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New Polls Show Disapproval of Obama's Policies; Some Stimulus Funds Going Towards Food Needs; Chaos with Food Distribution in Haiti
Aired January 26, 2010 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Time now to take it to the next level. CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with Ali Velshi.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Tony, thank you so much.
I'm Ali Velshi, and I'm going to be with you for the next two hours and for this time slot, every weekday, every Monday to Friday. For the next two hours I'll take every important topic that we cover, and I'm going to break it down for you. I'm going to try and give you a level of detail that will help you make important decisions about your voting, your spending, your safety and security. Maybe the next two hours will help you understand the world around you a little better.
We've been getting your comments at Twitter @AliVelshi, on Facebook, and my blog CNN.com/AliVelshi. And we are changing the call -- we're changing the show to make it better for you.
Now the first thing I want to tell you about is some brand-new polling that we've got from CNN and Opinion Research Corporation about President Obama. This is brand-new polling that I want to show you some details on.
First of all, this is how you feel about President Obama and how he's doing, how he's handling his job. Forty-nine percent of you approve of the way the president is handling his job. A little bit more, 50 percent, disapprove of the job that the president is doing.
Now, this is a very, very detailed poll, and one of the things that it indicates is that there's a great deal of approval of President Obama. People seem to like him. But the country is split on exactly how they think the president is doing on his job. In fact, it is -- it's such a remarkable split, and in a moment I'm going to be speaking to Candy Crowley to get into some of that and how the president is going to manage the new polling.
But I want to show you another piece from this polling, and the question is, how has President Obama done with the topics that are of concern to you? President Obama, according to our polling, has paid more attention to financial institutions than to the middle-class. Sixty percent of respondents say that he's paid more attention to financial institutions than to the middle class.
Now, this is a big issue, because yesterday we saw that the president announced he is going to -- he's going to unveil a middle- class tax -- middle-class tax task force to deal with issues confronting the middle-class, but this is a growing problem for the president.
Let's bring Candy Crowley in to talk a little bit about this and how the president is going to deal with it this week. He's got the State of the Union coming up Wednesday, but more importantly, this polling reveals some interesting shifts in the American public about how they feel about the president, Candy.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Certainly, they do. And it's a trend that we began to see, really, toward the end of the summer, just as criticism via the tea-party groups and others began to be on the upswing, and that is, that the people continue to really like President Obama. They continue to think that he incorporates all the qualities a president needs, but they don't like those policies. And you see that reflected in this poll in so many different ways, and in very large gaps.
So, it really sets up quite a challenge for President Obama going in to this year. This is an election year. Already tough. He's come off a very difficult election, when they lost a longtime-held Senate seat for Democrats, switched over into the Republican column. And it really is kind of a blueprint, if you look at these numbers -- and I can assure you, the White House had similar numbers...
VELSHI: Yes.
CROWLEY: ... will be looking at these numbers, and what he has to do is do what?
First of all, show that he's about Main Street, not Wall Street. I think that was the most devastating number that you showed up there.
VELSHI: Well, let's actually show -- that's right.
CROWLEY: And number two -- yes.
VELSHI: The 60 -- the 60 percent saying it's Wall Street and 28 percent, Main Street, middle class. Let me just show you this one, because I want to get your comments on another one that speaks to exactly what you were just saying.
Your opinion of President Obama, 53 percent say he can bring change. Not bad, 53 percent. Fifty-one percent say he shares your values. Fifty percent say they agree with him on the issues, and 49 percent say he can unite the country.
What do those very close numbers on those four issues say about what you were just telling me about people's acceptance of President Obama?
CROWLEY: That so far his performance has not lived up to the expectations of many Americans. And what's also interesting about those particular numbers is, in some ways, it's reverting to form, these numbers. We saw these before the polls before former President Bush began to tank and stay there. We saw this sort of split polling. And what we know is, what has -- what has President Obama lost? He's lost the independents. They have shifted over, as they are wont to do, and they do not want believe, at this point, that he is sharing their values. He has lost a lot of independents. So he's got -- that's a lot of turf that he's going to have to rebuild, because it's a very, very narrow majority in some cases, and a minority in other cases, particularly on a very, very critical number there is "shares your values," believes in issues you believe in.
VELSHI: Yes.
CROWLEY: People have to believe the president is fighting for them.
VELSHI: All right. Candy, I want to talk to you when we come back about this tax freeze that the president announced, how this is going to affect people, the spending freeze that the president announced and whether that's going to help him appeal to the middle class. I'll be back with you in just a moment, our senior political analyst, Candy Crowley.
