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50 Killed in Commuter Plane Crash; Votes Expected on Stimulus Bill
Aired February 13, 2009 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I heard the engines, had the windows up in my car, obviously, because it was chilly. But the engines didn't sound typical, didn't sound normal.
KYRA PHILLIPS, ANCHOR (voice-over): Disaster at 6038 Long Street. What caused a commuter plane to nose-dive into a house near Buffalo, New York? The investigation is intensifying.
Agreements are one thing, but votes are what counts. Stimulus supporters counting on two big wins before they go home tonight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Hello -- hello, everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips live at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was pretty clear that it was unlikely that anybody had survived. It was just an immediate fireball.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. And you knew that instantly?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just immediate thought was that nobody -- nobody survived this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Nobody did survive the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407 with 49 people onboard. But only one person died on the ground, only one home was lost. And first responders say that's remarkable.
Last night's disaster, a few miles outside Buffalo, New York airport was America's first deadly commercial plane crash in two and a half years.
From all indications, the flight from Newark was altogether normal until the twin-engine turboprop dropped off the radar and radio contact was lost. Despite the destruction and ongoing fire, investigators already have pulled out the plane's flight data and cockpit voice recorders, and they've been sent to D.C. So what went wrong? Mechanical problems are one possibility, but so is ice. Other pilots were reporting ice on their wings about the same time.
CNN's Deb Feyerick in the Buffalo suburb of Clarence Center.
Deb, what have you learned to this point?
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, here's what we can tell you right now. Witnesses on the ground all say they heard something before they ever saw something. People describe hearing a plane shuddering, an engine that was clearly in distress. One man says that it was like revving up, that the engine kept revving and revving and revving.
Then silence. Everything just shut off before a huge explosion that people say rocked the earth.
We spoke to a number of people here. One woman who lives just behind the house that was destroyed, she looked out her back window and saw the complete devastation.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All we could do was just stand there and pray and text people to just start praying and praying. We just sat there and waited and waited and watched and nobody came.
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FEYERICK: And Kyra, she says that one of the big problems was that because of the intensity of the flames, it was simply impossible to get anywhere near that flight. But she said, in fact, there was nothing they could do anyway.
NTSB, the officials, federal authorities, they have retrieved the two recorders, the voice data recorder, also the digital information recorder. Those are now en route to Washington, D.C., where they will be analyzed. The NTSB person we spoke to earlier said he was a little bit concerned that maybe they'd been damaged in the fire.
But of all the pieces of the plane that survived, the tail seemed to remain intact, so they're confident that they will be able to piece together exactly what happened.
People are talking about ice. Another possibility, that the propeller, something happened with the propeller.
We can hear you, Kyra, that we drove up here overnight, and the conditions were really treacherous. I don't know if it was like that in the air, but it was snowy, and rainy, and icy, freezing temperatures. All of that may have played a role in this particular accident.
But right now a lot of people in this community shell-shocked. They cannot understand how this happened -- Kyra. PHILLIPS: We'll be talking a lot more about all those possibilities within the next couple of hours. Deb Feyerick, thanks so much.
Well, she lost her husband on 9/11 and devoted her life to helping others. Now friends and family of Beverly Eckert are shocked to learn that she was on Flight 3409.
The Buffalo News says that the 9/11 widow planned to mark the 58th birthday of her husband, Buffalo native Sean Rooney, and to present a scholarship in his honor.
Eckert co-founded the victims advocacy group Voices of September 11th. She and other 9/11 family members met with President Obama last Friday. The president mourned her and the other crash victims at a White House event today.
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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our prayers are with the families and friends who lost loved ones and, as always, our thanks go out to the brave first responders who arrived immediately to try and save lives And are still on the scene keeping people safe. Tragic events such as these remind us of the fragility of life and the value of every single day.
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PHILLIPS: Gathered together, mourning together. Friends and family of the people on Flight 3407 are at a local community center right now. Chris Kausner's sister was one of the passengers, and he tried to reach the crash scene, but emergency crews turned him away instead. He broke the news to his mom and dad.
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CHRIS KAUSNER, BROTHER OF PASSENGER: My parents are on vacation in Florida. I had to call down there and tell my father what was going on. And I'm just thinking about my mom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are they taking it?
KAUSNER: To tell you the truth, I heard my mother make a noise in the phone that I never heard before.
My other sister Laura was waiting at the airport. I heard on the radio that there had been a crash, so I called immediately to see if the plane had landed at the airport or not. And initially, she thought that it had, but it turns out that that is not the case.
Right now I'm thinking the worst, and I'm thinking about the fact that my mother has to fly home from Florida and what I'm going to tell my two sons. That's what I'm thinking.
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PHILLIPS: A help line has been set up for friends and family. We're going to put that up for you throughout the afternoon.
Well, it normally takes about an hour and 15 minutes to fly from Newark to Buffalo. Here's the path Flight 3407 was taking. The crash site in Clarence Center, a community right outside of Buffalo. Witnesses say that those flames from the resulting fireball could be seen for miles. One resident says it felt like a 90-degree summer day.
