economists saying is that the way -- if you had taken those away, yes, it would have hurt economy. It would have hurt GDP for the middle class, for working Americans. A payroll tax holiday is something everyone is going to feel. We're likely stimulative.
The jobless checks for so many people will likely still be stimulative. Yes, about half of it is stimulative. But we haven't pay for it. So, there's still emergency spending here that's good for the near term, but we kicked the can down for what we're going to do in two years in the middle of an election cycle.
(CROSSTALK)
COSTELLO: They haven't solved the problem for the deficit. This does nothing to solve that problem.
ROMANS: You can argue it worsens the problem of the deficit. Right. This is -- this is a near-term political solution in the midst of a very sub-par economic recovery and it pushes down the road two more years or 13 months for people who are getting extended unemployment benefits, a big solution that --
ROBERTS: And as Brianna said, it puts right now in the middle of the next election cycle. So, this will be the battle that they'll be fighting over in 2012.
ROMANS: Yes, the sentence has not been -- the period is not the end of the sentence of this whole Bush era tax cuts. We'll be talking about this again.
ROBERTS: Christine, thanks.
COSTELLO: The founder of WikiLeaks arrested this morning in London. He surrendered to police. Julian Assange facing rape charges in Sweden. He is expected to appear in British courts within hours.
Atika Shubert, she is in London and she'll be with us live for all the developments.
ROBERTS: Well, still ahead, the latest on Elizabeth Edwards. Her cancer taking a turn for the worse after a courageous fight that played out in the public.
COSTELLO: We're going to be talking to Sanjay Gupta -- next. At six minutes after the hour. We'll be back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: The founder of WikiLeaks arrested this morning in London after he surrenders to police.
ROBERTS: Julian Assange facing rape charges in Sweden, expected to appear in a British court within hours.
Our Atika Shubert is live outside the courthouse in London with the latest developments.
What do we know, Atika?
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, we're still waiting to find out if he's actually inside. We did see his lawyer go inside, said he was in good spirits and we are expecting a hearing within the next hour or so.
Basically what we expect to happen, of course, he was formally arrested earlier this morning and now, we are at this hearing today expecting him to basically request a release on bail. And that is likely to be granted. And then, he has the option to fight this arrest warrant that's been issued. He can fight it on a number of grounds. He could say that he's not going to get a fair trial in Sweden, that these are trumped up charges.
So, there's a number of different options he could take. We'll have to see what his lawyer says at this hearing coming up.
COSTELLO: And this is specifically just on the rape charges. Do you think this will be a simple process, Atika? Will he be extradited to Sweden and then we'll see what happens from there?
SHUBERT: It's not likely to be a quick process, at all -- especially if he decides to fight this arrest warrant. That could take a long time for the courts to really go through and decide. These are allegation that he has always denied. He has always said he has done wrong and denied any of these allegations of sex crimes. It's important to note that actually, he has not been charged yet. He's simply wanted for questioning on suspicion of these alleged sex crimes. So, it's really just a very beginning of this legal process and it could take a long time yet.
ROBERTS: You know, Atika, at the same time, the United States, the Department of Justice has stepped up its investigation of whether or not crimes were committed in the leak of all of those documents that were posted on WikiLeaks. Is there any way to know what level of concern Julian Assange has about being the target of that investigation?
SHUBERT: Well, he's always been very concerned about it. He sees this as a case of freedom of speech and that if he is going to be legally prosecuted, then so should other media who had been publishing the materials that have been released. That has always been his position.
This case is entirely separate but WikiLeaks and Julian Assange -- excuse me, there's a lot of media today and as you can see, a lot of media scrutiny on this case. But, basically, WikiLeaks sees this as an attack on not just to Julian Assange but the whole organization as a result of them releasing these documents.
They see this as a legal attack. The United States is legally attacking them, political pressure, and technical attacks. They've been dealing with one after another cyber attacks on their Web site. So, they see this whole part and parcel as an attack on WikiLeaks.
ROBERTS: Atika Shubert for us this morning outside the courthouse in London -- Atika, thanks.
COSTELLO: We have followed her fight against cancer every painful step of the way and now, sad word this morning that Elizabeth Edwards, the estranged wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards, has stopped treatment for the disease.
