republicans were expected to lose seats. that's why you say, you never know what is going to happen between february 28 and november 2nd. host: thank you for joining us. guest: thank you a lot. host: we'll continue the conversation tomorrow morning. among our guests on "washington journal" will be the dr. cecil winl, the president elect of the american medical association. thank you for joining us on this sunday. i hope you have a great weekend. .

host: chairman george miller this week's "newsmakers," welcome. guest: thank you. host: and here to help us is perry bacon with the "washington post" and steven dennis. you have the first question. go ahead. >> i want to talk about the biggest issue, health care. you have the big summit on thursday. coming out of that summit, everybody that i've talked to

in the house generally believed f believes that there's really no real prospect of a big bipartisan deal. but there is the possibility of having democrats coalesing around a big package, it's a complicated messy process that would take place passing the senate bill, passing something else with the reconciliation to fix it. you know all the machine nation there is. but my question is, with your pulse on the democrat quike caucus, do you really have the stomach to go through what's going to be a messy process that's going to be hard to explain to people how you do all these moving parts? do you lail have the stomach to get it done? some members haved to me friday that members aren't ultimately going to be willing to vote for this. >> i think the members understand the historical position that they're in. that this country has struggled

to improve its health care system over the last 50 years, that we have a piece meal system now. some people get very good coverage and other people don't get any at all. it's very expensive. it's unsustainable. the costs are crushing families and crushing businesses and insurance companies are dropping more and more people. businesses are dropping the coverage that they provide their employees. so it's become very difficult for individuals and families and it's becoming very difficult for our economy. the process by which its done will never be long remembered. it's going to be passed by a majority vote in the house as we do all of our business and by a majority vote in the senate. and it will be sent to the president. and i think the votes will be there. i think people understand the need to do this. we can't -- we have listened to economists from the right and

wleft, democrats and republicans have told us that if you do nothing it can bring down the government in terms of our ability to take care of other needs, other prites. it's going to mushroom the deficit and threaten medicare and the rest of the health care system. >> some of the things i've heard from some of your more skittish democrats who basically say, look, this big 2,000 page bill or whatever, a big bill is going to look like, it's going to have to be something like that, that they prefer something that's more piecemeal that starts on a really smaller basis like you have success with the anti trust bill that was two pages. you had a big bipartisan vote. why not do those sorts of incremental things instead of having a big bill that really tries to solve the problem? >> because at the end of the day you don't really get the savings, you don't get the efficiencies, the restructuring of health care that the

economists, the providers, the people who are experts in the field tell us you need to have if you're going to go forward and you're going to truly have a chance of slowing down the growth and health care costs over the next ten years, the next 20 years. you can't do the insurance reforms if you don't have everybody in a system where they have coverage. if people can't get insurance, where do they go? and that's why john mccain was for an individual mandate and now barack obama is for an individual mandate. the system doesn't work without that. politically you can argue it any way you want, but when you get down to whether or not america and its economy and its families can live this system, you need this comprehensive reform. piecemeal is what we have been doing for 50 years and we have the most expensive system in the world and one of the least efficient systems. a lot of people get really great health care out of it but it comes at a huge price that's

not sustainable. >> some of these hot fund issues that are sort of tangential to health care but have a big deal on whether or not you can get the votes on things like abortion and immigration. which you may not be able to take care of in which reconciliation route that looks like you want to go and take that at this point. how do you tell members who don't like those provisions and there's a lot of members on both sides of those issues who don't want the provisions, want them tougher or weaker, how do you tell them to push off those concerns? >> i don't know that they necessarily have to push off those concerns. in the senate bill which will probably be passed as part of this process, there's no money, no federal moneys for abortion. that was the test in the house, that's the test in the senate. so i think that will work. and there's no money for illegals to get benefits under this plan in the senate and or in the house bill.

and then people can take, carry on the struggles that we have in the appropriations process over immigration, over abortion, and that will control the expenditure of those dollars for those who aren't comforted with this fact that many people who are deeply concerned about use of federal dollars for abortion, many people are deeply concerned about pro-choice voted for the senate bill, they voted for the house bill. o and so i think we can assure them that will be the situation. >> you can argue about the process, whatever the democrat view, the republicans have done a good job framing the health care bill. what are democrats going to do to make sure voters view this as a simple majority as you call it instead of changing the senate rules instead of changing the rules to make it pass easier? >> we're going to pass the bill. i think in sports you say you want to quiet the crowd, score some points. and i think the passage of this bill. one of the things we know is right now you see in the