No calls for help, no signs of panic. Just before Flight 3407 went off the radar, chatter between cockpit and control towers seemed routine. Take a listen.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colgan 3407, turn left, heading 3-3-0.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Heading 3-3-0, (INAUDIBLE) 3407.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colgan 3407, turn left, heading 3-1-0.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Heading 3-1-0, Colgan 3407.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colgan 3407, (INAUDIBLE) tower to 1-2-0 point 5. Have a good day.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colgan 3407.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colgan 3407, approach.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE), I'm just going to take you through the localizer for sequencing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colgan 3407, Buffalo.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colgan 34-7, now approaching.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Delta 1998, look off your right side about five miles for a dash 8, should be 2300. You see anything there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Negative Delta 1998. We're just in the bottoms and nothing off TKs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colgan 3407, Buffalo.
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PHILLIPS: The last words from the doomed flight shortly after air traffic controllers knew something was wrong, and they asked other planes to be out on the lookout.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Delta 1988, look off your right side about five miles for dash eight. Should be 2300. You see anything there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Negative Delta 1998. We're just in the bottoms and nothing off TKs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colgan 3407, Buffalo.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colgan 3407, Buffalo Tower, how do you hear?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) some ground communication. We need to talk to somebody at least five miles northeast, OK, possibly Clarence, that area right in there, Akron area, either state police of sheriff's department. We need to find if anything is on the ground. This aircraft was five miles out, and all of a sudden we have no response on that aircraft.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All I can tell you is the aircraft's over the marker, and we're not talking to them now.
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PHILLIPS: So again, the nagging question: what went wrong? Let's take a look for some answers.
John Wiley is a former Airbus pilot, also a contributing editor to "Business and Commercial Aviation Magazine."
And you've been laying out the three possibilities: man, machine, environment. As the day has gone on -- obviously, we've been talking about this since last night -- what are you leaning more toward at this point.
JOHN WILEY, FORMER AIRBUS PILOT: We don't know a whole lot about the crew, but there seems to be no red flags popping up. We don't have any indications of anybody being a rogue, having failed check rides or anything. So we'll pass on the man for now.
We move to the machine. This is a relatively new machine that was delivered to Colgan in 2008. So we're not seeing anything there. The record on the airplane looks good.
And then we move finally to the environment. And immediately I start focusing on the problem of ice.
PHILLIPS: All right. So let's talk about that. For example, may we just kind of start from the beginning?
WILEY: Sure.
PHILLIPS: When you've got weather conditions like that, let's talk about how that ice builds, how it forms, sort of the aerodynamics, if you will, when you're airborne.
WILEY: Well, we have policies and procedures that, when we're going to be in an icing environment, plus 10 Celsius, 50 degrees Fahrenheit, we start using anti-ice and de-icing equipment that's on board the airplane.
Recently, the FAA changed its position. The old position used to be that, for the boots that are on these airplanes, on the wings, the tails and the vertical surface, it used to be that you would wait until you had accreted (ph) a little bit. You would activate these systems. They would then inflate and they would basically break the ice off.
Recently, the FAA changed its position and said when you get icing conditions, turn the systems on immediately.
PHILLIPS: Immediately. OK. So let me ask you this. How quickly could those ice chunks form? Because he was five miles from landing. Right? OK, so let's -- how quickly would ice chunks -- I mean, get to the point where it could fod (ph) a motor.
WILEY: We're not looking so much at a problem with the engines, because the anti-icing on the engines will tap bleed air, hot air off of the engine to go back in the engine. So we're not looking at a problem there.
Remember when we saw 1549, they lost their engines, but they continued to fly. Gravity, air going over the wings.
But when you start talking about ice, ice will change the shape of the wing. You can lose 20, 30 percent or even more of your lift. As they're coming in to make the approach, they will probably have the landing gear down. They'll probably have the flaps down. As you turn onto the final approach, you go to your last degree of flaps.
Somewhere along the line they seem to have crashed fairly close to center line for the approach to Runway 23, so that's going to be where the focus is. What happened that the airplane departed from control flight and fell 1,500 feet?
PHILLIPS: And the fact that it plummeted, the fact, John, that it took a nose dive...
WILEY: Yes.
PHILLIPS: I mean, what are the possibilities of that? Because that -- doesn't that indicate that something...
WILEY: Unusual. Very, very unusual.
PHILLIPS: ... right, very unusual happened. Because usually you have some time to figure out how to level out the plane, how to figure out altitude...
WILEY: Exactly.
PHILLIPS: ... speed, all that kind of stuff.
WILEY: Exactly. I think it is fairly safe to assume that the airplane, to use our term, departed. You're 1,500 feet above the ground. You don't have time to implement a solution, come up with a solution when you're that close to the ground when something catastrophic happens.
PHILLIPS: So something -- something catastrophic happened, which just took that plane immediately.
And is this a fair question to ask: the fact that it nose dived, could the pilot have thought to himself or herself -- because I understand that there was a male and a female. Right? The pilot was a male. The first officer was female.
