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Key Part of Health Care Law Ruled Unconstitutional; Nonpartisan Group 'No Labels' Launches; Tracking Your Every Click; Busiest Day at FedEx; Part of the Health Care Law Struck Down

Aired December 13, 2010 - 14:00   ET

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

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: As we have told you already, a Virginia judge -- a federal judge -- I'm sorry -- in Virginia today struck down a requirement which was due to start in 2014 that virtually every American buy health insurance if they didn't have it through their employer. Now, other federal judges have ruled the opposite way, which means it's almost guaranteed that the Supreme Court will have a say in this matter.

Joining me to parse the politics and the policy, our CNN senior political analyst, Gloria Borger, and Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. And from the Cato Institute, Ilya Shapiro. He's a senior fellow in constitutional studies.

Ilya, let's start with you. You have heard the arguments both sides. What do you make of the ruling today?

ILYA SHAPIRO, CATO INSTITUTE: Well, I think it's a victory for those who of us who think that there are limits to Congress' power, to federal power generally, and the idea that even the outer bounds of congressional power don't extend to regulating inactivity. That's something that has to be active for Congress to --

VELSHI: Clear that up, Ilya, for our viewers. What do you mean here? Because this is an interesting point, that the ruling didn't argue that the government can't make everybody get insured. It argued that they can't penalize somebody for not being insured.

SHAPIRO: Well, the crux of this issue is Congress telling people that they have to go into the private marketplace and buy a health insurance policy. And what the judge here found was that in all of the precedent that -- even the most expansive commerce clause regulations under the new deal did not go so far as to require somebody to go out and do something like that. And so the bounds of Congress' power over regulating local activity is to actually have it be activity and not just a decision not to do something.

VELSHI: Gloria Borger, you have followed this really from the beginning. This is obviously not the view that Robert Gibbs just took. It's not the view that the White House is taking. In fact, they've made the argument that there have been two federal rulings in their favor so far, and there are many more federal rulings to come on this thing before this key provision was to take effect in 2014.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: No, there's no denying it, though, that this give some oxygen to their political opponents. Democrats will tell you that this is a judge who is known to side with Republicans, and that this is not something that they didn't expect.

But this does give some oxygen to folks who say, you know what, this mandate went too far, because if you don't buy health insurance, then you get a tax penalty, right? And there were people in Congress, Republicans, who argued that that was unconstitutional all along.

The White House and the Justice Department clearly felt that they were on solid ground, but Eric Cantor, who is a member of the House Republican leadership, today asked for an expedited review of this case by the Supreme Court. So it's very clear that Republicans who oppose these mandates are going to jump on this.

As you know, Ali -- and you've been talking about -- without the mandates, things like insuring pre-existing conditions might not be able to be funded because you need a larger pool full of healthy people in order to do that. So lots of people see this as the beginning of the unraveling.

However, you do have to caution, this is early. This is one judge's ruling. Two others went the other way, and many more to come.

VELSHI: Elizabeth, some people think it went too far. The problem is this particular provision where the ruling has actually said he's going to sever that provision from the rest of the health care reform bill, as Gloria suggests, can it exist without this provision?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know what? I don't know how you pay for the entire thing without insuring these healthy people. There's tens of millions of healthy Americans out there who don't have insurance, so they are like a cash cow. They're just sitting there.

VELSHI: And this is a mirror of many other countries, northern European countries, for instance, that have some degree of universal insurance. The point is everybody has to be insured.

COHEN: Right. So this is sort of universal insurance. I think what they were trying to do is -- the Obama administration is very sensitive about socialized medicine and whatnot, so they didn't do it quite the same was as they do it in Europe, but they did say you've got to have insurance. You can choose your insurance, but you have got to have it. And if you choose not to have it, we're going to penalize you with this tax.

And -- but that is a huge amount of money either from the tax or just from the premium. So all of these tens of millions of people who have not been paying premiums, they don't have insurance, if you make them get insurance, you have got these incredible benefits.

One, they're forking over money. And two, they're probably not going to use the system much. They're healthy.

VELSHI: So it spreads the risk, right.

COHEN: Well, it spreads the risk and it includes the low-risk people. It makes money. When you are healthy and you pay premiums for insurance, and don't use and go see the doctor, that's great from a financial point of view. Right?

VELSHI: So, bottom line is, can this thing go forward at the moment without this?