We're going to continue to dig into these poll numbers, the fact that the president is going to be delivering his State of the Union address later on in the week, and how the spending freeze is going to play out with you. We'll be right back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Very heavy few weeks politically. Last week we saw the loss of a Democratic seat in the Senate, in Massachusetts. We had a remarkable speech from the president on Friday in which many observers say he really did switch his role back to that to what he was as a candidate. And now we've got the State of the Union coming up this week, the budget next week.
Candy Crowley, our senior political correspondent, joins me.
Candy, we were talking a little bit about some brand-new polling we've got from CNN. I want to show you one more. This has been quite a year. We're doing stimulus project coverage this year -- this week on CNN, a year in. What a busy week.
We asked our respondents, "How much has President Obama accomplished in his first year in office?" Only 12 percent said "more than you expected." Forty-four percent said "as much as expected," and 44 percent, exact same amount, said "less than you expected." What do you make of that, if anything?
CROWLEY: Again, I think in a lot of these polls what we're seeing are the numbers reverting to form, because what we know is, while there really was this huge swell of support and goodwill for the president, as there are for most presidents when they take office, the country remains pretty divided about a lot of things. And I think in some of these polls, that's what you're seeing.
VELSHI: All right, let me show you and our audience some breakdowns of the domestic freeze, the spending freeze that the president announced last night. Now, of course, this has to get through Congress. It's got to do with the budget. He's going to introduce the budget for 2011 next week. It takes many months to get this through. But take a look at that.
The budget is a $3.5 trillion pie. That whole pie is $3.5 trillion. The amount that the president can put a freeze on is the discretionary spending. That's not defense; that's not homeland security; that's not veterans affairs; that's not Social Security, not entitlement spending. So the only thing he can freeze is that $447 billion. They're projecting this could save $250 billion over ten years.
So the money is substantially smaller than the news might suggest, Candy, but it is -- it's symbolic. It's highly symbolic.
CROWLEY: It is. Because what have we seen in these polls? And, again, the White House watches them as closely as we do. And that is that people really feel there was no bang for the buck in that stimulus plan.
People understand overspending. They understand that they can't. They know intrinsically that something is wrong with spending more money than you have. And when you see these, you know, trillion- dollar deficits, not to mention the debt, which I think is, like, $12 trillion, and then you see what sounds like a lot of money, $250 billion, it pales in comparison.
However, the White House will say, "We have to start somewhere. We have to do something."
But, you're right, it is -- it is going to be probably more important for its symbolism, because this is the president saying, "I'm worried about the deficit, too. I'm worried about overspending. I know that we have to start to cut back, and here's where I'm going to begin." So what they're hoping is that that message will get out there, much as they are hoping with these middle-class initiatives that we saw yesterday...
VELSHI: Yes.
CROWLEY: ... having to do with student aid and elder care and things like that, much as he's hoping this will calm the middle-class in a way that says, "I do understand you're having problems."
VELSHI: Right.
CROWLEY: "Here's some help. It's coming." So I think these are message-oriented policy.
VELSHI: So the freezing of the discretionary spending might be, if you wanted to give it a personal analogy, it might be that you can't cut your rent and you can't cut your heat off, and you can't -- you can't cut your spending on those, but you cannot go to restaurants as much and not take cabs as much. There's only a piece of the budget that he can deal with here. CROWLEY: Well, he could deal with the other parts of the budget, but he chooses not to at this point, and why? Because it's Medicaid, because it's Medicare, because it's Social Security, because it's the defense budget in a time where people feel that the nation's security is paramount, obviously.
So, these are not areas where you really can cut politically, nor does the president particularly want to. So, you know, that leaves a very small amount of the budget. Everybody knows -- and you probably more than most people even here in Washington -- is that what's causing this deficit to go up are these entitlement programs.
VELSHI: Yes.
CROWLEY: And president after president has failed to kind of grab a hold of that.
VELSHI: All right, Candy, we'll be talking to you, hopefully, every day. We've got the State of the Union on Wednesday night, and we'll have full coverage of that on CNN. Our senior political correspondent, Candy Crowley, joining us now, talking about these new poll numbers.
You can, of course, go to CNN.com and get a lot of information about that polling.
We're going to talk to Christine Romans now, I believe. Christine is my co-host on "YOUR $$$$$." We're actually going to just show you a picture of Christine Romans smiling so brightly there. We're going to take a bit of a break.
When we come back, we're going to talk about pork in the stimulus bill. And I'm not actually talking about the kind of pork you think. I'm actually talking about food, dough, pork, things like that. We're going to talk about that when we come back with Christine.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. All this week we are covering the stimulus project, which means we're looking in to the stimulus bill that was passed a year ago, seeing where that money has gone, where it's been wasted and where it's been used effectively to create jobs or to stimulate the economy, and we've got evidence of both of those stories.