WILEY: First officer was a female.
PHILLIPS: So could the decision have been made, we're in a neighborhood. We better take it straight down versus in any other way, because less damage if we nose dive? Is that a fair question or no?
WILEY: No. What's going to happen -- is the question that's probably going to focus on the use of the auto pilot. Both the FAA and Transport Canada and some others have come out and said that, when you're in icing conditions, we want you to disconnect the auto pilot at least once every five minutes, because the auto pilots are very, very robust. And notice I use the term "auto pilots," because there's more than one auto pilot on the airplane.
The problem that you have is that the auto pilot can mask the evolution of a problem, and the auto pilot can only control the airplane to a certain point. When the auto pilots lets go, all of a sudden now you have horns going off, you have lights going off, possibly have the airplane departing from control flight. You have a literal flood of information that you're trying to decipher and understand, and you have about that much time to do it in.
PHILLIPS: John Wiley, appreciate your insight.
Friday the 13th on Capitol Hill, but if all these lawmakers are walking on eggshells, it's because of stimulus, not superstition.
The House is due to vote any time now. The Senate, sometime later, on a $787 billion compromise that nobody is totally in love with, by the way. Many people, mostly Republicans, hate it. And the top priority for both parties: following the dollars.
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REP. ED PERLMUTTER (D), COLORADO: This bill contains strict transparency and accountability measures. It is open and visible and will be for people to look on the Web for each dollar that is spent.
REP. MARIO DIAZ-BALART (R), FLORIDA: This is just the son of TARP. We're going to be embarrassed. It's not going to help the economy like it's supposed to, and we're going to read about the scandals. Please vote this bill down.
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PHILLIPS: TARP, as you know, is the acronym for the much- despised bank bailout.
CNN's Brianna Keilar joins me now to set the stage for the votes. Brianna, not much suspense in the House, but will this thing squeak through the Senate?
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's expected to, but squeak is a very good verb there, Kyra. Because we reported before, when there was another vote on this economic stimulus package, that it would garner -- and it did -- 61 votes in the Senate with those three centrist Republicans. That 61st vote was Ted Kennedy, who has been suffering from brain cancer, being treated for that. He came back for that vote.
He's not going to be here today. So this is going to be -- it's expected to be 60 votes, which is the exact number needed, no margin for error. As you can see, this is one of the reasons why CNN reported yesterday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was calling around, trying to get some other centrist Republicans on-board. Because it's always nice, of course, if you want something to move through the Senate, to have a bit of a buffer and not be relying on these votes that you need the exact amount.
But bottom line here, Kyra, is, yes, it is expected to pass. It would be a big upset, a big surprise, if one of those centrist Republicans or someone else changed their mind and decided to vote no on this.
PHILLIPS: And let me ask you a question. One of the sticking points that we were reading about that Republicans are coming forward and saying is that they haven't even had time to read the entire bill. Makes a lot of us a little nervous to think they're voting so quickly on something that a lot of these folks haven't even read.
KEILAR: Two things here. With the Republicans who are complaining about this -- and yes, there hasn't been much time. The language -- even though this deal was struck on Wednesday, the language of this bill wasn't finalized until very late last night.
So by the time this vote comes in the House, here in the next hour, we're talking about 13 hours, 14 hours, and a lot of that overnight time that they've had to read this. So they have this complaint. We're hearing this from Republicans.
But let's be clear. Some of these Republicans complaining about the amount of time -- the little amount of time they've had to read this bill wouldn't vote yes on it anyways. This isn't the thing that is making them vote no. They disagree philosophically with this economic stimulus package and are not going to vote for it.
But what's interesting, Kyra, is there have been some Democrats who complained about not having time. This is one of the reasons why we saw a vote, we're seeing a vote today in the House and not yesterday, because some House Democrats who were upset that spending money was pulled out of this, they said, "You know, I want to get a look at this bill before I vote on it. I want to see for myself what's in it and what's out -- what's not in it before I put my name on it." PHILLIPS: All right. It looks like -- I'm reading now. It's coming across the wires that we may have a vote coming up in about 45 minutes or so. Brianna Keilar, thank you so much.
Well, the White House has scheduled a news briefing today at 1:30 Eastern, at the bottom of this hour. We're going to listen in when press secretary Robert Gibbs steps to the mike.
Our affiliates in Buffalo are at the scene of that plane crash. We'll find out what they're reporting. We'll also see what some of our iReporters saw when they rushed to Long Street.
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PHILLIPS: Turning the corner on the foreclosure crisis. Help may be coming from the big White House on Pennsylvania Avenue.
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PHILLIPS: Borrowers at risk get a break. Lenders and investors get their money. A win-win equation with government making up the difference. That may be the Obama administration's approach to ending the mortgage crisis which, as you know, has poisoned the financial system and crippled the economy. Nothing's official, but we know the treasury is working up a $50 billion plan to stop foreclosures not only by reworking loans that already are in default.
Turning now to Wall Street, we're only six weeks into the year, and the Dow has already lost 10 percent of its value. Susan Lisovicz is at the New York Stock Exchange. Let's see if stocks are extending those declines today.