polling data this pretty substantial majority don't think we should give up on getting health care done. and the other thing we know is the more people learn about the bill, about the product, what's in this legislation for them, their families, their children, their small businesses, the more they like the bill. the republicans have done a great job about arguing process because they didn't say they want to make medicare a voicher system, they didn't want to say that they thought people should continue to have preexisting conditions. so they've argued process. process is messy. you don't understand it. so that's all been interesting. pass the bill and take it to the country. and when you do, as we've all found out, when you explain the bill to people, they say that's what they need for their small business, for their family, for their children. >> on friday afternoon you and other house democratic leaders met on the way forward. tell our viewers a time line

for when they can expect this health care bill to either pass in the the house and senate, when will it get to the president's desk? >> i don't think we got there on the time line yet. what we did is talk about the forum we had with the president. the suggestions were made that were made by different republican members of the senate and the house, which of those suggestions could be incorporated or not incorporated. we asked the staff to take a look at the issues of selling insurance across state lines. the issues raised by senator coburn on waste fraud and abuse and some thing that is could be done to help out there. there was -- i don't know. there was a couple of others that were touched upon that we asked the staff to look at and will get together next week and see whether or not those can be incorporated. i think that's consistent with what the president asked us to do before the summit and after the summit, and i think his -- the administration is all going through the comments and the various proposals. it's very clear that the president in the summit on thursday was very familiar with

the republican bills that had been proposed. and so that's where we spent a lot of time discussing that, and then a lot was about schedules, kind of the day was shortened because the votes came sooner than otherwise. so it was a short meeting. >> do you expect to see a revised bill in the coming weeks to reflect some of the things that happened in the summit? i don't know if you have an expectation on what might happen with the excise tax. that's something that is the cadillac tax. >> now move to a rolls royce tax. >> that seems like the biggest problem for you guys. >> this is a very serious problem. it was a very serious problem the way it was originally constructed. the president has since modified it. the president is a believer that the principles of that tax will help you keep long-term health care costs down. and that's why it's retained in the bill. it's not as robust as it was,

but i think when we get done with the cbo scoring it will still have the same impact over the 10-and 20-year period which we're looking to drive down health care costs as opposed to these unsustainable ones. so i think that in talking to people who are deeply concerned about it, who, when you're in serious negotiations and you end up with 80% of the pie you ought to declare victory. and i think many members of the caucus understand now with the effective date in 2018 and the fact that vision and dental are taken out of that, that provides some room for what we would call good middle class health care plans. >> do you expect him to revise his plan much in the coming weeks? >> he put out a set of principles that we're responding to the senate bill, the house bill and this is in some ways forward for him. i think there clearly after the

summit he will probably have some modifications just as we're looking at modifications of where we left off with the white house and the the house and the senate. i think the senate is going to same and we would hope over the next few days the combined staffs of the senate, house, and administration come together on those items. i think that will continue over this weekend and the beginning of next week. >> what about the jobs bill. there's been a jobs bill that was passed this weekend, the senate approved and approved in december by the house. can you talk about that. that is as the the house member said, i think was poignant, this won't create any jobs. do you agree with that? that the jobs bill is not doing to do a lot for jobs creation? >> ining i think it's going to do a lot for jobs. it's not as much as i would like. leader reid made it clear that

there will be more coming forward. we have a jobs bill that we sent to the floor in december. not everything we proposed will get accepted. not everything the senate does will get accepted. but in this bill it also extends the authorization of highway bill. and so the surface transportation bill. and so that's about $40 billion in the expenditures to be made. i think in the state of california it's in excess of $5 billion, of programs that will go forward. so the $15 billion deals with one portion of the bill in terms of those jobs. but there's also the extension of the transportation which allows that spending to go forward. so it's not as lean as some people were led to believe because they didn't realize what that reauthorization meant. so that's about $40 billion. and -- in expenditures that can now go forward with when we passed that extension.

>> there does seem to be a lot of frustration from house members that i've talked to who feel like last year you had a $787 billion package, robust, some of them wanted it to be even larger. and now we're talking about 15 billion, 40 billion, much smaller numbers in a huge economy. and they think e it really needs to be more like the house package that passed in december. it doesn't seem the senate -- they're playing the small ball game. is this just sort of election year maneuverings so you can say you did something, or do you think we're going to get another million jobs or something from legislation? >> the answer is i don't know. we're doing the best we can. as long as the senate sticks with the 60-vote rule it's destructive to trying to get progress. i mean, it simply is destructive the senate really ought to get rid of the 60-vote rule so we can move forward and you can deal with these on a majority vote constitutional majority vote basis, however you want to describe it.