ROBERTS: And her family says doctors have advised that further treatment would be, quote, "unproductive." She talked about her determination to fight back in 2007 on "60 Minutes."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, FROM CBS NEWS "60 MINUTES")
ELIZABETH EDWARDS, JOHN EDWARDS' WIFE: You know, you really have two choices here. I mean, either you push forward with the things that you were doing yesterday or you start dying. That seems to me your only two choices.
If I had given up everything that my life was about -- first of all, I let cancer win before it needed to, you know? Maybe eventually it will win, but I let it win before it needed to, and I just basically start dying. I don't want to do that. I want to live.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here with us now. He's in Atlanta. And, you know, what she just said there that, you know, cancer may win at some point, is this that point?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It seems to be. It's a tough thing to say. It is a tough thing to hear, I'm sure, as well.
But she has been very open about this since 2004 when she was diagnosed, and 2007, she even talked about the fact that there's likely what she referred to as microscopic metastasis, or spreads throughout her body, sort of had an indication of that time. Obviously, it was spread to her bones, and now, to her liver.
Sources close to her, John, say it's a matter of weeks before they think that she may pass on from this disease. So, it is -- it's very sad, but it sounds like it is -- it is imminent based on everything that we're hearing.
COSTELLO: Sanjay, I'm just curious. She's been through such enormous stress the past couple of years, you know, with her husband cheating on her, getting another woman pregnant, you know, word of that came out. She's had enormous amounts of bad publicity targeted at her.
I mean, could that stress have hastened things a bit?
GUPTA: It's a great question. You know, I think -- you know, the body's own willingness to produce their sort of cancer-fighting cells, the things that sort of help you recover, help you fight disease, whether they're diminished under times of great stress, where there's cortisol, a stress hormone, somehow diminishes your effectiveness to fight that -- you know, it's a little bit more subjective, Carol.
But I think we could say the opposite is true. People who are living a relatively stress-free life, were very optimistic about their recovery, tend to do better. So, you know, perhaps, Carol.
ROBERTS: So, what lessons can other women take away from what we see happening with Elizabeth Edwards, Sanjay?
GUPTA: Well, you know, I think -- I think a lot of them who are hearing about this story this morning may be thinking about their own mammograms, their own screening and their own approach to preventing disease.
You know, Elizabeth Edwards was again very open about talking that the fact she missed a few mammograms after the birth of one of her children. You know, she was diligent about lots of things, but, you know, she was busy. Time went on and she just skipped them.
She says he wishes she had them. Maybe this would have been caught earlier. Maybe they would have been able to treat it more effectively. Who knows? A lot of -- a lot of questions there.
But, I think, you know, this happens to a lot of women. And it's not, you know, indicting or maligning anybody or anything, but, you know, if you have been putting it off, life's gotten busy, this may be a good lesson, a good reminder for women out there.
COSTELLO: I think it's very confusing for women about mammograms, Sanjay. There are so many things that you hear that mammograms aren't that effective. Why can't they come up -- well, they have come up with better methods and detecting breast cancer. It's just expensive to use for patients.
GUPTA: Yes. I think they need a better, more accessible screening test for women for breast cancer. Mammography is not perfect, by any means. If you go to MRIs, they are more expensive. And they're not perfect either in many ways. So, that's absolutely true, Carol, that better screen test is necessary. But I think, you know, it's important not to say, well, until a better screening test comes, we're just going to ignore screening altogether or be inconsistent about it.
There has been confusion about when exactly to get a mammogram, as well. But most of the major cancer societies say start them at age 40 as opposed to age 50 of which there was controversy about this past year. So, mammography starting at age 40, I guess, that's still the best advice, Carol.
ROBERTS: All right. Sanjay Gupta for us this morning. Thanks, doc.
COSTELLO: Thanks, Sanjay.
GUPTA: Thank you.
COSTELLO: It's 15 minutes past the hour. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Oh yes. You know it's Christmas when Elvis comes on.
COSTELLO: I love that song.
ROBERTS: Eighteen minutes after the hour. We may have found Sarah Palin's biggest fan. Check this out. I-reporter, Carol Rucker (ph) sent in this shot from Palin book signing in Cincinnati. A proud mama grizzly with one of Sarah Palin's famous tweets tattooed on her side says, "don't retreat, just reload." We're told that the lady with the tattoo and her friend drove all night and slept in their SUV just to meet the former Alaska governor.
COSTELLO: They got a hug from Sarah Palin. So, their day was met with all expectations met.