COHEN: I think that when health care reform was being built, and you and I were covering it, and when I would ask the question of the Obama administration or anyone else, how are you going to pay for this? They said, well, everyone is going to have insurance. And those premiums will be much of the cash that we need to pay for this. So, without it, I don't know how you pay for this.

VELSHI: All right. We're going to continue cover this story --

BORGER: And Ali --

VELSHI: Yes, Gloria?

BORGER: Well, the states have to start setting up their insurance exchanges right now. So they have got to continue doing this. Otherwise, by the year 2013, they will be penalized by the federal government. So they have to proceed as if everything is going to proceed until it doesn't, right?

VELSHI: And what we know right now is this is probably -- the Justice Department is looking at this right now. We can probably expect an appeal.

BORGER: Sure.

VELSHI: Thanks to Gloria and Ilya and Elizabeth. We'll stay on top of this story.

To check out the complete ruling from the Virginia judge, head to my blog, CNN.com/Ali. I've also linked you to it on Twitter and my Facebook page. It's a good read. It's 42 pages long, but boy, will you know a lot about health insurance and the legalities of it after that.

OK. Our other big story we're covering today, bitter cold, biting wind, blowing snow. And that is just here in Atlanta.

Up north, eight full days before the official start of winter. It is crazy cold in the wake of a weekend blizzard.

In northwest Indiana, dozens of cars have been trapped in snowdrifts for hours. And in some cases, all night.

State police say that they have rescued more than 60 people so far, but tow trucks are getting stuck too. And this area could get 10 more inches of snow.

It's not alone, by the way. Check out my big map.

There's snow on the ground. You can sort of see it in that northeast quadrant of the country.

Even if you're in the clear, you may be affected by an air travel logjam that could take days to clear up. And even that is not the whole story. Train travel in the Pacific Northwest is being affected because of flooding and mudslides.

Let's take a look at all of this with our good man Chad Myers, who is monitoring the weather and the air traffic, all of which is being affected right now in the country.

(WEATHER REPORT)

VELSHI: All right. We're counting down the days to today's Senate showdown on tax cuts. When all the wheeling and dealing ends, what is it going to cost you? I'll give you some important answers to that on the other side.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Put labels aside. Do what is best for America. That's what a new political group says it wants to do to help kick-start progress and civil discourse in Washington.

No Labels formally launches today in New York. And who better to deal with that than our correspondent you can't put a label on, although we'll call her national political correspondent, Jessica Yellin. Jessica is in New York.

I was reading about this, Jessica. I have to say, some things sound gimmicky. This sounds kind of neat if it could work.

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It sounds like it could appeal to a lot of people with that big "if," Ali, if it works.

The idea, they say, is to organize the kind of grassroots movement you see from MoveOn.org, on the left, or from the Tea Party, on the right, but to support centrist positions, so that if an elected official wants to take a position where they compromise with the other party, that there will be some online movement, people phone-banking, calling, sending petitions to back that person up, because they're getting deluged right now from what they call the extremes, the hyperpartisans on the left and the right. So they're trying to organize this.

Here's one of the founders, Mark McKinnon, a Republican best known for working with John McCain, on the principle of this group.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK MCKINNON, NO LABELS LEADER: If the established interest's general reflexed (ph) to be cynical about what we're doing here, and they make their profit and their attention through conflict, so the only thing that changes that is if we really show them numbers. So we need you to go out and organize in your communities and raise a voice out here. What we're really hoping for you to do is go out there and create a ruckus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YELLIN: Create a ruckus. He says he wants to create a ruckus around the middle.

Now, there are some ironies. First of all, how do you have a radical center, which they promised? Also, they say it's going to be a grassroots, bottom-up organization, but it's launched in New York City out of an Ivy League university with political elites, so that raises some questions.

And I should point out Bloomberg, Mayor Bloomberg, is speaking on the stage now, the man who just said he won't run for president as an Independent. This could be a good group to back him if he were to change his mind, but of course he says that's not on the table -- Ali.

VELSHI: He does exemplify that sort of thing though. He's the guy who is hard to put a label onto.

YELLIN: Right.

VELSHI: Jessica, very interesting. I am eager to see what develops out of this.

Jessica Yellin with No Labels.

All right. In the next hour, the Senate is going to take up a test vote on the president's tax cut deal with Republicans. Let me tell you a little bit about this.