Hey, Susan.
SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kyra, the answer is, yes, on this Friday the 13th. But, you know, we're looking at modest losses.
Trading is cautious ahead of the vote on the Obama administration's stimulus package. Investors are also awaiting more details on that housing plan design to help struggling homeowners before they default on their mortgages, the one that you just mentioned.
At the moment, right now the Dow is down 54 points or two-thirds of a percent. The NASDAQ meanwhile is down a quarter of a percent.
Shares of Continental Airline rebounding up 3 percent. But hey were under pressure in the premarket and down 5 percent at the open after that horrific crash in Buffalo, New York. It's obviously common to see airline stocks sell off in reaction to such a tragedy -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right. Well, something that is also common in -- we see is in financial stocks, right?
LISOVICZ: Yes, and they're under pressure yet again. Over the past year, of course, we've seen some of Wall Street's largest institutions get bought out by rival firms or in the case of Lehman Brothers, completely collapse. We're not out of the woods yet.
"The New York Times" today described some of the nation's biggest banks as essentially dead men walking. Experts tell the "Times" that some of these banks are already insolvent due to the mountain of losses from bad debts which are poised to overtake the current value of the bank's assets.
That's why Wall Street was so disappointed Tuesday that there wasn't more information on how the government is going to help banks get those toxic assets off their balance sheets.
"The Times" experts say the credit crisis will linger without a more direct government role than what the Treasury Department laid out this week. And it's something that a lot of people are appalled about, but that's what a number of experts say is necessary.
We've seen it happen before, when the government didn't get involved right away, as with Japan. Something that's called the Lost Decade, where it's just stagnant really for about a decade, Kyra. An actual decade.
Back to you.
PHILLIPS: All right. We'll talk again. Thanks, Susan.
LISOVICZ: You're welcome.
PHILLIPS: The story happened right in their backyard. CNN's Buffalo affiliates mobilized to cover the plane crash tragedy. We're going to take a look at it through their eyes.
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PHILLIPS: Live pictures right now, Nancy Pelosi at the mike. The House is due to vote any time now. The Senate, sometime later on that $787 billion compromise that no one really here is completely in love with the day before Valentine's Day, when we're supposed to share the love among everyone. Anyway, we're following that. We'll follow the vote and let you know what happens and see if President Barack Obama will be happy with the outcome.
Well, here's a photo sent to us by iReporter Greg Woodruff. His wife Valerie snapped it just after the crash. They live only about a half-mile away. Later they learned that their son, who's 19, was also there helping to fight that fire.
Those eyewitnesses gave us the first reports from the scene but not far behind. Buffalo news crews, including CNN's local affiliates. Our T.J. Holmes has been monitoring their coverage of the crash and its aftermath. He's live in the newsroom.
T.J., what did you see?
T.J. HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we are hearing descriptions of exactly that picture you just showed. You know that fire that's flaming, where people keep telling the local affiliates that "We didn't know what it was. We couldn't tell what it was. We didn't see any wreckage of a plane. We didn't see a house. We just knew a house was supposed to be there." And the word we heard a couple of times was bonfire.
The local affiliates have been all over this story, of course, happening right there in their backyard. Listen to one of our affiliates, WGRZ. They put together at the top of their noon newscast today, really telling the story without them having to say a word. Take a listen.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The plane was just coming in, and it was really low. It sounded like it was low. All of a sudden, I heard like a big popping noise. I look out my window and like the whole sky was arrayed (ph) with like orange flames.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The plane was coming this way. We didn't see it. And so we looked out, and my wife screamed and said, "It just crashed."
PETE GALLIVAN, WGRZ ANCHOR: Welcome back. Continuing coverage of the aftermath of the crash...
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: So again right there, you see our affiliate, how they handled and chose to really tell that story without having to say a word in that piece, showing those powerful images.
Also, our affiliates, we are keeping our eye on it, Kyra. We'll continue. We'll bring you some more next hour, as well. But they are collecting all these things. Essentially, you know, those folks working there, those are their neighbors, as well who have been affected by this. They've all been affected.
One other thing I want to pass along, information they're getting out to their -- to their viewers there in that local area, is that a prayer vigil is scheduled for just a few hours from now, at 4 p.m. at the Eastern Hills Wesleyan Church. Really a collection of all the churches have put this together. So Kyra, just something else, another service they're offering their citizens there, the local affiliates.
We'll keep following it. We'll get you more stuff. We'll bring it back to you, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Appreciate it. Thanks, T.J.
Our other top story, of course, the vote that's taking place, hopefully soon, on that stimulus bill. This is the big day, folks, Friday the 13th. Let's hope it brings some good luck.
