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American Morning
Federal Government On Brink Of A Shutdown; Will Shutdown Derail Recovery?; Trump Sends Investigators to Hawaii for Birther Bill; Paychecks Hanging in the Balance; Abortion Fight in Budget Battle; Budget D-Day; Midnight Deadline for Government Shutdown; 7.1 Aftershock Shakes Japan; Fargo Bracing for Record Floods; Southwest Jets to Fly Saturday; The New Commodore 64; Young Teachers Quit, Costing Billions
Aired April 08, 2011 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): It is budget D-Day. The government runs out of money at midnight. Your jobs, your tax returns, your loans, all in limbo if the president and Congressional leaders do not end the game of chicken today on this AMERICAN MORNING.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI (on-camera): Good morning. It's Friday, April 8th. I'm Ali Velshi.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kiran Chetry. Glad you're with us this morning. New this hour, it's not a battle so much over spending but policies. These riders like cutting funding for Planned Parenthood got driving the debate. One Democrat coming out saying, quote, "This is a budget, not a woman's health bill."
VELSHI: And oil soaring this morning, nearing prices we haven't seen for almost three years. What that means for you and your family ahead? Oil up above $111 a barrel this morning.
CHETRY: Up first, time is almost up. Live look at the Capitol right now. Congressional aides working through the night and into this morning, but still, no budget deal. The clock ticking down to the midnight deadline for a government shutdown. President Obama making another late night appearance in the White House briefing room, demanding results by this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I expect an answer in the morning. And my hope is, is that I'll be able to announce to the American people some time relatively early in the day that a shutdown has been averted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: The president says the two sides were able to narrow their differences last night, even though he's not wildly optimistic right now. The key sticking points that remain, besides the money, are these politically charged issues you were talking about.
Brianna Keilar is live on Capitol Hill this morning. Bring this into focus for our viewers. A lot of people were saying this is about the money. Clearly it's not.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Part of it has to do with the money, but part of it has to do with the hot button issues, and that appears to be the thing that's really hanging up these negotiations at this point. I just spoke with a congressional aide with knowledge of these talks, Ali and Kiran, top aides to House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid were going through discussions last night after this White House meeting until about 3:00 a.m. in the capitol and they're going to resume talking again today.
But just listen after that White House meeting, to what Leader Reid said on the prospects for whether we'll see a shutdown or not.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. HARRY REID, (D-NV) SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: Right now, I'm hopeful but I think that the odds are no better than 50/50. I have been terribly disappointed in what we've heard from the leadership in the House this last 24 hours. This is not a debate between Democrats and Republicans. It's a debate between Republicans and Republicans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Just to crystallize these hot button issues that are creating this partisan divide in these talks, one of the big ones has to do with the Environmental Protection Agency. House Republicans would like to say to the EPA you cannot regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
But this is a huge one, that second one you see on your screen, abortion and Planned Parenthood. House Republicans would like to take all federal if funding for the rest of the budget year from Planned Parenthood. They say this is a way to ensure that federal dollars do not pay for abortions. Democrats say they already don't. Planned Parenthood provides a lot of other services, important services, for women's health.
But this is becoming a big issue and perhaps we're not entirely too surprised, Ali and Kiran, as you'll recall when it came to health care reform negotiations, abortion was really the last issue on the table. This is always a hot button issue and it has been, obviously, this Congress and last congress.
VELSHI: Distinct is that the health care issue was about health care. This is actually the budget.
CHETRY: Also, some of the Tea Party, of course, blamed for wanting this shutdown, saying no compromise, ahead of the movement, at least in the congress, Michele Bachmann had an interesting take. Let's hear what she said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN, (R) MINNESOTA: I agree with people, let's get serious and get it done. It is an admission of failure when we see the government shut down. We need to fight on principle, practical but we also need to get the job done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: It's interesting. She said we need to stand by our principles but be practical and get the job done. Is that a change? Is this signaling a change when it comes to the Tea Party?
KEILAR: It's hard to tell because Michelle Bachmann has made it clear unless she could get in this -- in this whole package a provision that would defend what she calls Obamacare, health care reform she won't vote for this. I would say don't expect for her to vote for this. I think if it doesn't include that.
What you're seeing is a lot of Democrats and Republicans who are very concerned about whether there is going to be a shutdown and just a point on this idea of these policy provisions in this Bill, because I know Ali you brought this up, this is one of the things that Democrats are hitting Republicans on. They're saying this is a spending Bill. Why are you attaching this?
There is a history of in spending bills, there being policy provisions and frequently this does become a battle on these kinds of issues.
VELSHI: All right, Brianna, stay on top of us and we'll check in with you again. Brianna Keilar on Capitol Hill in the heart of all of this action.
We have to be clear about where everybody stands on all of this. There's the House, the Senate, and there's the White House. The House is now trying to keep the money running a little longer. It passed a stop gap spending plan that would keep the government running for one more week. It would also fund the Pentagon for six months and cut $12 billion in domestic spending.