Attention Wal-Mart shoppers. If you see something, say something. Department of Homeland Security has enlisted the retail giant in its anti-terror campaign. A video message from Secretary Janet Napolitano will appear at checkout -- I'm having trouble with this story. Janet Napolitano's name always gets me. Anyway, she's made it possible so that these messages will be at checkout counters in hundreds of Wal-Mart stores across the country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JANET NAPOLITANO, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: If you see something suspicious in the parking lot or in the store, say something immediately. Report suspicious activity to your local police or sheriff. If you need help, ask a Wal-Mart manager for assistance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Well, you don't have to be an expert in sport fishing to know that this is one big fish. A guy named Mike Livingston made the coveted catch off of San Diego. 405.2 pounds. It's a yellow fin tuna. The International Game Fish Association still has to certify Livingston's prized catch. If they do certify it, though, it would shatter a 33-year world record.
COSTELLO: Can you imagine reeling that thing in?
ROBERTS: That is one big fish.
COSTELLO: At six feet tall.
ROBERTS: I can imagine reeling it in if they were on the end of my fork or my chopsticks.
(LAUGHTER)
COSTELLO: Yes. Little tiny pieces.
ROBERTS: Yes. Little tiny pieces. One little piece at a time.
It's almost that time of year again. Get ready to drop your pants on the subway, that is. The Annual No Pants Subway Ride will take place in New York and other cities on January 9th, in case, you want to participate. The performance group in probe (ph) everywhere puts it together every year, and people are being encouraged to RSVP on Facebook this time around.
ROBERTS: You see, they do have things on where their pants would have been normally.
COSTELLO: What?
ROBERTS: Well, it's not like they're going all commando about it. They're still wearing something. They're not just wearing pants.
COSTELLO: I'd love to see that on the subway. Let me tell you early in the morning. It would make my day.
ROBERTS: Well, have a look at this. This will make you sad. It's tragic to look at. Rudolph goes down. Oh yes. The ninth reindeer couldn't clear a traffic light at the Annual Christmas Parade in Richmond, Virginia. It gets the heck out of the traffic light, and watch this, there's a big pop as Rudolph starts to deflate.
COSTELLO: He won't be guiding Santa's sleigh this year.
ROBERTS: No. And all the other reindeer are going to make fun of him.
COSTELLO: Some child is heavily traumatized this morning. Rudolph will be OK.
ROBERTS: We'll patch him up and take him to a local hospital.
COSTELLO: And he's fine. Yes.
The future of space travel in our hands. A private company hoping to pick up where the space shuttle leaves off next year. The Falcon 9 rocket getting ready for lift-off. We'll take you live at Cape Canaveral after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Twenty-five minutes after the hour. They're getting ready to take the next giant leap in space travel at Cape Canaveral this morning. The first privately-owned space capsule is on the launch pad, and if everything is a success, it could pick up where the space shuttle leaves off next year. Our resident space expert, John Zarrella, live for us at Cape Canaveral this morning. This is all very exciting. You got Richard Branson out in New Mexico, sending people into space. Now, you got these folks here in Florida sending stuff into space.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. There's no question about it, John. You know, for more than 50 years, places like here in Cape Canaveral, Tidus Ville, Merin (ph) Island, Cocoa Beach, all defined by NASA. Well, in the future, that definition is going to be changed to companies like SpaceX and that could be risky.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZARRELLA (voice-over): When a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral earlier this year --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The falcon has cleared the tower.
ZARRELLA: The successful test flight was huge for the lean 1,200-employee upstart company called SpaceX. In the control room, Elon Musk, billionaire, former PayPal co-founder, and now the intense hands-on man at the top. He sees SpaceX as his David versus Goliath, those big aerospace companies.
ELON MUSK, SPACEX CEO: They're just waiting for one misstep to say I told you so. And, you know, it's to be expected.
ZARRELLA: Expected because SpaceX and other new commercial companies are promising safer, more reliable space flight for less, a lot less money. SpaceX says it could fly an astronaut to the international space station for $30 million less than the Russians. But is this new industry mature enough yet to deliver?
ALVIN DREW, SHUTTLE ASTRONAUT: I think we'll get there. I just don't know how long it's going to take, what it's going to cost, and not just dollars, but possibly, in lives and in aspirations. ZARRELLA: NASA's banking on SpaceX and other companies to replace the retiring shuttle for flights to the space station.