Now it looks like last week's opposition of the deal won't stop it from eventually passing, but that opposition wasn't actually as much in the Senate as it was in the House. I want to talk about your money.

This is how much it's going to cost the government, us, to foot the bill for this deal. The tax cut, the extension of the tax cuts, and everything else that was included in this bill, is going to amount to $801 billion. The extension of unemployment benefits, which is what the Democrats wanted, is going to add another $57 billion to it, so the total cost is going to be $858 billion.

It's a pretty hefty bill. If you're probably wondering now what you're getting for your money, let me break it down for you.

It's going to cost $544 billion for the two-year extension of the Bush tax cuts. But then you start adding the payroll tax holiday. That's the Social Security tax break. You're going from 6.2 percent of what you earned to 4.2 percent of what you earned, and that's going to cost $111 billion.

Then there's another $8 billion in tax breaks for low-and-middle- income earners. Those are individual tax credits. By the way, that includes a child tax credit and another one for college costs.

Don't forget one of the hottest political potatoes, that one there, the estate tax, what some people call the death tax. If the deal goes through as is, we can expect that to be lower. That means people who used to have a million-dollar tax exemption on their estate -- I guess you can't really pay taxes if you've died -- but the exemption on your estate is now going to go up to $5 million. So everything below $5 million, you don't pay taxes on if you have pass it to your heirs.

The top tax rate will be 35 percent instead of 55 percent on your estate. How much is that going to cost us? The estate tax is going to cost $68 billion.

It doesn't stop there. There's a raft of business tax breaks as well, including those for research, some for energy, even a measure that will allow businesses to write off 100 percent of their expenses next year.

Now, who pays for that? Well, whether you're buying a TV, or you're giving tax breaks, if you're using credit, the only way to do it is to borrow. So it doesn't really matter whether you put it on our Visa or your Amex. The government is borrowing this money.

Who is it borrowing it from? Well, the government, generally, when it needs money, it issues bonds. And anybody can buy those bonds.

It could be China. It could be Europe. It could be regular people. It could be banks.

For the government, there are only two ways to raise that money -- either make your bonds or you print money. We also know that the government has been printing money.

Now, once you start making money again, once the economy is doing well, and once we're not running deficits or deficits get smaller, the government can go out and buy those bonds back from whoever owns them and pay them back the money.

The reason people buy bonds is because they pay interest, and the U.S. government is thought of as a safe bet compared to other places in the world. A lot of people will tell you that's changing, but the bottom line is that's why we are able to sell bonds and raise money.

OK. Who is keeping track of every single Web site that you visit? And is there anything that you can do to stop them? The scary truth about digital fingerprints coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Someone out there is tracking every Web site you visit. It sounds daunting, right? Well, it is. And all this week we're highlighting the end of your privacy.

It isn't too daunting to me because I thought privacy was gone a long time ago.

Check out this graphic. This is from a company called NetCraft. It's a Web survey from December of this year.

Basically, they've tracked the number of Web sites all the way from 1995, when you can see they were basically zero, until today. Take a look at that. Around 1998, '99, it started picking up, around 25 million.

And look at this, all of a sudden. For some reason there was a drop in Web sites in 2009. But now we're skyrocketing to a point where we're at 256 million Web sites or so.

So that's where we are now, 256 million Web sites.

Let's bring in Chad Myers. He has got some more information on this. Every one of these Web sites you visit becomes part of your digital fingerprint. Chad has got an explanation of it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHAD MYERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Did you know that companies you have never heard of track every Web site you visit and keep a record of everything you do online? That's right, everybody who visits the Internet has a digital fingerprint, a unique profile that's built by these specialized companies.

PETER ECKERSLEY, SR. STAFF TECHNOLOGIST, ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FDN.: We actually don't really know who their clients are. So they may be selling this technology to banks. They may be selling it to online advertising companies. And that's the bigger concern.

MYERS: Peter Eckersley is a technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil liberties group that defends people's rights on the Internet. He says digital fingerprinting is a violation of every aspect of your privacy.

ECKERSLEY: You should have the right to read what you want in private without someone looking over your shoulder, reading along with you without -- as you pick up a magazine to read it, you don't want the magazine to be reading you.