Democrats in the House flat out said no. In fact, in the Senate, majority whip Dick Durbin told "Politico" that Democrats there are working on their own short-term plan.
CHETRY: The vote in the house was mostly along party lines. Even though it has no chance of becoming law, Republicans used it to send a blunt message to the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JEB HENSARLING, (R) TEXAS: Why, Mr. President, are you issuing a veto threat? And to put it in a larger context, you want to say senator Reid, Mr. President, what part of broke don't you understand? (END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: That was Jeb Hensarling who we had on the show earlier in the week.
VELSHI: That was a good way to ask it. The president devoting all of his attention to getting this deal done, a long-term deal. He cleared his slate for the budget talks, canceled a trip to stay -- he was going to travel to Indiana, now staying in Washington to get this done.
Ed Henry is live with the latest from the White House this morning. Very interesting how Jeb Hensarling put this to the president, "what part of broke don't you understand?" Does the president have to answer that?
ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I don't think he will answer that. And he has already declared that even if this stop gap measure by the Republicans that went through the house, went through the Senate, it's not going to, if it did he would veto it BECAUSE Jay carney, the spokesman basically says look they're tired of going week to week to week, there needs to be some broader deal here and you can't just pick that the Pentagon is going to be funded through September 30th and not fund the rest of the government as this stop gap Bill would do.
The other issue they are really trying to pound is what kind of impact this would have on real people. White House officials coming overnight and saying the FAA which handles about 20 percent of new mortgages and refinancing would have to stop its paperwork. Military pay would not go through. And the president also when he came out after these negotiations late last night here at the White House, said this would have a devastating impact on the recovery.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Earlier today, one of our nation's top economists said, and I'm quoting here, "The economic damage from a government shutdown would mount very quickly. And the longer it dragged on, the greater the odds of a renewed recession."
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HENRY: Administration officials also pointing to the fact that is little known, but if you go back to the mid '90s last time there were government shutdowns Wall Street took a hit. The markets were rattled by that and that is what the president is really pointing to there.
He's given Republican and democratic leaders a deadline of this morning. We're expecting any time now in the next few hours, some sort of word about whether they had any kind of a break through overnight or in the morning hours now. The point being, that the White House wants to get this settled one way or another early today so that we're not going right down to midnight tonight to find out. They want to get this figured out one way or another, because if there's no deal, they want to get the government prepared for all kinds of changes this weekend. Ali.
CHETRY: The crazy thing, if they do get this deal, we could be going through this a week from now?
HENRY: If they were to get a longer term deal, that's what the president has been pushing for, to take this funding through the end of the year, finally we wouldn't have this lurching government week to week as you suggest.
I think at the end of the day what's very interesting as well, the political implications. Think about how this week started, the president officially filed the paperwork on Monday to run for election. He thought he was riding high. The week is ending maybe where he oversees potentially a government shutting down. It could be politically radioactive for we're not sure which party. So the politics are such that both sides are holding their breath wondering what's next.
VELSHI: Ed, thanks very much. A lot of the political radio activity will be determined by what happens. If the economy takes a hit, if the stock market falls, if we start losing jobs as a result of it, we'll have to see where that goes.
Let's bring you up to speed with what's going on in Egypt. There are calls to bring former regime members to justice. Take a look at this, a picture you haven't seen for some time, large crowds gathering in Cairo's Tahrir Square for what is being called a day of trial and cleansing.
Demonstrators are pressuring the military council to deliver on promised reforms and a lot of military members have been -- a lot of soldiers have been invited to this rally, telling soldiers, military warned soldiers do not show up at that rally.
CHETRY: A reminder, though, that this is still percolating out there. While some of the world attention has gone away from it, it is still a very, very volatile situation.
VELSHI: That's right.
CHETRY: Still ahead, a lot of talk, what will happen if the government shuts down, will America's fragile economy be brought to its knees? We'll be speaking with a professor at George Mason University, an economic expert, about the short term and longer term implication of a shutdown.
VELSHI: And Donald Trump on the birther bandwagon sending investigators to Hawaii in search of President Obama's birth certificate. We'll tell you what he says he found, what they found. It's ten minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Good morning. Welcome back to "American Morning." right now, less than 17 hours standing between a divided Congress and a government shutdown. CHETRY: If lawmakers don't come to terms on a budget, nearly every federal office, tourist attraction will close up shop. And, of course, the implications are larger than that. Joining us to talk about whether this will actually hurt the economic recovery is Professor Stephen Fuller of George Mason University. Thanks for joining us this morning.
STEPHEN FULLER, ECONOMIST, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY: Good morning.
CHETRY: In terms of a short-term shutdown, let's say they can't get to an agreement, shuts down a week or two, how harmful do you think that will be to the economic recovery?
FULLER: Well, a week or two is actually not a short shutdown. If this is just a couple days it will be like a snowstorm, that's what I tell people. You know, there will be fewer workers working and less money being spent. But as this lengthens and extends for two, three, four weeks, we haven't had that kind of shutdown before beyond 21 days, I believe.