ZARRELLA (on-camera): That would free up NASA to develop new technologies to get humans to Mars and the asteroids, but it's a risky plan.
ZARRELLA (voice-over): An accident could set the fledgling commercial industry back for years.
ALAN LINDENMOYER, NASA COMMERCIAL CREW AND CARGO PGM.: It would be a bad day to have, you know, a major problem within and these companies.
ZARRELLA: Because its southern front, much of the pressure is on SpaceX. The company has signed a $1.6 billion contract to fly a dozen cargo flights to the station starting late next year. Musk is confident he'll be carrying astronauts soon after.
MUSK: We believe firmly (ph) we can send astronauts to the space station within three years of receiving a NASA contract.
ZARRELLA: Whether you believe him or not, Musk says while he wants his company to be profitable, he's not in this for the money.
MUSK: We want to make space accessible to everyone.
ZARRELLA: How soon that happens depends in no small part on companies like SpaceX living up to their promise.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZARRELLA (on-camera): Now, SpaceX was supposed to have a launch here this morning of their Falcon 9 rocket and their dragon spacecraft, delayed because of a glitch, but they're hoping to go either tomorrow or Thursday, and that would be quite a milestone. They would be re-entering a capsule back into the atmosphere and landing into Pacific Ocean. Be the first time ever that a commercial company has done that.
You know, John, Carol, I talk to a lot of the astronauts with NASA, and I said, you know, would you, guys, be OK, feel safe, flying in a commercial rocket? And they all said, yes. No problem, but, you know, I guess that's why they're astronauts.
COSTELLO: They're special people. They'll take the chance.
ROBERTS: John, you said that SpaceX can do it for $30 million less. This is getting an astronaut up to the space station can do for $30 million less than what the Russians charge. What does it cost to send an astronaut up there?
ZARRELLA: Well, I think that the, you know, costs are certainly inflated. It's whatever you can get for the ride, and because of the fact that the shuttle is going out of business, you know, the Russians are charging us that $50 million price tag which is what they say is the cost of all of the, you know, the training and everything else to put you up in the Soyuz capsule, but Musk is insisting that because of the fact that they're leaner, they're smaller, that they can do it for a lot less money, but we're just going have to wait and see.
COSTELLO: Yes. Could be $40 million.
ROBERTS: Do you get a salad and a cocktail with that or just a bag of peanuts and a drink?
(LAUGHTER)
ZARRELLA: You know, and they're only allowed to take about two pounds of stuff up there with them when they take those rides to the internet, personal things. So, it ain't much.
ROBERTS: Wow.
COSTELLO: Fascinating, though.
ROBERTS: $50 million. John, thanks. Always great to se you.
ZARRELLA: Yes.
COSTELLO: You have to check this out. It's a wonder of nature in fast forward. Isn't that beautiful? A photographer captured the northern lights over Norway and then he posted them online. This is time lapsed video. And if you want to know where this is, you can check it out on the web because it really is spectacular. You can go to CNN.com/amfix and we'll have the web address for you because it's amazingly long.
ROBERTS: Beautiful, though, isn't it?
COSTELLO: It's gorgeous.
How's this for an attention getter?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO (voice-over): Who needs billboards when you just bring the side of a building to life? That is the side of Queen Elizabeth Hospital in London. A trippy 3D light projection show promoting "Tron" legacy. And in Dallas, an 80 foot by 80 foot 4D experience that will blow your mind. It gave the effect that the building was crumbling to the ground. This was to promote the new Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp movie "The Tourist." The movie with the two most beautiful people on the planet in it.
ROBERTS: That's an interesting special effect they've got there.
We're crossing the half hour with your top stories this Tuesday morning. Rich, poor, somewhere in between -- everyone's tax rates are staying the same in 2011. The president cutting a deal with Republicans to extend the Bush era tax cuts for two years. If the plan passes, jobless benefits extended and your Social Security taxes will be cut by two percent next year. We'll give back there on the payroll tax.
COSTELLO: A little bit. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange expected to appear in a London courtroom today. He was arrested this morning after Surrendering to British police. He's not facing rape charges in Sweden.
ROBERTS: And more than a billion new $100 bills slated to be released next year have been locked up, quarantined because of a printing problem that renders some of them useless. The new design supposed to make them more resistant to counterfeiting. We've got more on this story coming right up.