Nancy Pelosi speaking now. Let's listen in. REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I never thought I'd see the day when we would have an opportunity so great to do so much for so many people in our country. I urge a strong and resounding yes for the American people. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) yields back the balance of her time. The gentleman from California. Gentleman from California.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Speaker, as I prefer to call upon my last speaker, I want to remind my colleagues that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, only 11 percent of the appropriations this bill would be spent by the end of '09. Forty-seven percent would be spent by fiscal year '10. Fifty-three percent would not be spent until after October of 2011. It's my pleasure to call upon for one minute the Republican leader of the House, John Boehner.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gentleman from Ohio is recognized for one minute.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R), OHIO: Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, the American economy needs help. Our neighbors, our friends, our constituents, they're hurting. And there's not a member in this body on either side of the aisle that doesn't understand that. And I think everyone in this chamber on both sides of the aisle understands that the Congress needs to act, and we need to act now to help American families and help small businesses and to help bring more confidence back to our economy.
The question is, how do you do that? The president, when he outlined his desires for this bill, summed it up pretty simply when he said this bill needs to be about jobs. I don't think there's anybody in this chamber that disagrees that this bill needs to be about jobs, preserving jobs in America and helping to create new jobs and helping to get our economy rolling again.
But a bill that was supposed to be about jobs, jobs, jobs has turned into a bill that's all about spending, spending and spending. This is disappointing. The American people expect more of us. They expect to have something that's going to work for them. And my opposition to this bill isn't the fact that we're doing a bill. We need to act. But how?
When you look at some of the spending in this bill, it will do nothing about creating jobs in America. Tell me how spending $50 million for some salt marsh mouse in San Francisco is going to help a struggling auto worker in Ohio. Tell me how spending $8 billion in this bill to have a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and Las Vegas is going to help the construction worker in my district?
Or how about the family who called me about the fact that the breadwinner in the family's hours are going to be cut from 40 hours to 20 hours. Can't hardly make his payment. What's it do for him? Absolutely nothing.
And so, my concern about this is that we have to have a plan that will work for the American people, work for families, work for small businesses and help get our economy going again. I don't think this bill does it. I hope this bill works. I really do. For the good of our country. But my concern is that the plan that's outlined will not do what we want to do.
That's why Republicans came to the table with what we thought was a better idea. A plan that would create twice as many jobs as the bill that we're debating at exactly half the cost. But our ideas weren't considered. We weren't allowed in the room. We weren't allowed to participate at all.
And all the talk about bipartisanship that we've hear over the last several months went down the drain. Now, my Democrat colleagues know I know how to be bipartisan, even when we were in the majority. I've worked with many members on the other side of the aisle to bring bills to this floor that truly were done together.
But we would usually start at the beginning of the process. Not only were we not included at the beginning of the process, we weren't even included at the end of the process. And it's not about us being excluded. It's about our ideas to help make this economy better. Our ideas about how to give American families and small businesses the ability to keep more of what they earn to help their families, to help their businesses, to create more jobs.
That's what the American people want. They don't want more spending on -- a couple hundred million dollars to get the country ready for some national health plan, money that's going to go to the bureaucracy. They want to know how their budgets are going to be helped. And, unfortunately, they're not.
If all of that wasn't enough, here we are with 1,100 pages. Eleven hundred pages not one member of this body has read. Not one. There may be some staffer over in the Appropriations Committee that read all of this last night. I don't know how you could read 1,100 pages between midnight and now. Not one member's read this.
What happened to the promise that we're going to let the American people see what's in this bill for 48 hours? But, no. We don't have time to do that. We owe it to the American people to get this bill right. We owe it to American families, we owe it to small businesses and we owe it to ourselves to get this right so that we can in fact help our economy. I don't believe this is the way to do it. It's disappointing the way this process has worked and the outcome that we've got.
And I'm a big believer that we shouldn't come to the floor and talk about process, but bad process leads to bad policy. And that's what we have here, in my view. Bad policy that will drive up the debt and put all of this cost on the back of our kids and our grandkids and their kids. I hope it works. But I surely have my doubts.
So I'm going to vote no. I'm going to vote no, and I'm going to hope -- I'm going to hope -- that the next time that we get into a major piece of legislation on the floor that you'll include us. You'll include our ideas. I said on the opening day that Republicans would not be the party of no, that we would be the party of better ideas. And I'm committed to bringing better ideas to the floor. And let's debate those better ideas.
Our tax policy, fast-acting tax policy that helps American families and small businesses does in fact create twice as many jobs. Twice as many jobs. Because we allow the American people to keep their money, to invest in their family and their small business. We're not interested in growing the size of government.
I asked my colleagues yesterday in our conference, think about the first time you ran for Congress. The freshmen members can -- they can remember this because they just did it. For me, it was 18 years ago. But I can tell you what I said 18 years ago, that I would come here to fight for a smaller, less costly and more accountable federal government. This is the epitome -- the epitome -- of what I came here to stop. And I don't think there's one member of Congress who came here to pass an $890 billion bill...
PHILLIPS: All right, when you see that stack involving that stimulus bill, I don't know how anybody could read that in 48 hours. It's like trying to cram a dissertation in a day or two. We're following the debate there, hoping a decision will be made on the stimulus bill. Meanwhile, Robert Gibbs stepping up to the mike at the White House. Let's listen to see what he has to say.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: ... affected by this, and you saw the president's statement this morning about how fragile life is, based on one of the victims being at the White House just one week ago. So, with that, let me take a few questions. Yes, ma'am.