My good friend, Christine Romans, co-anchor of "YOUR $$$$$," which airs every weekend, Saturdays and Sundays, has been looking into food and how it's played into stimulus -- Christine.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, there.
It was one of the first big outlays of money we saw: millions of dollars to major food companies and billions of dollars, Ali, for Food Stamps. The idea here, to take some of the pain, put a safety net under -- taking the pain away and putting a safety net under people who have lost their jobs and are really struggling because of the Great Recession.
I wanted to show you just how much money in that, Ali: 19.6 billion for Food Stamps over five years. Thirty-eight million Americans right now are being fed in part by Food Stamps. That is a record. It's a 10 million increase in the number of people. That's more than 1 in 10 Americans, Ali. Think of that. That's the number of people who are using Food Stamps right now.
A hundred million, a smaller amount -- but we noticed this in the stimulus, as well -- $100 million to update some lunchroom equipment for school lunch programs.
VELSHI: What do we think lunchroom equipment is? Is that stuff, microwaves and vending machines?
ROMANS: It must -- I think it's like the hair net, you know, that the lady with the mac and cheese...
VELSHI: I guess sop. I don't know what that is. But OK, a lot of money.
ROMANS: School equipment, $100 million to upgrade some of these kitchens in some of these schools for the school-lunch program.
And then also $100 million for food banks. Some of the biggest names in food companies, Del Monte, Tyson, Lakeside Food, a big company in Wisconsin and Minnesota. They got big, big multimillion- dollar contracts for food banks to get their canned pork...
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: ... turkey, cheese, and other things into the food banks to help people who have been out of a job. Some parts of the country, Ali, I'm told, these food banks are telling us that their demand is up 40 percent.
VELSHI: Yes, no doubt.
ROMANS: So, your stimulus dollars literally landing, from the Treasury Department to the food companies, onto the plates of Americans.
VELSHI: All right. At least that's -- at least that's direct. Listen, I was just talking -- you may have heard me, I was just talking to Candy Crowley about this, this very important big news about the president announcing that he wants to get a -- have a spending freeze on the discretionary part of the budget. I know you did some talking to some experts on this, this morning.
ROMANS: Yes, well, interesting that some of the Republicans immediately are coming out and saying, "Wait a minute. Aren't the Democrats putting together a multibillion-dollar jobs bill at the same time that the president is talking about freezing -- you know, freezing discretionary spending?"
And then this morning, Jeffrey Sachs, who's a prominent economist here in New York City, this is what he had to say about this plan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFFREY SACHS, DIRECTOR, THE EARTH INSTITUTE: Last year, just spend, throw everything into a stimulus package, people saying, well, what's in there? And then this year, just across-the-board freeze.
Frankly, the government has to make better choices and better plans than throwing things into a big pot in one year and then freezing across the board the next year. We have areas in that so- called discretionary spending that urgently need more funding. And to freeze across the board, I think, would be kind of a dereliction of duty actually of the government to make choices.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: A dereliction of duty of the government.
VELSHI: Wow.
ROMANS: I mean, he is saying that, look, it just looks like almost schizophrenic. On the one hand we are in the midst of the biggest stimulus in the history of this country. We're spending money to save the American economy and the American way of life.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: But we are -- we do have our eye on deficits, and we're going to freeze discretionary spending.
VELSHI: It is the opposite of a stimulus project. It's the exact opposite, and I think Jeffrey Sachs illustrated that well.
Christine, good to see you.
Of course, we're going to have a lot more on the stimulus project and on all of these stories on the weekend. "YOUR $$$$$" airs Saturdays at 1 p.m. Eastern and Sundays at 3 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.
All right. Let's take a look at the headlines right now.
Home prices are inching up. A closely-watched index says that prices in November were up 0.2 percent from October on a seasonally- adjusted basis. Now, that's good news, but don't get too excited. The index was still down more than 5 percent compared to the same time in the previous year. And that's how most people tend to look at their home prices.
In Afghanistan, a suicide car bomber struck just outside a U.S. military base in Kabul, wounding eight Afghan civilians and two American troops. That's according to an Afghan official at the scene. The Taliban is claiming responsibility.
New exclusive CNN pictures on the day the quake hit Haiti.
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(SHOUTING)
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VELSHI: Just ahead, the latest casualty figures. We're going to update you on the situation in Haiti.
And a live report at unrest at a food center in Port-au-Prince, where tempers are flaring.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. I want to continue to follow one of the biggest stories that we've had all year so far, and one of the biggest stories we've ever covered, and that is the earthquake in Haiti.
Bring you up to speed. We've had a lot of reports on a daily basis. CNN has a whole team on the ground. Let me just bring you up to date with what we know, and it's grim.