CHETRY: It was 21 days in 1995. If this is a little shorter than that --
FULLER: If this is shorter than that, we probably won't notice it so much. Nationally won't have any effect on GDP. I think it's being overstated. Locally probably not any affect. It's going to have a lot of effect on individuals. The uncertainty is probably the big issue, not the actual change in spending patterns.
VELSHI: Bottom line, does it cost us more or less to shut the government down for let's say two weeks?
FULLER: It seems the consensus is that it will cost money. We're not going to save any money by this shutdown. There will be redistribution of spending, but the delayed payments to individuals, of course assuming that the workers who have been furloughed will get paid as they have in the past, they'll get their money.
Not everybody will get their money back, though. The people that depend on the federal government who are pushed back for a week or two and not receiving paychecks, businesses that do business with the federal government, they may not get their money back. And so companies, individuals will be harmed by this, where in the economy we won't notice it very much.
CHETRY: Right. And we're still talking if it's short term, I don't think many people are looking past 21 days as you said that happened in 195. What about the timing, in 1995, it was a short, four or five days in November and then went from the middle of December to past New Year's, the first week in January. We're talking April, tax time. Does the timing make a difference?
FULLER: The timing does. In Washington, we focus on tourism at this time of year. Although that's not a major part of the economy, it certainly is important to certain companies. And there wasn't any tourism in January back in '96. This is the peak. The cherry blossoms are finishing up, spring break, Easter holidays, and a lot of people come to Washington. They may not come. Those businesses will lose that business. If you postpone a vacation, you probably don't come back to the place that you had originally intended. So, that spending is gone. But it has more impact in April as the economy goes, not -- the individual impacts are probably the same.
VELSHI: Right.
FULLER: But as it affects the local economy, greater impact now.
VELSHI: Well, I suppose if it does shut down, the one thing you can still see is the cherry blossoms. You just can't do all the stuff around it.
Professor Fuller, thanks very much for being with us. Stephen Fuller is the director of the Center of Regional Analysis at George Mason University.
FULLER: Good to be here.
CHETRY: Thank you.
Well, still ahead on AMERICAN MORNING, and as the professor was talking about, what about D.C. itself?
VELSHI: Oh, that area is going to --
CHETRY: Yes, known as a company town.
VELSHI: Yes.
CHETRY: I guess you could say. I mean, how many people rely on government workers? How much of the city runs because of it?
Well, Eleanor Holmes Norton is the delegate who represents Washington, D.C. She says she is "mad as hell," as she puts it, over the prospect of the government shutting down and she also doesn't like the fact that D.C.'s own budget is beholden to what happens in Congress.
VELSHI: And the battle for Libya, mo gains for pro-Gadhafi forces and the U.S. general who led the Libya campaign suggests putting American boots on the ground to get Gadhafi out. American soldiers in Libya. Is that going to happen?
Sixteen minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. A lot of news for you this morning.
Libyan forces have opposition fighters on the run again. The rebels forced out of Ajdabiya in eastern Libya. Vehicles loaded with rocket launchers and ammunition can be seen -- could be seen here -- you can see the video -- rushing out of the city toward opposition headquarters which is further north and east in Benghazi. NATO in the meantime says an air strike may have hit a rebel convoy near Brega yesterday. Four people were killed.
Remember, we were talking to Ben Wedeman about that yesterday morning as it was happening. It is the second reported case of friendly fire in a week in Libya.
Carter Ham, the U.S. general who led the Libya air campaign before NATO took over, says the situation on the ground is becoming a stalemate. Ham telling a U.S. Senate hearing that the U.S. may consider sending troops into Libya with an international ground force that could help out the rebels. President Obama, of course, has said, he would not put U.S. troops on the ground in Libya. So we have to look more into where Ham got that information.
CHETRY: Well, the Japanese government this morning is lifting some of its bans on the sale of food. Officials say that radiation levels have fallen below legal limits for three straight weeks so now they say it is safe to sell spinach, at least in the Gunma Prefecture, which is southwest of the damaged Daiichi nuclear power plant and the ban on milk in the Fukushima Prefecture has also been lifted.
Former President Bill Clinton is back in Haiti this morning, 15 months after the earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince and left 300,000 people dead. Former President Clinton will be visiting a school and also launching a national cholera awareness campaign before meeting with the commission for the reconstruction of Haiti.
VELSHI: Donald trump, you're following this?
CHETRY: Yes.
VELSHI: He's not letting up.
CHETRY: No.
VELSHI: He continues to demand to see President Obama's birth certificate. This morning, the Donald will meet in New York with Arizona Republican Carl Seel, who is sponsoring a birther bill that would require all presidential candidates to prove that they were born in the United States.