MYERS (on camera): Recently, the FTC weighed in on this issue, calling for a "do not track" system like a "do not call" system, but Eckersley says the technology is already there to put this button on your browser. But he says it won't happen until Congress creates a whole new set of rules to protect the consumer.

DON JACKSON, DIRECTOR OF THREAT INTELLIGENCE FOR SECUREWORKS: I think the scary thing is people don't understand what's out there about them personally that's linked to their online digital fingerprint.

MYERS (voice-over): Don Jackson, the director of Threat Intelligence for SecureWorks, says digital fingerprints are used for personalized marketing and advertising campaigns and customized political messages. But he says there's also a danger that they will be used with malicious intent.

(on camera): What if I'm at a wireless place like this and people are just everywhere, and everybody is logged in? Can that guy right there be tracked?

JACKSON: Absolutely.

MYERS: Really.

JACKSON: And he is being tracked right now. So everything you do online, if you're using a public Web site or any kind of online service, they're tracking everything that you're doing.

MYERS: Can data be wrong? Can people get something incorrect? And is it a big deal?

JACKSON: Yes. So your fingerprint can be manipulated by criminals. That's just one way it can be wrong. Another way it can be wrong is that it's been cross-linked.

There's really no mechanism to correct that. So you can't remove the information. There's currently no channel, no way to file a complaint.

MYERS (voice-over): Security experts are concerned that right now, there is no practical way to stop companies from using this technology, and that as scary as that is, the best defense is to be aware that everything you do online is being watched.

JACKSON: Keep your anti-virus up to date. Keep your computer up to date. But for the most part, once the information leaves your computer, at least one person, that's the Web site that you're visiting, can track it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: All right.

MYERS: Big brother.

VELSHI: Right. But remember, some of the big brother is the big brother that gives you free stuff on the Internet because somebody is getting all your information. And that's why Facebook can offer you everything it can for free, because they've got data on you.

Where does it go from here?

MYERS: It goes to the point where you should be scared. If someone is collecting this data and will use it against you maybe for a job search, a job offer, whatever it is, if they can get in there and say, you know what? Back in there you Googled "bomb search," what were you doing there?

VELSHI: Right. See, that's worrisome, if somebody can hack into information that's otherwise there. But the Internet has created such a thirst for curiosity, that we search things that we wouldn't want associated with us.

MYERS: Exactly.

VELSHI: So what do you do?

MYERS: You log off your -- here. This is a shared computer. Someone logged on there. You make sure you log off when you're done, because someone else could come in later tonight and start doing anything on that computer.

I went over here just a little bit ago and I searched Two Men and a Truck. Pretty irrelevant, you know, the company.

VELSHI: Right.

MYERS: But, look, I clicked on a couple more Web sites, a Pair of Guys movers just popped up. Do you think that was random?

VELSHI: Right. Interesting.

MYERS: Really? Really? Did that advertisement for a moving company just randomly get there? Maybe. Do you believe in coincidences?

VELSHI: Someone thinks you're looking for something. But that's not necessarily bad.

MYERS: Not a bad thing.

VELSHI: The issue is whether somebody with nefarious intent gets their hands on your information.

MYERS: There are many -- and I search. I go to Vegas all the time and I search the Web sites, I do Orbitz.

And when you pop up, all of a sudden, hey, $69 to the Mirage, hey, I'll take it. Right?

VELSHI: Right.

MYERS: So they do make offers. They are trying to get you. It's a way of advertising. There are also going to be big political campaigns around this because they know why you're searching.

VELSHI: It always freaks me out when I'm on Amazon and it pops up with these things that I like because they've mastered this idea of knowing what you like.

MYERS: It knows.

VELSHI: It's fantastic most of the time. Some days it's just creepy. It's like, how did you know I liked that?

MYERS: I know.

VELSHI: Good to see you. All right. MYERS: Good to see you.

VELSHI: Hey, listen, breaking developments in our top story. President Obama's health care reform law is in legal jeopardy.

A federal judge in Virginia has ruled that a key provision of the bill is unconstitutional. Judge Henry Hudson says the government has no right to force individuals to buy health insurance. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said just moments ago that the administration disagrees with the ruling and stands behind the constitutionality of the law.

A big test coming up in less than an hour for the compromised plan to extend Bush-era tax cuts. The Senate is expected to vote on a motion that would cut off debate, setting the stage for a vote on the compromise. Many Democrats and some Republicans oppose the plan. It would extend tax cuts for all Americans, including the wealthy, for another two years.