QUESTION: I want to take just a quick look at the Gregg development yesterday. I understand it was his decision. The position of the White House is that he was not pushed from here to make the decision in any way.
GIBBS: I think that's Gregg's position, too. To be fair to him.
QUESTION: But just taking a look at all this broadly, obviously all the circumstances of these personnel problems have been different in each case, but is there a sense that the White House is not thinking hard enough about each person and what potential problems might be and how big those problems might get? What is the thinking here about how you could do these things better so that you don't have people drop out and cause embarrassment?
GIBBS: Well, I think -- well, I guess without generalizing, you'd have to look at individual situations, taking for instance Senator Gregg. I think you saw President Obama's comments last night on Air Force One. He continues to have great respect and admiration for Senator Gregg. Clearly, he -- and I think he said this himself yesterday -- had a change of heart, and a change of mind, that he's always been somebody known for independence and probably would have had a hard time serving on any Cabinet. But I guess it's hard to generalize about individual circumstances that lead people to make a decision but then ultimately change their mind.
QUESTION: But clearly you guys don't want these developments to happen and to keep happening. What can you do differently?
GIBBS: I mean, I think the president certainly was disappointed. But, you know, I think the president remains focused on the work that he has in front of him, which, as you guys know, and as we discuss here each day, there's a lot on his plate. But I think the progress that we've shown on our agenda, I think bodes well for getting our economy moving again and bodes well for the American people.
I think ultimately the test of the American people is, what are you doing to make our lives better? I think we're on the cusp of some big developments as it relates to that. A nearly $800 billion recovery plan that we think will save or create 3 1/2 million jobs and move the economy in the right direction. A tax cut for 95 percent of working families, which the president campaigned on. Doubling our renewable energy generating capacity over the course of three years, doing it in a transparent way without pet projects.
You can go on and on. I think without sort of generalizing about individual cases, I think the -- I think people will take the long view and see that in a short period of time this administration has made great progress. Lots of work continues, and lots of challenges are ahead, but that's what the president's focused on, not looking backward but looking forward. Karen?
QUESTION: Robert, I have a question about the plan to stem mortgage foreclosures. There are reports that you're working on a plan that would involve subsidizing distressed borrowers. Can you comment on those details, and can you say when that plan's going to be ready? And I also want to ask about the bank rescue plan. There seems to be a belief on Wall Street that you're going to go back to the drawing board and maybe offer some more of the details that people felt weren't there in the original Geithner announcement.
GIBBS: Well, let me take the first part. I should just start the week ahead, right just at the beginning of these briefings rather than --
QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE)
GIBBS: Right. You all seem perched at the edge of your collective seats. The president -- do what?
QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE)
GIBBS: The president will travel on Wednesday -- let me start with Tuesday. The president will travel Tuesday to Denver to talk about the recovery plan. That afternoon will travel to Phoenix, Arizona, spend the night in Arizona that night, and then on Wednesday, the president will give a speech and outline a plan to stem home foreclosures.
So, without getting into the details of what the president will say on Wednesday, I can tell you that that will happen next week. In terms of the -- I'm having a little hard time understanding your question. Obviously, the administration continues to work through issues related to the financial stability package. I don't -- that's not a direct relationship with Wall Street expectations. I just -- it's just part of the process.
QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) Wall Street, though? The lawmakers felt like the plan was short on details. You know, specifically this public/private partnership. A lot of people have questions about how it would work and, you know, how it would get started.
GIBBS: Well, you know, obviously, the secretary is in Rome dealing with the G-7 and his counterparts there. But obviously, he continues to move forward to put a plan in place that will stabilize our financial system.
I mean that's certainly -- that work continues. That work was ongoing all of last week and all this week, and I assume will continue for many week as this is not going to be solved overnight. I think you've seen developments in the last only few hours related to banks and foreclosures that -- something the president spoke about throughout last fall. But I don't think this is -- I think this is the continued moving forward of a policy, not necessarily relation to particular criticism. Yes, sir.
QUESTION: I just wanted to give you guys an opportunity to respond to two things from yesterday involving Caterpillar. One is the CEO of Caterpillar, after the president left the event, said that he did not think the stimulus package in and of itself would be able to enable him to rehire workers, certainly not in the short term. He put out a statement today saying that "the stimulus package combined with other significant stimulus packages abroad would help move the global economy towards recovery, and if these packages are enacted quickly, they can stimulate demand for our products, and that would likely over time provide Caterpillar the opportunity to recall employees that have been laid off."
Certainly not exactly what President Obama said he had said. And I don't know what he said to begin with. But if you could clarify that and also --
GIBBS: Well, let me take a stab at that one. I think what the president said -- that the chairman and CEO said if the recovery plan is passed, the company would be able to rehire some of those employees. And as you just read, he said that "if these packages are enacted quickly, they could stimulate demand for our products that would likely over time provide Caterpillar the opportunity to recall employees laid off during this downturn." I think the statement that you just read and the statement of the president are very consistent.