Now, Trump says he sent a team of investigators to Hawaii to find out if President Obama was actually born in America. He says, quote, "They can't believe what they're finding. More specifically what they're not finding."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, CEO, THE TRUMP ORGANIZTION (via telephone): You have to be born in the country. There's no birth certificate. There's only a certificate of live birth which is a totally different thing and a much, much lower standard. There are no hospital records. His own family doesn't know what hospital he was born in Hawaii but you have no hospital records in any of the hospitals that he was born in, no bills, no room numbers, no nothing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: OK. So we called Trump's office to find out who his investigators are and what specifically they found or did not find. Know what we heard from them?
CHETRY: No comment.
VELSHI: No comment.
CHETRY: It's interesting. I think -- Candy Crowley is going to be talking to him again, I think, later today.
VELSHI: Yes.
CHETRY: So it will be interesting to see if she presses him on that, what exactly he's talking about.
VELSHI: Yes.
CHETRY: Twenty-two minutes past the hour right now. And Fargo is getting ready for the flooding this weekend. You know, sadly because this has happened to them so many times, they almost have it down to a science.
VELSHI: Yes.
CHETRY: The sandbagging as that river crests. Rob Marciano is following all of that for us.
Hey, Rob.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning, guys. And they're pretty confident because they've been able to fight it back the past couple of years even with the record flood levels, so they're prepared again. And you know, we'll have to get through this weekend and hopefully everything will hold. But the record -- it's not going to get to record stage but getting to major flood stage and approach the records that we've seen the past couple of years. 39.5 feet is what we're looking for. That's just a foot or so shy of the record and that's going to happen over the weekend.
What's been good about this spring is that the warm-up hasn't been drastic. I mean, it's been barely, you know -- fairly a slow run up of temperatures, even though we had a near-record snowpack. So that's been the good news.
The moisture over the next 48 hours is going to stay pretty much to the north here across the Great Lakes into parts of the mid- Atlantic. This batch of moisture will get up towards Fargo, yes. But when it comes to type of flooding situation, that little bit of rain isn't going to matter too much.
We do have some rain from Chicago to Detroit this morning. It's getting over towards Philly and through the mid-Atlantic. The Delmarva, this is not a whole ton of rain but it's enough to wet the roadways certainly and cause some travel slowdowns and we're seeing a travel delay actually in Chicago at this hour.
Trying to get up to New York, we have a tough time to do it. I think much of the moisture will stay down across parts of Baltimore. There you go. A 35-minute delay there in Chicago and temperatures will be on the warm-up over the next couple of days across the Deep South, feeling more like summer than spring.
I know that doesn't help you guys in New York but it's coming your way.
VELSHI: Is it me or is it New York and the sort of this northeast --
CHETRY: Weather cloud.
VELSHI: -- this is a little weather bubble. Like everything is happening around us, there's nice weather, there's bad weather. We just are kind of grim, damp and rainy.
MARCIANO: All right. Pretty much ever since you started this morning --
VELSHI: It's been bad weather.
MARCIANO: Yes.
VELSHI: Everybody said it was balmy before I got here.
Rob, good to see you. We'll check in with you a little later on today.
MARCIANO: OK, guys.
CHETRY: Well, coming up, there is, of course, a looming shutdown, but we're talking about more than just paychecks and how it affects government workers. We're actually talking about the livelihood of a city hanging in the balance. We're going to be joined by Eleanor Holmes Norton. She is a District of Columbia delegate.
VELSHI: And her old district depends on the government, the federal government.
OK. So what is the hold up in this budget really? Is it money or is it policy and politics? Why is the abortion issue in the budget talks? Some lawmakers refuse to budge because of it. So we're going to talk about how some wedge issues are actually driving a wedge into the bargain.
All right. It's 24 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Twenty-seven minutes past the hour. We're following the latest on what's happening in our federal government. If there is a shutdown, it's more than just government workers who won't be showing up to work.
VELSHI: Stephanie Elam has been digging into this to find out who else is affected.
Good morning, Stephanie.
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It's not good. Like when you look at how far this ripple goes, you think, OK, sure, museums close, so people who are in the museum --
VELSHI: And the places who run the coffee shop near the museum.
ELAM: Well, that's the thing. It's the restaurants. It's the hotels.
VELSHI: Yes.
ELAM: And as you were just hearing, you know, it's not going to be that these people are going to necessarily come back for their spring break. This is their one week that they had set aside.
CHETRY: Right.
VELSHI: Right, right.
ELAM: So if you look at all these things that are around these national parks, that are around these monuments that people way want to go to, maybe you want to go see the Statute of Liberty, even willing to take the kids for all these years. Guess what? You can't do it if the government shuts down. So all of this will mean then that these businesses will be affected. They'll be closed. But guess what? Those people who work at these businesses may have to cut back on their hours, may have less money. That means they'll spend less at grocery stores and all the essentials that they need.
The other interesting thing here about businesses, though, who are just now starting to get back on their feet after this economic plight that we've seen for the last few years, let' say you're a government contractor and you're supposed to make a delivery to a government office, they're closed. You can't do that which means you now have to find a warehouse to store your stuff in which is going to cost you more money. But at the same time, you're not getting as much work done so you're cutting back on hours for your workers. And again, it's that same situation.