COSTELLO: Elizabeth Edwards said to be resting at home with her family this morning. Her estranged ex-husband John Edwards reportedly is there after her decision to stop treatment for her spreading cancer.
ROBERTS: In an interview with our Soledad O'Brien back in 2006, she read from her book about how the death of her son Wade prepared her for the pain she would endure in this battle.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELIZABETH EDWARDS: This is after I'd found out that I had cancer. I said, I really was at peace about the disease. I've sometimes talked about the strange gift that comes with the awful tragedy of losing a child. I'd already been through the worse, I believed. We all had. And I had the gift of knowing that nothing will ever be as bad as that. The worst day of my life had already come.
And I knew, too, that I had a chance to beat this, a chance my son never had, a chance we never had to save him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Our Mark Preston joins us now live from Washington. And it's a sad We are joined live from Washington and it's a sad day hearing that she is not going to undergo anymore treatment, that the disease at the stage where treatment really won't do much.
MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR: Yes, John. You know, this is a family that really has known tragedy. Elizabeth Edwards has been battling cancer since 2004. We found out about it right after her husband had the failed bid for the White House as the running mate to John Kerry.
And of course as we just heard, they lost a son at the age of 16 in a very terrible car accident. So Elizabeth Edwards as we're learning now is at home with her family and friends and really trying to be comfortable. And we're told John that it is going to be weeks and not months for Elizabeth Edwards.
COSTELLO: And John Edwards was there with her, which is maybe kind of surprising to people? PRESTON: Yes. You know, Carol, what's interesting about this is we're told he's there by her side and her family and friends. If you look at some of the past interviews and some of the things she's said about her husband, she's been very civil and at many times very kind. I mean, they have three children together still. They have two very young children, a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old.
And even though he acknowledged cheating on her, he acknowledged faring a child out of wedlock, she has gone on to say he is a very good father and he wants them to have a good relationship with their father. So I'm not really that surprised that John Edwards would be there at this time.
ROBERTS: Well, sad all around. Elizabeth Edwards refusing treatment now for her breast cancer, which has spread to her bones at the recommendation of her doctors, so they're trying to keep her comfortable, I guess, Mark, until the time finally comes?
PRESTON: Yes. And I think that's the idea at this point.
Look, she is a very strong woman. You know, a lot of people said that John Edwards was the next John F. Kennedy. But John Edwards would not have been John Edwards had it not been Elizabeth Edwards. And if you talk to those very close to the Edwards, they would say that she really was the engine that helped drive his political career.
He came out of where as a lawyer, a very wealthy lawyer out of North Carolina, but I remember, John, talking to him in 1999 just a few months after he was elected to the Senate, and he really talked about his wife and in a way that you actually knew that he meant it. He always said that she was smarter, that she was a better person, and really helped him get his political career on track.
So Elizabeth Edwards has played a very important role in John Edwards' career and certainly was a driving force in his presidential runs.
COSTELLO: It's just so sad that, you know, he's failed so spectacularly and she's going to die knowing that. And that really perhaps is the most tragic thing for her.
PRESTON: Yes, Carol. And really, she's done it with grace, because if you can imagine your life played out in the tabloids and newspaper headlines and of course here on television. If you can only imagine having young children and dealing with that.
ROBERTS: Mark Preston this morning in Washington, thanks so much.
It's 35 minutes after the hour. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: I want money. You need money if you're having kids. It's 38 minutes after the hour. Talk about sticker shock for new parents. According to the Department of Agriculture, the average family will spend -- are you ready for this -- $220,000 to raise a child, and that does not include the cost of college.
Why so expensive? Joining me now, the home economist, Brett Graff. She's a financial reporter and columnist for "The Miami Herald" and a former economist for the U.S. government. Brett, good to see you this morning.
BRETT GRAFF, WRITES "THE HOME ECONOMIST": Good to be here.
ROBERTS: I'll tell you, stunning, $220,000, that's for a family with an income of $76,000 a year. And you suggest that that figure as high as it might be is actually probably underestimated.
GRAFF: Yes, no, there's several things that that figure does not include. The first one is college, which is extremely expensive and rising at a rate faster than anything else. I think tuition increases about 11 percent a year and, you know, certainly interest rates don't pay you that. And wages are not increasing by that amount.