QUESTION: I don't even know how to respond to that. It seems to me like...
GIBBS: (INAUDIBLE)
(LAUGHTER)
QUESTION: ... well, just, I mean, the president was clearly giving the impression before the stimulus package had passed that the CEO of Caterpillar, who just announced layoffs in January, said that he would be able to rehire some of those workers if the stimulus package passed, the one stimulus package that the Senate was considering at the time. And what the CEO of Caterpillar said today -- and again, I don't know what he said in private to anybody in your administration. But what he said today was, this one, plus other ones worldwide over a period of time, that could enable them to rehire some of those workers. It's really --
GIBBS: "...will likely over time provide Caterpillar the opportunity to recall employees who have been laid off during this downturn."
QUESTION: All right. I'm not going to belabor it. The other thing is, Congressman Ed Schock yesterday, who President Obama urged Caterpillar employees --
GIBBS: Aaron Schock.
QUESTION: What did I -- oh, I'm sorry. Aaron Schock. President Obama urged Caterpillar employees to lobby him. Went to the floor of the House today and said that he had stayed around for half an hour, and not one Caterpillar employee came to him and urged him to vote for the stimulus package, and in fact over the course of time, 1,400 Caterpillar employees urged him to oppose the stimulus package.
And I'm just wondering what you think that indicates if the president comes to a factory, heralds what this bill will do for these employees, urges them to lobby a congressman, and according to the congressman, not one of them does so.
GIBBS: Well, I haven't seen what the congressman said.
QUESTION: That's exactly what he said.
GIBBS: Right. I think that the president and the CEO have laid out the benefits of this bill, what it would do. I think it is obvious that an infrastructure investment that is greater than any infrastructure investment since the beginning of the interstate highway system in the '50s is going to spur demand for construction equipment and put people back to work and will have a positive benefit in East Peoria, where we were, and throughout Downstate Illinois and throughout the country.
I think if the congressman goes back and evaluates the plan, lobbying or not, I think he'll see that it saves or creates millions of jobs, puts people back to work, would put people -- would put money directly into employees at Caterpillar's pockets, as well as people throughout his district.
It marks a landmark achievement in terms of renewable energy which, having spent time in Peoria, in Downstate Illinois, is a big deal for them. Will create and refurbish schools and create 21st- century classrooms. I think if the congressman goes and looks at the bill through an economic lens, not just one -- not just through a political one, I think he'll see benefits, not just for his district and his state, but for the entire country.
QUESTION: I'm not questioning that, but it seems to me like there's some sort of disconnect between the president urging constituents to lobby their congressmen. This has been one of the problems.
GIBBS: I can't speak to what the congressman said or saw from different employees because I didn't hang out with him yesterday. I can simply speak to the benefits that economists that aren't affiliated with this White House say the bill will do. Maybe some of those guys should call him, too. Yes, sir? .
QUESTION: Quickly following up, was the president disappointed that after his remarks yesterday, the CEO came out and said he might actually lay more people off?
GIBBS: Well, I think the president is obviously, as you heard him speak and heard him speak today, that he's always concerned about the job situation.
QUESTION: It just seemed to be a disconnect, what he was saying to the people and then all of a sudden --
GIBBS: Look, I think you've heard the president enumerate many times that the economy's likely to get worse before it gets better. Again, I think that's why today could begin a monumental step forward in getting that economy moving again. The nearly $800 billion stimulus package will have a huge impact, we believe, on getting the economy kick-started and moving forward.
QUESTION: Anything about Afghanistan in the week ahead that we should know about?
PHILLIPS: OK, Robert Gibbs tackling all types of subjects. In particular, obviously the vote that's going on right now on the Hill. The House is due to vote anytime now. The Senate, hopefully, sometime later. And of course, we're talking about the $789 billion compromise to try and save the ailing economy. We're going to be following that obviously throughout the afternoon and waiting for that vote.
Meanwhile, what's it like behind the scenes on Capitol Hill today? CNN.com actually gave a couple of cameras to two freshmen congressmen to get their unique view of politics in action. Democrat Joe (sic) Polis of Colorado shows us what it's like underneath the dome.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JARED POLIS (D), COLORADO: This is the kind of tunnels under the Capitol, which we go through every day. I haven't really learned them all yet. They all kind of look the same, but they connect all the buildings. This is like a student art competition. They put art on the walls to make the tunnel a little prettier, but it's still pretty ugly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: But Congressman Jared Polis did navigate his way through those ugly tunnels today in time to show his support for the stimulus bill on the house floor. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
POLIS: I applaud President Obama and my colleagues in both chambers for working hard to ensure that education -- may I have 30 additional seconds?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The gentleman is recognized for 15 seconds.
POLIS: I applaud my colleagues for supporting education from early childhood through college, which is an important part of the recovery package.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Congressman Jared Polis joining us now live. I love how you went for 30 seconds, they gave you 15. Maybe the spirit of negotiation is going on right now.