All of this could really impact economic growth if this were to go on for a prolonged period of time. Of course, we don't know how long this could go on if it happens at all. When you look at this, it's all very upsetting for a lot of people, especially for these business owners because, you know, Ali, as we've been talking about since, you know, '07, the end of '07 --
VELSHI: I know it's been tough for them.
ELAM: -- these people have been struggling.
VELSHI: Right.
ELAM: And so now, things are just starting to look better.
VELSHI: You made an interesting point. Let's say Social Security Administration, parts of it shut down. Right? Then when they come back to work, there'll be extra work to catch up on. And so it will cost us more because there'll be overtime there.
ELAM: Overtime, yes.
VELSHI: But for these businesses that were going to cater to the spring break tourists, there's no overtime. They don't get that back.
ELAM: They don't get it back. It's like that's just lost business.
VELSHI: You just lost business.
ELAM: And this is the beginning.
VELSHI: Right.
ELAM: Especially like, say, D.C., cherry blossoms. I went to school in D.C.
CHETRY: I know. Me too.
ELAM: I love it. That is like the best time.
VELSHI: Yes.
ELAM: And people come to see that every year.
CHETRY: Huge draw.
VELSHI: You're actually planning a little trip down there for cherry blossoms. But now, if the government shuts down, we're not going to have that trip.
ELAM: Was I invited on this trip?
CHETRY: Yes.
VELSHI: Yes.
CHETRY: It was on an e-mail we sent a week ago.
VELSHI: Yes.
ELAM: I was getting my e-mail when I was in Puerto Rico. I didn't see anything.
Anyway, let's talk about the markets which were down yesterday. I wasn't here. I have nothing to do with it. But let me tell you what's going on.
I did see this.
VELSHI: Wow.
ELAM: After that big earthquake in Japan, which they're calling an aftershock, which in normal terms would be a huge earthquake on its own, the markets tumbled about 95 points. Made back most of it throughout the day. But as you can see the Dow lost 17 points.
VELSHI: Oil also pushing higher and that's affecting the markets.
ELAM: $110. Also the other issue, getting up to these levels that we haven't seen in a while.
CHETRY: Yes. Because you have to take out a loan to fill up your car. I mean, it's getting ridiculous.
ELAM: Head out west. Head to Hawaii.
CHETRY: I know.
ELAM: Painful.
CHETRY: Hawaii and California not fun.
ELAM: But anyway --
VELSHI: Stephanie, you're on top of this for us all morning. Thank you. Appreciate it.
ELAM: We have to look at it again next hour.
VELSHI: All right. Four meetings in 48 hours, still no budget deal. The deadline for a government shutdown is hours ago, about 17, 16-and-a-half hours away now. President Obama wants a budget. He wants to hear there's a deal this morning. Is he going to get his way?
CHETRY: Well, he met with Republican House Speaker John Boehner and also Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid last night. The second night in a row, but talks broke off again without a deal.
VELSHI: As Stephanie mentioned, oil prices at their highest level in two and a half years. Soaring above $111 a barrel. So far this year, oil prices have surged 20 percent. Analysts are blaming that spike on a 7.1 magnitude aftershock that shook Japan yesterday. No reports of any major damage this time but there were some deaths that were caused by it and some injuries.
U.S. Airways is raising prices for domestic flight by $10 round trip. So far, Delta, the only airline to match that increase. This is the 10th time this year that airlines have called for a cost hike. We'll see if this one sticks.
Kiran? CHETRY: All right. It's not something you expect to see in budget negotiations but there is one very charged - politically charged issue that may be the sticking point if that shuts down most of the federal government.
Dana Bash has a look at the battle within the battle in Washington.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The House will come to order.
DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One of the biggest disagreements is not over government spending, but policy.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), HOUSE SPEAKER: Some 40 or 50 policy restrictions that were attached to our bill.
BASH: So-called policy riders, Republicans call essential, and Democrats call non-starters. The most divisive is over abortion, a GOP plan to cut all federal funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion procedures in addition to other women's health services.
SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MAJORITY LEADER: This is a budget. This is to keep our country running. This is not a women's health bill.
BASH: Planned Parenthood staged a rally outside the capitol to protest.
CECILE RICHARDS, CEO, PLANNED PARENTHOOD: They don't want to allow Planned Parenthood to serve the three million women we see every single year. 97 percent of the services Planned Parenthood provide are preventative care.
REP. JOHN FLEMING (R), LOUISIANA: I certainly don't think that taxpayers should subsidize abortions. It's - if a woman chooses to an abortion it's legal to do that in this country but I don't think taxpayers should be put in a position to have to pay for those abortions.
BASH: Another major sticking point, how much spending to cut. A Democratic source tells CNN they have finally found tentative agreement on slashing $34.5 billion from the rest of this year's budget but a Republican source says there's no deal.