but we're not there yet. we sent over $145 billion. many in the house. i'm working on oods proposal to deal what's going to happen with cities. last year they laid off 1450,000 employees. we want to try to avoid that. that was with the stimulus bill helping them, the recovery act putting money into those communities. the recovery act is now in its second year. i think we see that cities and local governments are still in trouble. and the question is, can we provide some assistance so we don't lose those jobs. and then dampen those economies we're -- you know, we've got to do everything we can to keep people in the jobs they have, to find new jobs for people, and this is an area where you know that the budgets of the cities are in trouble because sales tax are down because consumers are saving they're not buying as much, they're not buying new automobiles. so local governments are in trouble with the revenues and the states are taking money

from local governments to try to keep the states afloat. and you can get a wave of unemployment from local governments all across the country that would offset the economic progress we're making. so there's a lot of efforts being made here. which ones will work, and what sequence they'll work, i don't know. because you're dealing with the senate and that makes it difficult. >> we have about ten minutes left here. i want to bring up one issue and that is college loans. and i know you have legislation that passed in the house. what is the status of that legislation? and what would it do? >> the legislation is the president's proposal to move from the federal student loan program to a direct loan program. under the federal loan program, we loan the loan agencies, salie mea or banks, they make the loans. we guarantee the loans. they make the profit on the interest and we end up paying about $8 to 9 billion a year in

subdis. when the credit markets crashed, it became clear that credit wasn't even available to a government guaranteed loan. we put in an emergency basis where we directly gave money to the lenders. that makes no sense. and so what the president has asked us to do is to take that $8 billion in subsidies that were given to the largest banks and salie mea and recycle that money on behalf of students and their families. and institutions. so we'll put $40 billion into pel grants so those students who are significant number of people returning to school to get new skills for the new economy and for new jobs, and so that would put $40 billion into those people who need that because of the relatively low income individuals. it would also put money for the first time into help rebuild the community college structure that are becoming more and more of the focal point of job retraining community efforts

and economic development. so put about $10 billion into there. we'll put some money into school construction both at the k-12 level and also at the community colleges to help them expand their capacity. it would put money into early childhood education. one of the things we've learned over the last 25 years are the children are exposed to high quality early childhood education they do better in the fourth -- how they do in fourth grade is an indicator about the decisions they might make in tenth grade or to drop out of school. so it's really eancht to take subsidies now going to the bank and put them in on behalf of families and our education policy in this country. i think it's very important. the house has passed it. it's in the reconciliation bill with instructions to the budget committee. i assume it will come out as part of the reconciliation package with health care and the higher ed bill. and the senate will hopefully

put it in. i think the votes are there to put it into that package and pass it and send it to the president's desk. it's been a lot of lobbying against it by sally may and some big banks but i think most members of congress in this day and age when you're trying to make every dollar count it's bet tore go to the direct loan package. >> is it part of the health care package? >> in the same. yes. when we -- we were instructed by the budget committee to save some money. we did that with this program. it's still, i think about $7 billion in deficit reduction and i forgot to mention in this package. so we were instructed to save that money. and so it will be part of our reconciliation package that goes to the senate. >> do you think that there's any chance to put other things in that reconciliation package, sweeteners, things like jobs legislation? >> it's really difficult to do under the rules. and i don't want people to go to sleep on this program by me explaining the rules of

reconciliation. but it's very difficult. i think -- >> you have to save money. >> but some of that was being explored. >> just so the republicans passed a big reconciliation bill in 2006 -- >> i thought they didn't like it. >> well, they liked it back then. they passed it in the middle of the night, i remember. but there's money in there for all kinds of program, for a milk subsidies. various ways to get votes. i was wondering if there's any way to put a jobs package inñr t of grease the skids for the health care package. >> we had some preliminary discussions a month ago or so or maybe -- let's say a month ago about that. and we had, we were exploring that. i have to tell you, i don't know what the conclusion was, whether or not there was some thing that is we could do with the reconciliation. and some other bills, whether they would quality of life or not. it's tough -- qualify or not.

now i've got to go find out what happened with those discussions. >> one of the other things you are working on is revising no child left behind. and one thing i found interesting is you put out a press release with your republican ranking member basically saying we're going to work together on this. and i'm wondering if this is a subject matter that lends itself to bipartisanship. no child left behind was a bipartisan bill with kennedy and bush getting together. or, is there something that you've learned over the past year as the chairman or past couple of years that maybe this is the bester way to start out a complex issue by sitting down with your republican sns >> it's a little of both. i had that experience with senator bush and senator kennedy and myself, and john boehner, very tough political fighters came together. really, the education and labor committee we try to start every bill on a bipartisan track and we go far down that track as we

can. if we can't agree then we can't agree. but a lot of times we do. the former chair of the committee buck mckeon and myself as chair put together discussion draft two years ago about how to revise no child left behind. the secretary has been great. he has come up to thehill. he has met with senate and the house committees, republicans and democrats. we had one meeting with all of us together. senator harken, myself, and lamar alexander, senator ense and john -- my ranking member john kline. and he went and met with leader boehner about this. we have another meeting i believe coming up next week, the joint staffs of the senate and the house, bipartisan, republican democrats and the administration. we've been working together on the basic architecture of it. so that's the route we would prefer to go and i think in