And also another thing that that figure does not include is the money that you lose by not working when you're caring for your kids. And there's a big trend right now for a lot of women to not work, actually. Women right now, they comprise about 51 percent of professional jobs. And not that much -- not as high a percentage of managers are women.
And one of the reasons is that these jobs, these professional jobs are very demanding. It makes it harder to balance a family and work. So people wind up staying home and they wind up losing a large amount of money because those are the high-paying jobs.
ROBERTS: And what you were alluding to a moment ago, some of the increases we have seen, even continuous dollars, things just cost more today.
Let's look at the cost comparison between 1960 and 2009. Child care and education, and this is in real dollars, it was two percent of the cost of raising a child in 1960. It has now gone up to 17 percent, more than eight times. And look at health care has doubled. It was four percent of the cost of raising a child in 1960. Now it is eight percent.
So parents, it is not just inflation here. It's just -- you know, in terms of like what the dollar is worth. But those things just cost more, way more than they did back then.
GRAFF: No, it is true. And health care, that's a good example. Not only are doctor's appointments more expensive or lab tests more expensive, but also we know a lot more now than we -- we have access to more information. So for example, if you can look up on the internet the, like, for example, the death toll of swine flu, and you can look up the symptoms of swine flu. And then if your child has any one of the symptoms, of course you'll go to the doctor. We go to the doctor more. We also know more about different medical conditions that we didn't know about, for example, in 1960.
ROBERTS: At the same time, too, there's an industry out there catering to concerned parents, saying you have this device or this course or implement or whatever, god forbid your child never makes it into college. How do parents resist the siren song of investing in everything under the sun?
GRAFF: I think they're having a lot of trouble resisting those purchases. It's so funny, economists always said when we're in the stores we are rational beings. We look at prices. We look at quantity, whether or not we need it. And we like to think of ourselves that way and think of ourselves as rational.
But the truth is when you're shopping, it's actually very emotional experience. Psychologists are finding that out, behavioral economists are finding that out. It's very emotional. And what are you more emotional about their child?
So it is a matter of having access to more information. We know now that early exposure to, for example, music or languages can have very real benefits in the long run, and marketers know that, so that's on the box and parents start to feel very torn. It's a feeling of urgency of having these products. They feel like if they don't make this investment in their kid then their child will be left behind.
ROBERTS: I know. When I was a kid, the one thing I wanted was piano lessons. But my mom couldn't afford a piano and look at how I turned out. It's terrible.
(LAUGHTER)
Where else can parents save? You say housing is a big area.
GRAFF: I think housing or housing is actually the biggest cost of having a kid. You start from being perhaps living in an apartment, maybe in a city. And then suddenly a baby comes and parents feel a huge pressure to buy a house. And those are very expensive.
Even right now when home prices are a little bit softer than they have been, it's still very expensive because with credit being so tight parents have to come up with bigger down payments. So that's -- that housing is the biggest cost of having children.
So -- and also we have a new mentality of every child has to have their own bedroom. We have to have a big yard.
ROBERTS: A TV set in the bedroom and their own laptop computer, all of that stuff.
GRAFF: Yes.
ROBERTS: The cost of things is certainly not going down. Brett Graf, good to see you this morning. You have kids yourself?
GRAFF: Yes, no. I have two kids, two girls.
ROBERTS: All right, $440,000.
GRAFF: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: Thanks so much, Brett.
GRAFF: Thank you.
COSTELLO: They're little money pits, aren't they?
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: I have two on the way. So that's another $440k for me, too.
COSTELLO: I feel sorry for you about the piano lessons. I can tell that still bothers me.
ROBERTS: She couldn't afford lessons. So I took up the trumpet at school because they had a trumpet there. I'm not a trumpet guy.
(LAUGHTER)
COSTELLO: There's still time, John.
ROBERTS: They didn't have an electric guitar there, too.
COSTELLO: I was going to say you can afford the piano now, but not with two kids coming. Forget it.
ROBERTS: Sell the piano.
COSTELLO: That's right.
The feds have a $110 billion headache. We'll tell you why a huge batch of $100 bills had to be quarantined.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Christine Romans is "Minding Your Business" this morning and she's here to tell us about, oh, big, big huge gigantous (ph) problem in Washington, one of them, anyway.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: No -- nobody is getting piano lessons. Just sopranos --
COSTELLO: That's it.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: John was complaining because he didn't get piano lessons when he was a kid. I got piano lessons, I'm complaining, too. That's the same thing. ROBERTS: You didn't want them.