BOEHNER: There is no agreement on a number. There are no agreement on the policy issues that are contained with this.
BASH: Then there's the critical issue of what programs and agencies to cut. Democrats say they're trying to find spending cuts with the least impact on those who need it most. So they're pushing for things like temporary one-year cuts in programs, some examples, cuts in wetlands protection and Pell grants for summer school and graduate students. Republicans call that smoke and mirrors. BOEHNER: Our goal is to make real spending cuts.
BASH: Some examples of what Republicans want to cut, money for food inspectors, head start education programs and funding for housing.
Dana Bash, CNN, Capitol Hill.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: Dana, thanks so much for that.
You know, we have another guest, somebody who's right in the thick of all of this right now, Congressman Steny Hoyer. He is the House minority whip, congressman out of Maryland. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.
REP. STENY HOYER (D), MINORITY WHIP: Good day.
CHETRY: I want to ask you about the deal or no deal. How is this going? Os has progress been made since the late into the night talks?
HOYER: Well, there's no deal now as far as I know. From what I've heard this morning. There's still work on it. What we're going to be trying to do today is to make sure that we keep government operating over the next seven days with a very simple agreement. We call it a clean CR in the jargon which simply means that we're going to keep things going as they're going now while we're negotiating and trying to reach a deal.
Shutting down the government will have a very negative effect on the economy. Millions of people throughout the country as well as our federal employees and the services they perform. So it's not a good thing to do. Unfortunately, we've seen this scenario played out before in 1995.
CHETRY: I just want to ask you a quick question, because you're talking - when you say a clean CR, you mean the continuing resolution, didn't the House put one together, didn't House GOP put one together that had something, having to do with defense that was a sticking point for Democrats?
HOYER: Defense was not the sticking point. There were other riders within that bill which clearly the president has indicated he wouldn't sign. The Senate said they wouldn't pass. So we made the point that it ought to be clean, meaning simply, dealing solely with numbers. The defense issue was not the issue. The issue was the riders.
Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, Republican, former chair of the former head of the OMB, said "Look, these riders ought to be for other bills. What you want to do is solve the financial issues confronting the country." We've come 70 percent of the way towards what Republicans wanted to do. I think anybody that goes 70 percent of the way, thinks they've gone a pretty far way towards reaching reasonable agreement on restraining spending and the campaign. I never heard anybody say you're going to restrain spending if you do this, that or the other. They said restrain spending, we're doing that.
I would hope the Republicans would deal with that issue and then deal with their other issues on later bills. They'll have that opportunity.
VELSHI: Congressman Hoyer, you - to some degree, it's benefited the Democrats that the Republicans are having some struggle on this. We spoke to your colleague, Congressman Alan West earlier who said he is stuck to his $61 billion in cuts, we may be close to $40 billion in cuts, that's not enough to move him. You got others on the Republican Party who say that they want to deal with Planned Parenthood and they want to deal with restricting the environmental protection agency and they don't want to budge on that.
But the reality is, if the Republicans can't get it together, if the Tea Party Republicans and the regular Republicans can't get it together and there's a shutdown, it shines that light right back on the Democrats who didn't pass this budget when they controlled both Houses. So what have you got to do to get their maneuvering in line?
HOYER: Well, let me talk about we didn't pass a budget. You'll recall the reason that the Senate couldn't get a budget on the floor was because 41 Republicans held tight against consideration of those bills. So it's a little bit as my friend, Hall Rodgers, said last night, from Kentucky, the orphan who killed both of his parents and then begs for mercy from the court because he's an orphan. The Republicans would not allow bills to move in the Senate. You know that, I know that. The American people probably aren't as focused on why bills couldn't move, but it was because Harry Reid couldn't get 60 votes.
So on the one hand they're saying "Look you didn't pass the bills, which they precluded us doing," and on the other hand, they say "As a result, you're to blame." That doesn't - that dog doesn't hunt as they say in Texas. And the fact is, we now have an opportunity, having come 70 percent of the way, they wanted to come on cutting spending, an important objective of both parties, we've come 70 percent their way, and they're still saying no deal.
The founder of the Tea Party Patriots said last night in an interview with Chris Mathews, if Boehner came out with $99 billion in cuts, would you make a deal, and his response was, "no." They wanted 100 or nothing.
CHETRY: Michele Bachmann who's the Tea Party caucus leader said, "Time to " -- you're laughing. But she said "It's our job to get a budget done."
HOYER: Well, I think she's absolutely right. And I hope she follows through on that and I hope her people follow through on that. And very frankly we're going to give them an opportunity to do that today. Which is doing what we have always done, when Democrats were in control of the House, and George Bush was in control of the Senate. We came to an agreement. We didn't shut down government. We did have disagreements and where we had disagreements and we knew the president wouldn't agree, we frankly gave in to the president under those circumstances because we knew that you have to in a democracy, come to compromise so that you can act. We need to do that today.
CHETRY: All right. Congressman Steny Hoyer, House minority whip, thanks so much for joining us this morning and good luck. You need it today for sure.