The latest death toll: 150,000 people killed. That's according to the government, according to the Haitian Health Ministry. Others involved in the relief effort, the EU, the Pan-American Health Organization, actually have an estimate that 200,000 people were killed.
But as Karl Penhaul and others have described to us, some people are being buried in mass graves just to prevent a health hazard by having bodies around the streets, so the count is a little inaccurate, or could inaccurate.
One hundred and ninety-four thousand people are thought to have been injured by the earthquake. And of course, those numbers are still coming in, because so many people sort of left Port-au-Prince to go elsewhere. So hard to collect those numbers, and a lot of aid agencies have said they would just as soon not be dealing with collecting numbers at this point. They still want to be dealing with the survivors and how to treat them.
It is estimated that 1 million people have been displaced. That involves people who have lost their homes or their shelters and people who have left Port-au-Prince. The government estimates over 200,000 people have left Port-au-Prince. They've just fled so that they can go to places where there's less destruction and perhaps try and get shelter and some sort of livelihood there.
A lot of the information that we gather is from our team on the ground in Port-au-Prince, and Karl Penhaul is part of that -- that group. Karl is live with us right now. He was covering a food line, and we were going to talk to you from there, Karl. But you've actually left there, because it's starting to get a little rough where you were. Tell us about this.
KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was certainly getting rough earlier on, and it really just goes to show that two weeks after this earthquake, and that international agencies, even the United Nations, hasn't got it organized to get enough food out to enough people so that desperation doesn't set in.
We were driving down the road this morning, near the main square, which you can see behind me, and then suddenly, we saw literally thousands of people starting to run. We looked to the other side, and we see a convoy of the United Nations armored personnel carriers and two trucks.
And we followed the crowd, literally thousands of people, clamoring and pushing to together for aid. And the Brazilian peacekeepers accompanying that aid had set up metal barricades. There were so many people that they were pushing together to try and get through those barricades. And at several points, the Brazilian peacekeepers had to drive them back, spraying them with pepper spray. We even heard a shot fired in the air, as well.
So suddenly, you've got these hungry, desperate people. They're choking, choking and also vomiting on the pepper spray that has been sprayed into their faces.
One man turned to me. He said, "I've lost everything in the earthquake. I've lost my home. I've lost my family. And now I'm losing my dignity, because I can't even get food and they're treating us like animals."
I asked a Brazilian colonel who's in charge of the operation. He says, "We're doing the best we can. We're trying to drive these people back and get some order so they don't crush one another." And he said something that was very telling to me. He said the Haitian people are not violent people, but right now they are desperate for food.
VELSHI: Right.
PENHAUL: We just cannot get them enough, Ali.
VELSHI: What's the issue -- you know, a week ago -- we've been talking every day, Karl, but a week ago there was still a massive infrastructure problem. Aid was getting into the country. We know it was getting to the airport, but there were road problems in getting it to where it needs to go. Is there enough food in the country for those people who are desperate right now? Is it a problem of getting it to people, or are we still looking for more food into Haiti right now?
PENHAUL: That specific question one would have to ask to the agencies. But I don't believe that there's ever enough food here in Haiti, because even in normal times, these people have not got enough food to eat. And when something like this happens, and they haven't even got the shelter of their homes, then that doubles the need, doubles the necessity.
Talking to people there waiting in the food lines, they say they are -- roughly speaking -- are getting some kind of aid distribution every third day. VELSHI: Wow.
PENHAUL: And they say between that they have to space out what food they have. They might not be able to eat for one of those days. They have to really spread the food out, just real survival rations, meanwhile. So I don't think we can talk about enough food getting here on the ground in Haiti. Some food obviously is here. But nevertheless, the organization is a key issue.
VELSHI: Sure.
PENHAUL: And if you take just five tons of rice to thousands of people, there's not going to be enough to go around.
VELSHI: Well, I suppose you're right. And even if there were enough food in a city that had its infrastructure intact, there would be logistical problems in getting it to everyone. We know that from large-scale events in major cities.
Obviously, with the infrastructure as damaged as it is in Haiti, it just further complicates what seems like a simple thing to most people.
Karl, thank you for being with us, as you are every day, bringing us up to speed with what's going on. We can't forget the story in Haiti, even though the worst of it feels like it's over. The reality is that, for some people, the worst is yet to come.
Now, all the way on the other side of the world, there are -- there are a lot of people discussing Haiti, amongst other things. And we're talking about the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. We're going to come back after this break. Richard Quest is standing by. He's looking through the agenda for the World Economic Forum, and he's going to tell us some of the interesting things that -- that he found. It's not as stuffy as you might think.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Okay. A big, important meeting is happening on the other side of the world, in Switzerland, in Davos, Switzerland. You probably heard about it. The World Economic Forum. It gets under way tomorrow.