And FedEx expects today to not only be its busiest day of the year, but the busiest day in its entire history. The shipping company expects to handle 16 million packages today. That's double what it handles on an average day. We'll take you live inside a FedEx distribution center to see all of those packages being sorted in about 20 minutes.

But first, brutally cold temperatures across the U.S. It's getting colder. How long will this carry on? Well, Chad is here. We're going over to the Weather Center to find out.

MYERS: Yes, let's go outside the FedEx facility, see what that's like, putting those boxes in.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

VELSHI: All right. Thirty thousand, that is the number of people killed in Mexico since the drug wars started four years ago. Guess what? That doesn't even make Mexico the most dangerous country in the region.

We'll find out which country is even worse after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Happening now. A federal judge in Virginia has ruled part of the sweeping health care reform effort led by President Obama to be unconstitutional. But the White House says it stands behind the law. This is the first federal court to strike down the law, contradicting other recent rulings that the law was permissible. The key issue here was the individual mandate requirement that most Americans must purchase health insurance by 2014.

Meanwhile, in about 30 minutes, the Senate is scheduled to hold a cloture vote on that tax compromise between President Obama and the GOP leaders. Basically, this is a procedural thing, a test to see if there is enough support to move it forward.

And it is bitter cold through much of the country. In northwest Indiana, dozens of cars have been trapped in snowdrifts for hours, in some cases all night. This area could get ten more inches of snow today.

Time now for "Globe Trekking." First stop Stockholm, Sweden. We've learned that U.S. federal agents are en route to Stockholm to assist in the investigation with the investigation into this weekend's suicide bombings. We also know more about the man being blamed for the attacks.

Now, the two explosions happened within minutes of each other Saturday in an area full of Christmas shoppers. A car exploded ahead of a second blast which killed the suspected bomber. Authorities now think it went off early before the bomber made it to a more crowded area. A Swedish news agency tells CNN they received an e-mail threat ten minutes earlier from the man they are almost certain was behind the attacks. But they've not carried out DNA testing yet. He was the only person killed, and this was Sweden's first suicide bombing. We'll continue to bring you the latest developments on this story.

Now to Mexico. We tell you an awful lot about murders there tied to drugs and violence. It might surprise you to know -- it surprised me -- to know that Mexico is not the most dangerous Latin American country. Here is CNN's Rafael Romo.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a country at war. After four years of a government offensive against drug cartels, more than 30,000 people have died in Mexico. Some call it the most dangerous country in the world. But is it true that the U.S. neighbor to the south has one of the highest murder rates on the planet?

KEVIN CASAS-ZAMORA, BROOKINGS INSTITUTE: Not even close. Not even close.

ROMO: Kevin from the Brookings Institution says Mexico's murder rate is not even among the top 10 in Latin America.

CASAS-ZAMORA: ales in significance when you compare to the murder rate in places like Guatemala, like Honduras, like El Salvador, even Colombia that has seen its murder rate gone down quite significantly. It's even much lower than the murder rate in Brazil.

ROMO: On a per capita basis, El Salvador with 71 murders per 100,000 people; Honduras with 67; and Venezuela with 49; all have murder rates higher than Mexico's 14. In the United States, the murder rate is fewer than six per 100,000.

The study by the Brookings Institution also shows that Mexico's violence is highly concentrated. Sixty percent of all homicides have happened in four states, including Coahuila and Chihuahua, which share a border with Texas.

CASAS-ZAMORA: If Chihuahua was a country, it would have a high murder rate in the world probably at this point.

ROMO: The U.S. Secretary of State compared Mexico to Colombia in September.

HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: These drug cartels are now showing more and more indices of insurgency. You know, all of a sudden car bombs show up which weren't there before. So it's becoming -- it's looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago.

ROMO: But Mexico is not fighting a guerrilla movement, nor have cartels shown any intentions of toppling the government.

CASAS-ZAMORA: They want certain decisions made by the Mexican government in ways that favor their elicit activities. But that's a different matter.

ROMO: And what about President Calderon's argument that homicides have increased because the cartels are lashing out made desperate by the barrage of government attacks?

CASAS-ZAMORA: The situation in Mexico in a slightly strange way resembles a lot of what's happening in Afghanistan. You know, it's -- it is to some extent a war that has to be fought but nobody really knows in a clear way why, how, and until when.