HOYER: You bet. You're correct on that. Thank you very much.
VELSHI: Coming up on "American Morning," we're going to talk to the delegate representing Washington, D.C., obviously Washington doesn't have its own member of Congress, a delegate, long-time delegate, Eleanor Holmes-Norton has some choice words for lawmakers in the face of the possible government shutdown. You'll hear them from her, next.
CHETRY: Also, America's young teachers say they're not getting enough support, leaving the classroom and is ending up costing schools billions. More on that tough issue coming up.
39 minutes past the hour.
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CHETRY: Welcome back. 40 minutes past the hour right now. Hundreds of thousands of Americans may be affected if, indeed, the government shut downs. The people in Washington, D.C., would be especially hard hit. It's a city that stands to lose millions of dollars and stands to have critical services suspended.
VELSHI: This is where it really hits the road. Because they will lose their jobs in some cases or be furloughed and lose some of their services. The D.C. congressional delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton is outraged over the budget stalemate and she joins us now from the nation's capitol.
Representative Norton, Eleanor Norton, there's a really complicated relationship here, a lot of people don't get it. Explain to us how the shutdown would affect D.C. differently than other places?
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (D), D.C. DELEGATE: The District of Columbia passed its local budget balanced last year. The committees here in the House and Senate approved them last summer. But these folks here in the Congress, have not gotten their act together. They require our budget to come here. That is an abomination because we're talking about local money and local funds. So, technically they haven't passed any appropriation, including ours. Even though all they do is essentially sign off on it.
So what is going to be the result? We have a crowd here now who are holding up the entire country over some federal matters. Legitimate federal matters in which the federal government has long been involved. Now we're talking about a local jurisdiction now in solidarity with both sets of employees I will be giving up my salary for every day we close down, but notice, that the House has not voted that members of Congress will not be paid. The Senate has. But the House has not voted.
So what do we have here? We have not only my federal employees who will be out of work, we have District of Columbia employees. Why are they in this? Every cent is local money. I have had amendment after amendment that said simply attach something that says the District of Columbia can spend its own local money. Instead, as you said, in your earlier clip, they're now debating policy matters.
CHETRY: Right.
NORTON: There are some indication that they're using District of Columbia's local money in that debate.
CHETRY: So let me just ask you about this one thing. Because it seems as though this is sort of highlighted an issue that you have separate from the budget, which is why should it have to be that this - that D.C.'s local budget gets wrapped into the federal mess. Why didn't that get taken care of? I mean, did you have more support when the GOP was not in charge of the House, when it was basically Democrats running the White House and both houses of Congress?
NORTON: One hundred percent support.
CHETRY: Why didn't that go through then?
NORTON: Our budget should not have to come here, as Mr. Hoyer said, 41 Republicans kept the budget from being approved last time. But let's assume that both sides were to blame. Why don't - why don't they let the district out since our budget, of course, has been done now for almost a year. Whatever the Congress did, and you can go about sorting out the blame between Democrats and Republicans, but I bet you this much, the country will say, the District of Columbia doesn't have anything to do with this and if they've got some local money in here, they should be able to get out of this mess.
VELSHI: Let me ask you this, off of that topic, let's get right to the fact that if this government shuts down, it's going to affect people in every city who may not just be government workers because of all those ripple effects. How is getting to be different in D.C. than it is going to be in Philadelphia or Denver or Atlanta? What's D.C. going to feel like when this government shuts down?
NORTON: Very important to note, it has radiating effects on our economy. And like every big city we have, we're just getting out of this recession. For example, this month three million visitors are coming because of the Cherry Blossom Festival. They almost had to close down the Cherry Blossom parade which I'm due to march on Saturday, because of the National Park Service along the federal route is not going to be there.
So, the district police have taken over, but the district has already been hurt that way. Because when people hear that the government is shutting down, these people will not come, will not have come already to Washington because they know the Smithsonian won't be open.
They've given us a double hit. They've hit us by now trying to shut us down and they've hit us where it really hurts in our economy, by shutting down the federal government where people come to Washington and feel our national economy because they come to see the sites, which won't be there to see.
CHETRY: Well, hopefully this will not happen. Hopefully there will be an 11th hour deal that, of course, is still very much in the air this morning. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the D.C. delegate, District of Columbia delegate in the Congress. Thanks so much for joining us.
NORTON: Always a pleasure.
VELSHI: Coming up next, an update on those cracks that were found in several Southwest Airlines planes. Four of those planes could be back in the air by tomorrow.
CHETRY: So they're sandbag like they do every year, but can it hold? This is in Fargo, a city that is right there facing the Red River trying to hold it back for the weekend. We're going to have more on that as well. It's 46 minutes past the hour.
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CHETRY: It's 47 minutes past the hour. We want to give you a look at the headlines. What you need to know to start your day. We're still budget. No deal yet.