Richard Quest is on the ground today, because who would want to miss a day of hanging out in the mountains in Switzerland. What he's doing is working very hard, looking at the agenda. That's what we reporters do when we get to some important thing that we're covering. We look at the agenda. And in the case of Davos, because it's such a fancy event, it's got a fancy agenda. It's actually a book you're holding in your hands.
RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is indeed, the book of the World Economic Forum 2010, "Improve the state of the world. Rethink, redesign, and rebuild." And there are literally hundreds of panels, symposiums, discussions, workshops. You can plan your agenda. The question is, what exactly will you be planning? Well, let's have a look. And I promised you yesterday you were going to hear plenty more of this particular noise.
(BELL RINGING)
VELSHI: Yes.
QUEST: Let's have a look and see what they'll be talking about at the World Economic Forum. The serious stuff, of course. The major issue about global economic growth. Rethinking market capitalism, for example, there's an entire panel on that. Along with one or two other ones.
But if that's all a bit heavy, how about this one?
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QUEST: "Constructing the Ephemeral: Light in the Public Realm."
(BELL RINGING)
QUEST: "The Bard and the Buck," a theatrical dinner to explore the trials and tribulations of today's economy through the plays of Shakespeare.
And this, I think, has to be my favorite, since I was actually up the mountain skiing.
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QUEST: "Switzerland: Misfit or Model?"
Ali, I don't know which of those you would prefer. There's plenty of very serious ones. About economic growth, about market capitalism. But it does show it's it's a very broad church at the WTEF forum.
VELSHI: So, what's the point at the end of this thing? What are they supposed to come up at the end of this thing? You showed us the making of the snowman, rethinking -- what is it, rethinking, redesigning?
QUEST: Yes, it's rethinking, redesigning, rebuilding.
VELSHI: Right.
QUEST: The object of the exercise is to get some very senior people like John Mack of Morgan Stanley, John Chambers, to get people like Larry Summers, the king of Jordan and all the other lower-ranking people as well, into the same room at the same time.
Tomorrow night, you and I no doubt will be talking about what President Sarkozy of France said in the opening address.
Do I think that this year's Davos will be a -- a blinder like last year's when the crisis was at height? No, I do not. But I think there's some merit in having the elite talking to the elite in an environment where they can be honest with each other.
VELSHI: All right. Is this like the G-8s and the G-20s where they are trying to deal with financial reforms and things like that?
QUEST: I'm sorry, I was nodding -- shaking my head, saying no, and then suddenly I thought, maybe. It is in the sense -- what the G- 20 doesn't do is bring other stakeholders into the game. The G-20 is just leaders, finance ministers, central bankers, hangers-on.
What this is, is actually -- you basically have CEOs, policymakers, and you have NGOs, you have social networking people. For instance, the founder of Twitter is here.
VELSHI: Right.
QUEST: Linkedthis is here. I'm not going to bore you with the minutia of who is here. But it is the range of people. For example, today I spoke to the chairman of KPMG. Tonight, I'll talk to the head of Bain capital. This totality, Ali, is what Davos is about.
VELSHI: Right. All right, a couple of other interesting segments that Richard may or may not attend. "Reading Leaders' Minds," "Life on Other Planets," "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," and the "Future of Journalism."
(BELL RINGING)
VELSHI: I should get four bells for that. There you go, Richard Quest.
(BELL RINGING)
QUEST: You wouldn't normally get four. I did one thing today...
VELSHI: What's that?
QUEST: ... that I almost never get to do when I'm at Davos.
VELSHI: You skied, all right. Very good. Maybe we will get some video of that tomorrow. I hope you were recording it on a flip camera or something like that.
QUEST: Tomorrow night I'll show you me on the slopes of Davos.
VELSHI: Very nice. Must-see TV. Richard Quest for you at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Now, what we're going to show you in a few minutes is something that we're doing all week here at CNN. We've got the resources of CNN behind "The Stimulus Project, The Stimulus Desk. There's Steve Brusque (ph) and Josh Levs, they're on shift right now. I do the later part of the day, but we'll be going to them and seeing what they're digging up, how your money is being spent, whether or not jobs are created and whether your money is being spent effectively. They're hard at work, and we're going to find out what they're working on when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. We're here with Josh Levs. He is at The Stimulus Desk. The stimulus wall for the desk right now. What are you working on?
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All right. We've been looking at all sorts of individual projects out there that are getting funding from these billions of dollars in stimulus money. And one we're going to take a look at right now, we have a graphic. Why don't we just take it full.