ROMO: Mexico will end 2010 with more than 11,000 drug- related executions, which is quite extraordinary considering that only three years ago, there were less than 3,000 per year. This has security experts are urging the government of President Felipe Calderon to change his strategy.

Rafael Romo, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: An internal split among the WikiLeaks folk has spawned a rival whistle-blower Web site. OpenLeaks.org hopes to launch today. One of its founders says WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange has weakened his organization by releasing too much classified information too soon and by focusing a lot of the attention on himself.

Meantime, Assange's attorney says a secret grand jury has been convened in Virginia to consider criminal charges in WikiLeaks' recent U.S. document dumps. He says he learned that information from Swedish authorities.

When a highly regarded plan to fix Massachusetts' schools fell short, teachers at one school came up with their own plan. And guess what? It worked. We'll tell you how in "Fix Our Schools."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: I want to just dip into this. Sal Alosi, he's the strength and fitness coach for the New York Jets. Apparently, there was video that indicated he might have tripped Dolphins rookie on the weekend. There you go. There's the video right there. He's speaking about it. Let's listen in.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

SAL ALOSI, STRENGTH AND FITNESS COACH, NEW YORK JETS: That's the problem. Nothing went through my head. I wasn't thinking. Had I been thinking, I would have taken a step back instead of leaning forward.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What did you think when he went down?

ALOSI: I felt terrible. My heart went into my chest, up into my throat, you know.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you go over and talk to him?

ALOSI: I talked to him last night, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why didn't you go over afterwards?

ALOSI: During the game, I felt as if -- let cooler heads prevail. Those guys were upset and rightfully so. Immediately thought go into the locker room, get my head together and figure out what the next step would be.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Since then, will you tell us who you talked to? Have you been in contact with the league?

ALOSI: I have not been in contact with the league. I know our management here has today. But I have not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you been told there's disciplinary action?

ALOSI: Not yet, no. As I stated yesterday, whatever the disciplinary actions are, I'm willing to accept them and move forward from there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you concerned about your job security now?

VELSHI: OK, we'll keep an eye on that for you. Jets strength and conditioning coach saying he didn't mean to trip the Dolphins player, as you saw there.

OK. Time now for "Fix Our Schools." Like other states Massachusetts has been searching for ways to improve public education for years. In 1993, the legislature passed a law that imposed tough new requirements and standardized tests but promised significant new funding. The law became a national model, but things have not turned out as planned.

A new report finds that Massachusetts student/teacher ratios got worse between 2000 and 2007. Spending on school books fell 50 percent. Spending on teacher training fell 25 percent.

What happened? The state did keep a promise to increase school funding but school costs rose even faster. Look at this. Between 2000 and 2007, you can see the state aid increase. That's the orange line on the bottom. Look at the cost -- the increase in health care costs for schools. Health benefits for school employees rose by a billion dollars. See the difference between the $700 million and the billion.

Despite the shortfall, some Massachusetts schools are actually making progress. A case in point Brockton High School, a large urban public high school south of Boston reacting to the standardized test. Susan Szachowicz and several Brockton teachers started meeting to think about ways to improve the dismal scores. Today, Szachowicz is the Brockton High School's principal. Brockton is outperforming 90 percent of the state's other high schools.

Susan Szachowicz joins us from Brookline, Massachusetts. Susan, thank you very much for joining us. Tell us what you did. You saw the evidence that things were bad. What did you and these other teachers get together and do?

SUSAN SZACHOWICZ, PRINCIPAL, BROCKTON HIGH SCHOOL: Well, we had to do something, because we had over -- in Massachusetts it's a high stakes exam. So, if these kids don't pass the test, they don't graduate. So, it doesn't matter about funding and all the laws. The bottom line is we want them to get a diploma.

So here's what we did. We first took a look at the test and realized geez, we can't outguess a test. You never know what's going to be on it from year to year and we know that education is more than a test. So, we instituted a literacy initiative, and here's what that means We focused our school on four areas -- writing, reading, speaking and reasoning. And that means focus. Intense. All classes, all subjects, every day, no exceptions.

VELSHI: Well, how does that help on math and science?

SZACHOWICZ: Well, one of the literacy skills we focus on is reasoning. And that really is thinking out problems.

VELSHI: Okay.