this it ration of the elementary and secondary education act we have that opportunity because of what the president and the secretary have laid out in terms of race to the top, in terms of their, the kinds of things that they want to encourage in terms of professional development for teachers, data systems that are very important to tell how schools are doing. and the promotion of charter schools. so there's a lot here for republicans and democrats, those of us who worked on those issues to come together on. >> it seems like it's such a controversial bill. people like roy blunt who supported it now wants to scrap it. the whole testing thing has been very controversial. how you rewards or punish schools. >> we think we have an opportunity to do it in a very different way. we're really looking at whether or not to some extent we can put in the ingredients for high performing schools, we can put in these systems that states are now competing for race to the top. they're changing their basic

laws to allow for performance pay, to allow to see how teachers and students are doing together to make those judgments. and i think that holds out the possibility of the federal government backing out of some of theday to day management that you would under no child left behind. but that was mainly because the performance of the schools were invisible. we didn't now how poor minority children were doing. we just didn't have any evidence of that. so we now have those years of evidence and now the question is can we go to the next it ration which is really about better testing, better assessments of putting resources behind the teachers, making sure that teachers have the professional development, are effective teachers. so it's about the next it ration. that was important over the last eight years and now we have an opportunity to go to another place. >> we have a couple minutes left here. >> let me change the subject. there's been a lot of discussion this week about

congressman rangle and so i'm sure you're aware of the news. talk about why we should -- house members have called for him do resign already. why do you think he should stay if you think he should stay? >> i think it's tough. you have a political system and then you have a sense of justice. and the political system, you can come up with all the reasons why any member who embarrasses another member should get out of my life. you have a series of actions that are before the ethics committee. that's our process for arriving at conclusions. the ethics committee on friday put out a report dealing with the question of some trips that he and other members of congress took and they recommended admonishment of him which is a form of punishment in the congressional system and money be repaid because the trips were apparently improperly financed by some corporations. i don't know all the details because i haven't had a chance

to read that report yet. and then there's other complaints that are in the ethics committee that are undergoing the investigation. he is entitleled to have that completed. that may make me uncomfortable or other members uncomfortable. but at some point, and i realize this is a political system so it's not the perfect justice system. but you have to kind of do the best you can within those confines. >> we asked the speaker of the house and she said the report talks about the fact that his staffers knew the trip should not have been taken and the congressman did not himself. do you agree with that? are you not responsible for your staff? >> i haven't read the report. and my characterization, you know, is i think we're responsible for a lot of thing that is go on around us that we don't always have full knowledge of. but i haven't read the reports. i don't want to attribute -- i can answer that question if i have the facts. >> you're saying that politically it might be politically easier for

democrats, for charlie rangel to step down. >> well, i think, you know, sometimes in politics you have to do difficult things. and i can make a case why he should step down but i can also make a very serious case about he is entitled to your day in court. and right now our process may not be a perfect process or system, but it is the ethics committee. i would hope that they would wrap up their work as quickly and fairly as possible, and then the congress will have to make a decision. and i think that's what people will sort of be etitled to. >> as a chairman, though, do you think he can continue to be effective in that position given all the questions surrounding him? >> it makes it difficult. there's no question about that. and he and the members of his committee and the leadership will have to discuss that. but this all just happened on friday mbingts and i think that we have to review that. i think it's important that the leadership review that. it's not about dodging the

issue. i think you're trying to do the right thing but we also know the right thing in the heated political environment is very difficult to do. >> chairman george miller, education and labor committee. thank you for your time. we hope you come back. >> thank you for the opportunity. >> let me start with you. what did you learn today from the chairman on health care? >> i think he reinforced what we've been hearing from the democrats. they're ready to go forward. they're going to use whatever rules they can. they're going to use this process called reconciliation, which means you only need 51 instead of 60 votes. they're focused on the moment yum they need to move forward and they're going to do that by the next month. >> anything about the add-ons to health care? >> well, i think it's going to be interesting to see not just what happens on health care in this reconciliation package, but that they're going to put in there but there's going to

be some add-ons. he's talking about this student loan program saying hey, there's school construction money and lots of other good things that people can go back and sell. and it's possible -- they left the door open a little bit to maybe put some jobs related items into this package. whe ohe republicans did a big reconciliation package in 2006, they had all kinds of goodies in there, milk subsidies, welfare reauthorization was in that bill. there are lots of different kinds of thing that is people wanted and got votes. and this is going to be down to the wire. it's a very -- it's going to be a very difficult road. it's going to be very messy. he made it clear that he thinks they have the stomach to do it. identify certainly talked to members today or on friday last week who don't think that their fellow members are going to be up to what might be a messy month or two ms