Take a look at what's going on in Colorado, where they have more than $10 million to fight wildfires. We can show that to you there. There you go. Wildfire protection. What happened was they got the $10.7 million. So far, they are reporting that 53 jobs have come from it, but they say there will be more eventually. What's happening is all these different agencies are subcontracting and hiring people out there to clear out brush and do what they can to fight wildfires.
One example of this -- keep in mind as you see that, that jobs doesn't mean permanent jobs. It lasts for a while. One thing we need to get is how long the jobs last on a lot of these things. That's one example of what we've got. Along with that, they sent us photos of people that are recipients of these jobs. We can take a look at a couple examples of those.
We have a quote for you from the USDA. Let's go to that for a second. The USDA spokesman gave us a quote about this and the decision to spend more than $10 million of your money, of stimulus funding on this, saying "These grants will create and save jobs in natural resource industries by funding high-priority forest restoration and fuels mitigation projects. The grant recipients will put people to work thinning forests and removing dead or hazardous trees in Colorado's forests to reduce the risk of fire and improve forest health."
And if we can, let's let the control room to (INAUDIBLE) video of some of these wildfires. Because this is a good reminder of how some of the funds are being used. The wildfires in Colorado can be incredibly destructive. We know that whole region is affected by them. So, they did make the choice, to put more than $10 million, Ali, in this case into several projects that will clearing out some of the brush in hopes it will be safer.
VELSHI: All right. We're going to continue. We'll come back and talk to you in a little while.
Also, we're covering this all day on CNN. Tomorrow on "AMERICAN MORNING," can a $5 million resort town restoration be a good use of stimulus aid? We're going to find out why one woman is grateful that the government is spending money.
And tonight on "CAMPBELL BROWN" at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, is the stimulus working for average Americans? We'll have an interview with Earl DeVaney (ph). He's the president's point man on stimulus. He's the guy who knows where all this money has gone. Tonight at 10:00 on "AC 360", why stimulus money is being wasted on unnecessary road signs.
So, all this week The Stimulus Project, only at CNN, CNN.com, CNNmoney.com/stimulus. You can go to all of those places and get some of our coverage on the stimulus.
Checking some headlines. The man charged with killing a Yale grad student has pleaded not guilty. Raymond Clark is accused of strangling Annie Le in a Yale research lab last September. Her body was found stuffed into a wall on what was to have been her wedding day.
In Baghdad, a suicide car bomber blew himself outside a police crime lab. At least 18 people were killed, 80 people wounded. The blast comes a day after three car bomb attacks hit several hotels, killing at least 36 people and wounding 71 others. These attacks are the latest in a series of well-planned strikes against high-profile targets in the Iraqi capital.
In Haiti, John Travolta has joined those bringing much much- needed relief supplies. The actor flew his own Boeing 727 with six tons of food and medical supplies from Florida to Haiti's capital.
Meanwhile, medical treatment continues for the injured, and so does the struggle for countless people to find shelter. Haiti's president has asked the world for 200,000 tents, saying that he'll sleep in one himself.
When we come back, I'll talk to Elizabeth Cohen, who is back from Haiti. You saw her reporting in the initial days of the earthquake. She was covering how people were being treated, the supplies that were needed, the doctors who were just moving in and doing things themselves. And more importantly, the tough decisions the doctors have to make to save lives in Haiti. We'll have that right after the break.
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VELSHI: Doctors in Haiti making life-and-death decisions about which patients stay behind, which ones are flown out to the United States for treatment. Senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, is just back from the quake zone.
Elizabeth, we had your reports every day, all day on CNN. You were reporting from -- I don't know if it was one or different health facilities that you were at, but there was one I remember seeing you at a lot.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It was one hospital, and it didn't have a name.
VELSHI: Right.
COHEN: It grew up sort of ad hoc, it's so organic that it never had a name. It was basically run by the University of Miami. And it was -- at the beginning, it was one doctor with about 300 patients.
VELSHI: Wow.
COHEN: And other doctors flew in.
VELSHI: Just of their own accord.
COHEN: Of their own accord. Exactly. And they were from Harvard and Hopkins and the University of Miami. They were from all over the place. There were no government funding, there was no government organization.
VELSHI: You kept talking about the lack of supplies, the shortage of supplies. But the issue wasn't just the shortage of supplies, but the decisions that had to be made because they were performing in an ad hoc facility.
COHEN: Right. Exactly. They could do amputations, and that was about it. They couldn't do anything more complex than that.
The doctor that was in charge of getting people out of there, he said, Elizabeth, look around. There's about 40 people I want out, but I can't get 40 of them out. I can maybe get two of them out tonight, and maybe two out another night back to Miami or some of them he sent to Martinique.