SZACHOWICZ: And besides that, writing is thinking. And, you know, when you think about what we as adults do in the world all the time, it isn't about necessarily passing a test and studying for the next event. It is about learning those skills that you need.

Like you have to read something, and you must have to do it all the time. You don't know -- you're getting it cold. How do you process it? How do you prepare for that reading? How do you write about it. How -- VELSHI: OK. So, you've moved away from rote memorization -- you moved away -- you didn't even really go toward preparing students better for the test. You wanted them to learn better.

Is this scalable? First of all, you have 4,200 kids in the school --

SZACHOWICZ: That's right, that's right.

VELSHI: -- which is big. Can this -- it seems simple. Can this be replicated? can we use this to fix our schools?

SZACHOWICZ: That's a great question. And of course it can be replicated. Here's -- it's a magic secret. First of all, hard work, hard work, hard work, and focus.

But here's what we did. It started with a team of teachers. It wasn't about any one person or any one program. It was an empowered team of teachers that said, is this the best we can be? And the answer is, no.

And then secondly, we focused ourselves. Not on anything that was trendy or something you purchased. It was about reading, writing, speaking and reasoning.

Then we implemented with fidelity. I mean, every day, all the time. And then the last part is, I think, where sometimes schools fall apart. We believe what gets monitored is what gets done. And we focus on that. We collect student work. We are in classrooms all the time. And we make sure that what we say is happening is really happening. Because it doesn't matter what we say. What matters is what the kids are learning.

VELSHI: Susan, what a great outcome. Thanks so much for sharing that with us. We wish you have continued good luck, and congratulations to you and your teachers and your students.

Susan Szachowicz is the principal of the Brockton High School in Brockton, Massachusetts.

Well, breaking developments in our top stories. President Obama's health care reform law is in legal jeopardy. A federal judge in Virginia has ruled that a key provision is unconstitutional. Judge Henry Hudson says government has no right to force individuals to buy health insurance.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said just minutes ago that the administration disagrees with the ruling and stands behind the constitutionality of the law.

President Obama today signed a bill that helps pay for more and healthier school lunches. It also gives Washington more power to set standards for the stuff in school vending machines. The first lady has made child nutrition her number one priority.

And in just a few minutes, the Senate will cast a pivotal vote in the tax cut debate. At issue is whether to proceed to a final vote on a compromise plan that would keep those Bush era tax rates for everybody for two more years. There's also a number of breaks aimed at the boosting the economy.

Well, it's a crazy day at FedEx, maybe the craziest in history. We'll show you what's going on live when we come back.

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VELSHI: Today is expected to be the busiest day of the year for FedEx. By the way, not just of the year, they say its busiest day in its entire history. FedEx expects to handle 16 million packages today. That's double on what handles on an average day.

David Mattingly is at a FedEx facility in Marietta, Georgia.

David, what's going on there?

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ali, there's a lot of activity going on throughout the FedEx system worldwide. That figure you're talking about, that 16 million is worldwide. It is the biggest in the company history. But it's also the biggest for the company here today on the busiest shipping week of the year.

All the shipping companies are reporting shipping up this holiday season. UPS, United States Postal Service, all of them saying that more people are shipping more packages this year. That's not so much an indication of the economy as it is buying habits. And we're told that it has a lot to do with the Internet.

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CHUCK VOOKLES, FEDEX: A lot of it is just people are moving more to e-commerce and ordering stuff online. You know, Cyber Monday was very big and it's continued on. That and ordering from catalogs and those sort of things have really -- is what's driving the increase.

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MATTINGLY: And just here at this facility this morning, we saw thousands of packages being sorted and we were told that anywhere from three to four out of every 10 packages that we saw was purchased on the Internet. And that is a big increase over what they've been seeing in recent years, Ali.

VELSHI: All right. David, interesting point, because in my traditional business training, we associate an increase in packages with an increase in the economy. But we know that we haven't seen that surge in the economy -- interesting that the pattern of switching over to online buying by more people is helping out these companies like FedEx.

MATTINGLY: That's right. And they see an increase over the past couple of years. This year though is very dramatic because they had this big weekend in which people were possibly doing some of that shopping and everything online, and now, all of that flooding into this Monday, this busiest shipping week that they have. So, it might have been a little bit of timing about that as well.

But everything we saw today, a lot of stuff we saw from online retailers, a lot of Amazon.com labels going through.