ROMANS: I'm talking about the $100 bill. You're going to have to just be satisfied with the old, tired $100 bills in your pocket because the new ones, there's a problem. There's a glitch. The Fed is stuck with a whole big stack of bad $100 billion; 1.1 billion of them are now in storage after a printer error. A creasing problem, there is a crease on this high-tech counterfeit-proof $100 bills and the February 2011 release date may be in jeopardy.
The Fed has ordered printers to keep printing the old kind of bills. They've got the new ones in Ft. Worth and in Washington under lock and key as they try to figure out how to sort through 1.1 billion of them to figure out which ones are ok and which one are not. Some of them are ok. Some of them are not ok and they're going to have to figure out --
COSTELLO: It's a costly mistake.
ROMANS: It sure is, $100 million, maybe $120 million is going to cost American taxpayers at the end.
ROBERTS: How much does each bill cost?
ROMANS: 11.8 cents --
ROBERTS: Wow.
ROMANS: -- for each of these bills.
COSTELLO: Per bill.
ROMANS: And the $100 bill is incredibly popular overseas. This is the -- this is the unit of currency that we're known for.
(CROSSTALK)
ROBERTS: Yes well, they actually have money as opposed to here where we don't.
ROMANS: Right. We're known for those Benjamins. And counterfeiters really love to make them. They like to make them in North Korea, actually. That's a whole another story altogether.
But they try to -- we tried to foil those counterfeiters and this is the technology that tried to do it.
COSTELLO: Oh well, darn.
ROBERTS: Oops. Thanks Christine.
COSTELLO: Thanks Christine.
ROBERTS: Let's check in with Rob Marciano in the Extreme Weather Center, a man familiar with Benjamins. Good morning, Rob.
COSTELLO: Yes, right.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEROLOGIST: You put one on the outside and then on the inside is all the singles.
ROBERTS: There you go.
MARCIANO: One to two feet of snow expected across the Great Lakes again today. Winding this down a little bit tomorrow but when you get this much cold air going across the warm Great Lakes, that's the recipe in everybody that's alee of the Great Lakes are going to see more in the way of lake-effect snow.
Some of this will get down to the major metropolitan areas like it did yesterday but just a couple of flurries, really that's just about it, but certainly cold enough for snow. Pretty much cold enough for snow just about everywhere east of the Mississippi. These are the record lows yesterday, 20 in Greenwood, Mississippi. Orlando, Florida got the 38 yesterday, even colder than that this morning.
So it's been dangerously cold across parts of Florida and there'll be freeze warnings out again tomorrow. Below average temperatures, yes, this week and then this same pattern will kind of reset itself Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of next week so we're not really getting out of this pattern any time too quickly. Currently 36 in Orlando.
We're starting to see things warm up a little bit; 24 is the current temperature in Atlanta; 17 in Charlotte and currently it's still in the teens across parts of Chicago, 14 there in currently 31 degrees in New York City.
It is the season. Try to stay warm. John and Kiran back up to you.
ROBERTS: Rob thanks so much. And we'll try that. One on the outside and then --
COSTELLO: Yes. I have to remember that.
ROBERTS: -- the dollars bills in the middle. Good trick.
Best way to face your fears? How about this: tackle them head on.
COSTELLO: Coming up, meet a man who is living proof.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Eight minutes now to the top of the hour.
If you were severely claustrophobic, afraid of tight spaces perhaps the last place that you ever want to be is -- in the cockpit of a fighter plane.
COSTELLO: Oh but that's just where Lieutenant Rob "Waldo" Waldman found himself having no choice but to face his fear. Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us with this week's "Human Factor". And -- and what possessed him to jump into a cockpit --
(CROSSTALK)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right.
COSSTELLO: -- if he's claustrophobic?
GUPTA: Yes, I -- I know. It's a good question. And I think, you know, we all have phobias and to be fair I mean he was scared of lots of -- of things. You know, being shot at, having some sort of mechanical problem with the plane but it was this claustrophobia that was especially crippling so he sort of eventually adopted the -- the total immersion technique. A little frightening when you're -- when you're going Mach-2 over the desert.
But here's what happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GUPTA (voice-over): Screaming engines. Mind-numbing speeds of over 1,500 miles an hour. This was Lieutenant Colonel Rob "Waldo" Waldman's daily ride. He had what many would consider one of the coolest jobs in the world.