For example, let me tell you about a little girl named baby Patricia, and I'll tell you why she got the name in a minute. This was a little girl one doctor in particular really fought for. You can see doctors were trying to get this little girl going. She was in the rubble by herself surrounded by dead bodies of family members. They think she is 2 or 3 months old.
She was so dehydrated, Ali, they could not get an IV in to her. The doctor had to put it in through her bone marrow, they could not get it in. That's an incredibly difficult thing to do. But she survived. And they said, you know what? She's going to be dead in 24 hours if they couldn't get her to Miami. And they fought hard and they got her on a plane to Miami.
VELSHI: Oh, wow.
COHEN: But there was a huge discussion, some doctors said, wait a minute, this baby may not make it on the plane. Why don't we send another patient...
VELSHI: ... who we know will survive.
COHEN: Exactly.
VELSHI: Now, the other thing is you're saying if they can only do basic things, that means that some people that weren't flown out to other places may have had to face an amputation or didn't have the treatment they could have, so they might have recovered differently elsewhere. COHEN: Let me tell you about another girl named Modley (ph) Michelle. She had an injury called a degloving. You can imagine what a degloving, literally the skin comes off the hand. It's bandaged up and they cleaned it so she wouldn't die of infection.
But I was talking to the young surgeon, Dr. Veronica Diaz, she's from Allegheny Hospital in Pennsylvania. She said, Elizabeth, I'm so frustrated. At home, I could give this little girl the use of her hand at home, I could do certain things with the microscope and skin grafts and she could have use of her right hand. This is her right hand. She'll never have use of that hand...
VELSHI: Because that's all they could do for her.
COHEN: It will be like this, because that's all they could do. I wanted her on a plane to Miami but we couldn't do it because other people's lives were at stake. These doctors were extremely frustrated with their limitations.
VELSHI: They've all done a remarkable job.
COHEN: They are heroes, every single one, every one.
VELSHI: How frustrating to make the decisions on behalf of people. And for you having to report on that. That's just sad, because you want to be able to fix it. And we take so much for granted.
COHEN: That's right.
VELSHI: Excellent reporting for you and our team. Thanks so much for doing that and for being here. I look forward to spending time with you daily.
COHEN: Yes, every day!
VELSHI: Very good.
All right. One of the stories we've been reporting on, the White House, the president wants to freeze domestic spending in the budget. But it's only some spending. In fact, it's only a portion of the budget. We'll try to understand how that will rein in the deficit.
Just ahead, I'll put some questions to a senior White House adviser about spending, about stimulus, and about the State of the Union.
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VELSHI: All right. We are back at The Stimulus Desk. This is a project that CNN has got going on, 17 hours a day, day every day this week. We are digging through the stimulus projects. 60,000 of them --
LEVS: Well, let's get a shot of this really quickly.
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VELSHI: Some of them are one line or two lines. They're upside down at the moment. But we are making phone calls to find out about the projects.
LEVS: The 60,000 projects.
Here they go. I knew they would topple live on TV one of these days. Now I'm going to have my YouTube moment.
So basically what we are doing is to piece through them. There's one that caught our eye, because often when we talk about the economy we are hearing the name Herbert Hoover, right? People say certain things resonate from his time. Well, now, we're seeing three-quarters of a million dollars for the Herbert Hoover Institute and National Historic Site.
I have a Web site right here. Let's zoom in and take it fully. You will see what happens here. Well, basically, you are looking at CNN.com/stimulus. I will come back to this. This is the Herbert Hoover National Historic site. And there's a lot that goes on there. It is in Iowa. But we notice in these books and also here from recovery.gov that when you look at this Web site and where they are spending their money, they have $760,000, and there it is highlighted. $759,000.
VELSHI: That's the total amount that they're getting.
LEVS: That's right. They are getting that for restoration work over there, so one thing we are looking at how many jobs were created there and also how long they last. That's what we need to emphasize.
If you look at recovery.gov, there's a lot here about jobs. You can see what they were saying as of end of October, 640,000 jobs reported back then. But again, a job can be two days or two weeks. So, we need to know the times on these things. So, one of the many things we're looking at here, CNN.com/stimulus is where we keep updating it with all sorts of information.
VELSHI: You can go to that, by the way, and you can move around that site on your own. And what we believe you should be able to do is to try to get transparency on where the stimulus money has been spent. In fairness, Josh, we have been doing this for a while. There are jobs created, and there are some of the projects that are noble and make a lot of sense.
LEVS: No doubt about it. What we are doing is goat the facts out there. What deserves to get money, what does not deserve to get money. For people to decide. Where the jobs are showing up and how long they are lasting is what we need to know the most.