VELSHI: Right.

MATTINGLY: A lot of electronics from online retailers going through. So, it's going to be a big Christmas for somebody and it's going to be showing up in these very well-packed cardboard boxes this Christmas.

VELSHI: Excellent. David, thanks very much. Good to see you.

David Mattingly at a FedEx sorting facility -- FedEx facility in Marietta, Georgia.

The latest in today's big breaking story. A federal judge in Virginia has struck down parts of the health care reform law. And now, senior Republican says he wants the case to go straight to the Supreme Court. Our political update is just ahead.

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VELSHI: As we've been reporting, a federal judge has struck down parts of the health care law. And now, we're hearing a senior Republican in the House says he wants this to go straight to the Supreme Court.

CNN senior political producer Peter Hamby joins me now from Washington with our political update.

Hey, Peter, there's about 20 of these court cases going on right now. We've seen three of them resolved. So, it might serve a lot of people for this to go right to the Supreme Court.

PETER HAMBY, CNN POLITICAL PRODUCER: Yes. Well, the incoming House majority leader, Eric Cantor, from Virginia where this lawsuit originated today put out a statement saying that this should sent directly to the Supreme Court because the health care law is being implemented in real time. And, you know, if it is unconstitutional, the Supreme Court needs to do something about that.

Whether President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder actually listen to Eric Cantor is probably a different matter. So, we'll see what happens with that.

Also on the Political Ticker today, I want to point this out. Sharron Angle, you might remember, certainly a lot of Republican insiders want to forget her. But she was the candidate who lost narrowly to Harry Reid in Nevada this year in that Senate race. She announced today that she's planning to start a national Tea Party organization that's going to operate in 15 states in 2012.

So, I'm sure there are Democrats who would love to see Sharron Angle, who's very polarizing, front and center in the presidential race 2012.

And, finally, on the Ticker today, everyone in Washington is waiting to see what's going to happen tonight with Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. He is holding a conference call at 7:30 p.m. tonight with members of the RNC in which he's widely expected to announce his plant plans whether or not he will seek a second term at the RNC.

What does that mean? He's expected not to announce a second term. It looks like we're going to have a new Republican National Committee chairman. A lot of Republicans think that's a good thing given the problems that the RNC has had with fundraising and messaging during the last cycle. But we won't know for sure until tonight, but we'll be sure to have it as soon as it happens.

Ali, back to you.

VELSHI: All right. Peter, thank you very much -- Peter Hamby in Washington. We'll have another political update from "The Best Political Team on Television" in about one hour.

Well, we've got some excellent Monday "Odds and Ends" next for you, including the very sad tale of the worst robbers ever.

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VELSHI: Lots more coverage of two pieces of breaking news coming up in just three minutes. One of them is the decision by a federal court judge to have strike down a key provision of the Obama administration health care legislation, one that might jeopardize the whole act. So, we'll talk about that. Brooke will have that for you.

And an expected vote in the Senate, a test vote to see how much support there is for the president's deal with Republicans on extending the tax cuts.

But before that, it's time now for today's "Odds and Ends." And we start on some matter of states. All 50 states have adopted various official symbols over the years, state birds, state fruits, stuff like that. But every now and then, unusual proposals come down the pike. Wisconsin, for instance, became the first state with an official microbe early earlier this year.

Well, now, Utah could be on target for a state firearm. Member of its legislature, a former police officer, says he will propose the honor for the Browning M1911. The .45 caliber handgun was designed by a Utahan, John Moses Browning. It became the standard U.S. military sidearm in 1911, still used today by some military and police personnel, celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2011.

OK. Moving north to Canada where most officers carry nine millimeters, by the way. An unusual robbery attempt leaves the intended victim almost speechless.

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"DAVE KOOL," FREE STORE STAFFER: What we didn't think anybody was stupid enough to do somebody did -- somebody broke into the free store through this door. You can't really get a good look at the guy because he's hammered out of his tree right now. But, yes, here's a picture we never thought we'd see -- a police car outside of the free store, because somebody came in to steal. Wow!

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VELSHI: The free store, as the name implies, chockfull of stuff that you can just take. No price tags, no cashiers, no nothing. So, this guy and his alleged accomplice had just wasted a few hours they could have gotten away scot-free.

That's it for me. Brooke takes it over now with the NEWSROOM -- Brooke.