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CHETRY (voice-over): The federal government is on course to shut down in less than 17 hours if Congress cannot compromise on a spending plan. President Obama is demanding a definitive answer from lawmakers this morning.
Another powerful earthquake in northern Japan. This was a 7.1 magnitude. It was an aftershock. You can see what it looked like to be there. Three people were killed and more than 130 others injured. There was no new damage, though, to the crippled nuclear plant in Fukushima.
They're bracing for severe flooding in Fargo, North Dakota. The Red River seven feet higher today than it was Wednesday and it's expected to crest Sunday at about 40 feet. Right now, they've put 2 million sandbags in place hoping they will hold it back.
And gold hitting a record high. Trading at $1,466 an ounce in Asia today. Silver is spiking to record highs as well, breaking through to a $40 an ounce level.
Southwest Airlines says four planes being repaired for cracks in their aluminum skins should be back in service tomorrow. The airlines' mechanics are replacing an 18-inch section of the roof on each of the jets. Check out the Commodore 64 computer. It was released back in 1982. The new version looks like the old one, only it's much more advanced. It even supports outputs to connect to high def TVs.
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CHETYR: You're caught up on the headlines. AMERICAN MORNING will be back in just 60 seconds.
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VELSHI: Education in crisis, a new report says dozen of teachers under the age of 31 are quitting the profession at an alarming rate. The high turnover rate is hurting school district budgets. It's costing them $7 billion a year. Sandra Endo live on Capitol Hill with this story.
Sandra, how is it costing $7 billion a year that teachers are leaving?
SANDRA ENDO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, $7 billion, Ali, that's how much it costs school districts nationwide per year to recruit and train teachers. That number could really be cut down, Ali if you think about it if you tackle the teacher turnover rate.
But this new report is very troubling because it shows there is a lot of disconnect out there among teachers especially in the generation "y" group. That means people who are 30 years old other younger.
They say, according to this new survey out by the American Federation Of Teachers and the American Institute for Research, it says that 1 out of 5 teachers nationwide fit into this category, the gen "y" category.
But 51 percent want to leave the profession and are more likely to than the older counterparts. Also the city shows that 91 percent are more likely to transfer schools than older teachers as well.
Now the study says that gen "y" teachers want some basic things. They want a better support system. They want schools to provide better feedback, have meaningful evaluations, support for peer learning, reward high performance and use better technology.
The AFT president says that these are very easy fixes, Ali, when you think about it because a lot of them don't cost a lot of money and it would help the system all around.
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RANDI WEINGARTEN, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TECHNOLOGY: The smart strategy and the cost efficient strategy is to actually treat teachers respectfully and support them so that they can do the jobs they want to do for kids, create the tools and conditions in schools, create a humane, collaborative environment so that teachers can teach and kids can learn. (END VIDEO CLIP)
ENDO: Now, there is an effort to reach out to this specific segment of teachers alone because of this report and educators say if you tackle the teacher turnover rate, not only will it help students but also help the bottom line - Ali.
VELSHI: All right, Sandra, thanks very much. Sandra Endo on Capitol Hill. Kiran --
CHETRY: All right, we are keeping an eye on the talks in Washington, budget talks all morning long as this game of chicken continues into the 11th hour.
Will we be looking at a government shutdown? How will that affect you in terms of finances and if you want to buy or sell a home. We're going to talk about all of that. Still ahead. It's 53 minutes past the hour.
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CHETRY: It's 55 minutes past the hour right now. Rob Marciano is keeping an eye on all things weather related for us as we head into the weekend. A lot of the country is looking at some good weather.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, not bad especially across the south. There's a little bit of rain. It's moving across the Midwest right now, but it's not that big of a deal. Little threat for severe later on today, but nothing what we saw earlier in the week.
Chicago, you had a fair share of rain last night, beginning to dry out. In Detroit, kind of a wet day. West Coast, still getting rainfall as far south as San Diego. A very winter-like pattern for the past couple of weeks and it continues today and tomorrow.
Travelling through Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego, you will probably see some delays there because of the rain and wind. Late season snow, not bad conditions out there. A lot of the resorts are closing this weekend. So get out there and get your snow. They are not closing because they don't have any more snow.
It's closing because, you know, business starts to dry up because people think it is not a good time to go, but you should head out there. The fire danger is going to be high again. Critical out there across parts of the high plains in through Texas and Oklahoma.
We're going to see a threat for severe weather later on today across the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys and across the mid south. So we will watch for that. Again, I shouldn't be as drastic as what we saw earlier in the week. It will be that threat later on today.
Meanwhile, the warm up continues, 92 degrees expected today across parts of Texas, 80 degrees in Memphis. It will be in the mid- 50s in New York City. You will see some of this warmer air as we get through the end of the weekend and more so towards the beginning of next week.
The weekend is going to be for the most part dry at the masters around two today. A little bit warmer that yesterday. Highs in the lower 80s and light southwest wind. Good weekend of golf shaping up. That's quick weather check. AMERICAN MORNING is coming right back.
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