VELSHI: That is the big question, and some of them are harder to get information on than others. But we're going to keep on working. I'll take over for Josh in a little while, and then we will carry on throughout the night in the primetime shows as well. All right. Jared Bernstein is going to be with us in a moment. He's the chief economist and senior economic policy adviser to Vice President Biden. There he is standing by, and I will be with him in just a moment.
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VELSHI: All right. Let's go straight to the White House and Jared Bernstein is the chief economist and the economic policy adviser to vice president Biden and he is a friend of the show. And he's here during our stimulus project week at CNN. Thank you for joining us.
JARED BERNSTEIN, BIDEN SENIOR ECONOMIC ADVISER: My pleasure.
VELSHI: I want to ask you about the Congressional Budget Office and we are talking about the stimulus bill, $787 billion, and we have news that the Congressional Budget Office has hiked the forecast for how much the stimulus bill is going to cost by $75 billion to $862 billion. So, does that mean that everything we are talking about, the $787 now becomes $862 billion?
BERNSTEIN: Well, think hay the $787 is an appropriate reference point for everything that we have been talking about thus far. Any new estimates may have to do things with more take-up on the unemployment insurance rate, but in terms of the tens of thousands of projects that are funded whether you are talking about infrastructure, business lending, whether you rare talking about broadband or smart grid or wind, solar...
VELSHI: Well, I hear you, Jared. My question is just, did $787 billion become $862 billion. Is that fair to say?
BERNSTEIN: Well, I have to take a closer look at the CBO on that, but at this point, I think that the $787 is a fair point.
VELSHI: Okay. On Sunday shows, we had some of your colleagues out there. Valerie Jarrett out there talking about the stimulus bill adding thousands and thousands of jobs. We had Robert gibbs talking about 1.5 to 2 million jobs, we had David Axelrod talking about the 2 million jobs from the stimulus. Obviously, you can see from this desk, we are trying to figure out how many jobs were created. Why the discrepancy in the numbers, and what do you think stimulus has created or will create in terms of number of jobs?
BERNSTEIN: I think the discrepancy comes from, in part, and I actually think this is a good thing, a number of independent analysts have looked at this very question of how many job has the Recovery Act helped to save or create. Now, if I just told you our estimates from our council of economic advisors, you would say, okay.
VELSHI: That's 640,000. That's the estimate there.
BERNSTEIN: No, in fact, that's not. That's the recipient reports. The council of economic advisers - the recipient reports cover about one-third of the stimulus spending. Now, the council of economic advisers will tell 1.5 to 2 million jobs created through the fourth quarter of last year. The Congressional Budget Office will tell you as many as 2.4 million jobs by the end of last year.
The important thing I think for the viewers to recognize is to put all of the numbers together, take an average, and see if we are in the ballpark. And the ballpark is this -- 2 million jobs saved or created through the fourth quarter of last year. That you can take to the bank, because that is really an average of the set of independent analysts who hover around that number, 2 million jobs saved or created through a Q-4 of 2009.
VELSHI: Two million jobs. OK, that's important for us to know.
Jared, we want to talk about the brand new polling we have at CNN, conducted by CNN and Opinion Research Corporation that says the president has paid more attention to financial institutions than the middle class. Sixty percent say the president has paid more attention to financial institutions. 28 percent say it's the middle-class. I'm not going to ask you whether you agree with that or not. I'm going to ask you how do you deal with the political problem of that sort of response?
BERNSTEIN: Yesterday, I sat in a room over there at the executive office building and listened as the president and the vice president made a set of announcements, announcements that the president will amplify tomorrow night in the State of the Union address about initiatives for middle-class families, and I will take you through them in a second.
But let's face it. When we got here, the financial system was on the brink of collapse. And we talk about Main Street and Wall Street as if they are divided, but when it comes to the flow of capital, the flow of financing as the lifeblood of the economy, obviously, the dots need to be connected, so to bring the financial market back to stability was a critical part of getting this economy back from the brink.
The middle class has never been far from president's or vice president's mind, and yesterday, just an announcement yesterday, they emphasized a set of new policies targeted directly at helping to ease the squeeze on middle-class families' budgets. And they had to do with raising the child care tax credit significantly, nearly doubling the child care costs for middle class families. Helping with elder care, helping to offset some of those costs. Helping offset some of the very burdensome student loan, keeping that capped at 10 percent of income....
VELSHI: How does that work?
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VELSHI: Well, when you are freezing the $46 billion roughly that the president can freeze in the next budget, isn't that kind of the opposite of what you are saying? How do you increase spending on things that are going to help the middle-class while announcing that you're freezing domestic spending in the budget?