LT. COL. ROB "WALDO" WALDMAN, CLAUSTROPHOBIC FIGHTER PILOT: It's amazing jet. F-16.
GUPTA: But an innocent diving trip would change everything.
WALDMAN: Three years into my 11-year flying career I almost died in a scuba diving accident in the Caribbean.
GUPTA: Thirty feet under the water, Rob's scuba mask broke. Physically he fine but mentally, he was shaken to the core. He developed severe claustrophobia.
WALDMAN: So if you can imagine barely being able to move with this helmet and mask on, gloves, your head two inches from the top of that canopy, you are like in a little coffin; enough for a guy with claustrophobia to feel panicky. For every single mission I flew, I had to deal with this fear of a panic attack.
GUPTA: But a panic attack while going Mach-2 is devastating.
WALDMAN: When you are strapped into a jet, you just can't say, pause, let me just get out and deal with this. On combat missions where there was a job to do and my wingman needed me, there was no abort option for me.
GUPTA: Ultimately Rob says it was planning, family and faith that helped him overcome his fears.
WALDMAN: I would simulate the environment that I would be in on the ground before the flight and I'd say ok I may have a panic attack. How am I going to deal with it? I would look down on my checklist and I'd see a picture of my niece and nephew, and it reminded me of what I loved. And then I said I have to get home for them.
GUPTA: Now after 56 combat missions over Iraq and Serbia, Waldo says he's kicked claustrophobia for good.
WALDMAN: So think about all the challenge and the personal growth that I had because I took a risk to fly that plane. I didn't want to look back on my life and say if I only had courage to take action, I could have flown the coolest jet in the world which in my opinion is a Lockheed Martin F-16.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: You know, Sanjay, a lot of people suffer from claustrophobia. If you don't have an F-16 that you can immerse yourself then maybe an MRI machine is not available, how else could you potentially get over there?
GUPTA: Well, you know, it is interesting and he sort of alluded to this as well, this idea of simulating the potential fear. He did flight simulation as well as part of this. But for other types of phobias, there are behavioral therapies when you can, you know -- part of it is to immerse yourself in a situation without really doing so.
There's also certain medications recently that had quite a bit of study on them including beta blockers, which I know is really interesting. This idea that if you're having something that frightens you, part of it is the whole response; you start sweating, your heart rate goes up, your blood pressure may go up, you don't feel well. If you get a beta blocker, you can sort of reduce some of that.
John, you may know that people sometimes will take a beta blocker before they go give a speech in front of a live audience because that's a big phobia for a lot of people. So there are different options depending on what the phobia is.
COSTELLO: I'm just curious because I have a fear of heights and so I decided to go bungee jumping because I thought that would cure it.
GUPTA: Wow.
COSTELLO: And I did. I bungee jumped off a crane at the Ohio State Fair. But --
ROBERTS: Are you still afraid of heights?
COSTELLO: Yes, I'm still afraid of heights so is it that you know you can overcome the fear and the fear is always there? Because he said he completely cured his claustrophobia which difficult for me to believe.
GUPTA: Right. I think -- yes, it's a good point. And so for example if you're bungee jumping, you know, when you were having that very fearful episode maybe at the top right before you are about to jump, there are different sorts of interventions.
People may say if you simulated that ahead of time and overcame the fear that might help or if you had a beta blocker and your heart rate stayed absolutely normal, your blood pressure didn't elevate, there was no sweating, maybe you wouldn't associate that with being so fearful in the past.
I'm not saying that it would cure you for sure of your fear of heights. But it may really diminish how frightened you are of it.
ROBERTS: You dove off that platform and face right first into a funnel cake.
COSTELLO: I wish.
ROBERTS: Sanjay --
GUPTA: I'm glad you turned out ok, by the way, Carol.
COSTELLO: I was screaming then.
ROBERTS: Thanks Sanjay.
Three minutes to the top of the hour. We'll be right back.
Or is it corn dog?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: That's going to wrap it up for us this Tuesday morning. Thanks so much for joining us. And we'll see you back here again bright and early tomorrow. Good to have you in this morning. Nice to see you.
COSTELLO: Thanks. I'll be back in Washington tomorrow but I'll still be here on AMERICAN MORNING.
ROBERTS: Looking forward to it.
COSTELLO: "CNN NEWSROOM" is next -- hi Kyra.