POLIS: It is, Kyra, even for time. If you can give me another minute, that would be great, and we'll settle on 30 seconds.
PHILLIPS: OK, that's a fair deal. Well, tell me how it went. What was the tension like on the floor? I don't know if you were able to see this, because I know you were getting miked up, but Boehner basically pulled out the stack of paperwork involved in this bill and said, who the heck, you know, has time to vote on something they haven't even had a chance to read, and slammed it down.
Just part of the drama that's been going on amidst this compromise. Give me a feel for what you've experienced.
POLIS: Well, certainly there's a lot of excitement on the floor, a lot of excitement about doing something about this recession that has caused increase in unemployment, families losing their homes, people losing their jobs.
People send us here for a reason. And today is really one of the most important votes that I'll be making in this session here. And that's to start getting people back to work. One of the largest tax cuts in history. I really feel we're helping to save our free- enterprise system by passing this recovery act today.
PHILLIPS: Did you actually get to read the entire bill?
POLIS: Yes, you know, when you hear people talking about not reading it, it's a little misleading. We've had most of this bill for weeks. So, we've been following this through the process. The only pieces that we had to look at were ones that were changed in the final conference report. So, it's been an iterative process. Most of the bill, probably 90 percent of the bill, is what we passed a couple weeks ago, right out (ph) this body.
PHILLIPS: OK. So, John Boehner has no excuse, is that what you're saying? POLIS: You know, again, it was available. We had a Rules Committee meeting last night on the entire bill. You know, members have had ample opportunity to know what they're voting on here. And I think we all know what we're voting on. Representative Boehner may happen to be opposed to it -- I happen to be for it -- but let's talk about the merits of the bill and what we need to do to get our economy going again.
PHILLIPS: All right. Let's get back to initially, this is how we found you. We thought this was very creative. I guess CNN.com reached out to you and also another freshman congressman who we're going to talk to next week, and said, hey, will you take a camera, will you show us what's it's like behind the scenes? You agreed to do it. Why?
POLIS: Well, you know, I think it's great. It's all about making government more accessible. One thing that my colleague, Jason Chaffetz, and I have in common is we both are very active, reaching out through new media, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and you know, this is really a part of it, showing that people that Congress is not this bizarre institution with backroom -- you know, smoke-filled rooms making all the decisions. But it's made up of real people, and, you know, we're happy to shine a little light on what goes on in this building.
PHILLIPS: All right, let's go ahead. We're looking at a little bit of your camera work at this point. I've got to tell you how to not move so quickly, Jared, but let's go ahead and take a look at another clip. Let's roll it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
POLIS: So, I just got back from the floor in the Rules Committee. And they make you wear a tie when you go over there. I usually come in to work in a turtleneck. So, I've actually had the same shirt here now for like two weeks, so it's actually starting to smell a little bit. I've got to bring a new one in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: I'm kind of worried about that. For a self-made millionaire, Congressman, what's the deal with you...
POLIS: You're right.
PHILLIPS: ... not changing out your clothes very often?
POLIS: I put on a special shirt for you today. This is...
PHILLIPS: Thank you.
POLIS: ... this is a new one that I wore special for this important vote and my floor speech today. Well, you know, my district in Colorado is a very casual district. I mean, I campaigned in polo shirts and turtlenecks. They would have thought poorly of me if I wore a tie every day. And then you get here, and it's just a very formal way of doing business.
POLIS: Well, we appreciate your frugal gesture in a time like this. I understand the voting has now started, by the way, on the stimulus bill. The procedural vote has actually started. Now, Congressman, back to what you're doing with CNN.com, are you going to be completely transparent?
I mean, we know how politicians have been and continue to be, very secretive, a lot of backroom deals. I mean, are you really going to give us an inside look to this sort of new idea that Barack Obama has to make things so much more transparent in Washington?
POLIS: Yes. That's something -- as soon as we get the logistics around it, I'm going to be posting my daily schedule on our Web site at polis.house.gov. We haven't quite gotten there, but we'll be there soon.
You know, another thing about this recovery plan is there's going to be a Web site at recovery.gov that's going to show how every single penny of this money is spent. Record levels of accountability, transparency. That's part of the new movement. And, yes, in some small way, Kyra, I think this project here with CNN is kind of -- is part of that.
PHILLIPS: Well, we're going to be following it closely. CNN.com/politics. You can actually click onto the icon there and see your behind-the-scenes camera work. We will check in with you again if you don't mind. Does that sound all right?
POLIS: It will be a pleasure. And right now I'm ready to vote to get our country back to work and get the economy going again.
PHILLIPS: We're going to be watching. Congressman Jared Polis, thank you so much for your time.
POLIS: Thank you.
PHILLIPS: And as the congressman mentioned, next Friday we're going to talk with another freshman congressman, Jason Chaffetz from Utah. He's going to be joining us with his unique, firsthand perspective of life inside the Capitol with all the details of what's going on inside the hallways. One again, that's CNN.com/politics. You can check in and see their daily camerawork behind the scenes.
More from the CNN NEWSROOM straight ahead.
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