captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: the president and republican lawmakers failed to break the federal budget impasse today. if they don't hammer out a deal by friday, the government will be forced to shut down. good evening. i'm judy woodruff. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. on the newshour tonight, we update the negotiations and talk to house budget committee chairman paul ryan, who today unveiled a plan calling for deep cuts and dramatic changes in federal spending in the years to come. >> woodruff: then, ray suarez gets the latest on the ongoing

bloody power struggle in the african nation of ivory coast. >> brown: newshour education correspondent john merrow examines a program that targets the very young before they risk falling behind in school. >> the most important time for us to intervene is really in the first 1,000 days of life, a time when interactions with adults matter so much to children's developing sense of who they are and their language development. >> woodruff: and margaret warner gets perspective on the global reverberations flowing from the arab uprisings. that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> okay, listen. somebody has got to get serious. >> i think... >> we need renewable energy. >> ...renewable energy is vital to our planet. >> you hear about alternatives, right? wind, solar, algae. >> i think it's got to work on a big scale. and i think it's got to be affordable. >> so, where are they? >> it has to work in the real world. at chevron, we're investing

millions in solar and biofuel technology to make it work. >> we've got to get on this now. >> right now. moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf. pacific life. and by toyota.

and the william and flora hewlett foundation, working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> brown: there were two budget battles brewing in washington today. one focused on the house republican plan to tackle long- term deficits and debt. the other involved the immediate threat of a government shutdown. the result: continued stalemate and more political jockeying. with a potential government shutdown just three days away, president obama summoned a bipartisan group of congressional leaders to the white house today to urge them to strike a deal. the president later paid a visit to the white house briefing room and said democrats had come more than halfway so now it was time for republicans to give. >> we can't have a my way or

the highway approach to this problem because if we start applying that approach where i've got to get 110% of everything i want or else i'm going to shut down the government, we're not going to get anything done this year. and the american people are going to be the ones that suffer. >> brown: immediately after that house speaker john boehner held a news conference on capitol hill to blame democrats. >> we're not going to allow the senate nor the white house to put us in a box where we have to make a choice between two bad options. cutting a bad deal this week in order to keep the government open or allow the government to shut down due to senate inaction. >> brown: for his part senate majority leader harry reid accused boehner of backing away from an agreement with 33 billion dollars in cuts under pressure from conservative house republicans. >> i think that the tea party

is driving what goes on in the house of representatives, and we cannot do what they want done. we have been willing to do what is fair and coming down very, very hard on programs dealing with domestic spending. we can't go anymore. >> brown: reed and boehner met again this afternoon to work on a deal to keep the federal government running past friday when the current funding measure expires. in the meantime even amid stalemate over this year's budget, the even more contentious battle over long- term spending, including entitlement programs, was thrust into the spotlight again today as house budget committee chairman paul ryan released the g.o.p. alternative to the president's 2012 blueprint unveiled in february. ryan's plan called the path to prosperity proposes $5.8 trillion in savings over the next decade compared to $1.1

trillion under the president's plan. some $700 billion of the savings would come from transforming medicaid into a block grant program that gives governors less money but more flexibility to provide care for the poor and disabled. ryan's plan projects another $1.4 trillion in savings would be achieved by repealing the health care overhaul enacted last year. but that contrasts with the analysis of the non-partisan congressional budget office which holds that repealing the law would add more than $200 billion to the deficit. ryan also seeks to reform medicare by providing payments for private health plans instead of reimbursing doctors and hospitals directly. current medicare beneficiaries and workers 55 and older could stay in the existing system. ryan said his proposal deals with big issues the president had largely ignored. >> we're here to try and fix this country's problems. and that mean... if that means

we have to go first and offer solutions, fine. if that means we're giving our political adversaries a political weapon to use against us, which by the way they will have to distort to use it, shame on them. we owe it to the country to give them an honest debate. >> brown: democrats were quick to criticize ryan's proposal. they argued it cuts in all the wrong places. the top democrat on the house budget committee, chris van hallen of maryland. >> to govern is to choose. we believe that their plan will weaken america in the long run. it is not courageous to protect the most powerful interests and the very wealthy at the expense of critical investments in our country. yet that is what they do going forward. >> brown: this debate and its detail and scope is likely to define the political battle lines for months to come. >> woodruff: i sat down with house budget committee chairman paul ryan this afternoon in his office on capitol hill.

representative paul ryan, chairman of the house budget committee, thank you very much for talking with us. >> great to be with you, judy. thanks for having me. >> woodruff: you saw your plan would cut more than $6 trillion from the obama spending plan over the next ten years. the question i have is what is it that americans won't get under the paul ryan plan that they would have gotten under the obama plan? what do you eliminate. >> wow. where do i begin? we go after lots of waste and duplications. we take lots of recommendations from the president's fiscal commission. the general accountability office told us about hundreds of different programs that are duplicates. we proposed reforms in many many areas. we propose to reduce the federal work force by 10% over three years through attrition. farm programs and corporate welfare, a bailout fund and dodd-frank a lot of the corporate welfare in the energy sector. we proposed to move fannie mae and freddie mac off the taxpayers' books. we also proposed to cut discretionary spending.

we get $78 billion out of the pentagon. we proposed structural entitlement reforms had that are necessary to bringing solvency to our entitlement programs so they're safe and secure for future generations. so the president gave us a plan that spends so much more money. he doubled the debt by the end of his first term. he proposed to triple the debt by the end of his budget. what we're offering is is a different direction. in our plan, our budget literally pays off the debt. >> woodruff: one of the main things you do as you just suggested has to do with medicare. you essentially end medicare as we know it and you replace it with a system of subsidies to private insurers. why is that better for seniors? >> i wouldn't say it ends medicares we know it. private insurers are already in medicare. medicare is nothing different than what i'm talking about which is about 20% of medicare beneficiaries get comprehensive private plans. >> woodruff: that's one part of it. >> the parent-d benefit is private plans. so what we're doing is we're taking a look at the lessons that have worked.

the prescription drug benefit came in 40% below cost projections. we're copying that kind of a model so specifically what we're saying is if you're 55 and above no changes whatsoever in medicare. but if you're like me, if you're 54 and below medicare is going insolvent by the end of the decade. it's leading our country towards bankruptcy so future seniors 54 and below will get a list of medicare-approved plans kind of like how it works today but for all of medicare and it's a system that works identical to the one members of congress and federal employees have. they choose among the medicare plans for their business. that choice in competition actually helps bring down cost and expand availability. and the actuaries at medicare tell us that doing it this way brings medicare into solvency and pays off the debt. >> woodruff: instead of making payments directly to hospitals and doctors, the payments would go to the private insurer, insurance plans. >> that's right. >> woodruff: in effect moving toward privatization. >> i wouldn't say that. if that's the definition of privatization then medicare is

already privatize. private companies deliver service to medicare beneficiaries. it's already privatized if you're calling it privatization. if you're suggesting that it is a privatized system, we're copying the federal employee system. the key is this. >> woodruff: that's a plan that doesn't have a cap on payments. >> sure it does. the federal employee benefit system only pays so much and then the federal employee pays the rest. they pay about 75% of our cost and then federal employees pay about 25% of their cost. it works like that. see, the key is this, judy. we want to have choice and competition. having these insurers compete against each other for the medicare beneficiaries business, that gets savings. that roots out the billions of waste that we have in medicare. the current medicare structure is a structure that's going bankrupt. it's a source of health inflation. it involves billions of dollars of waste in medicare. we can go after that kind of waflt. we can stretch our health care dollar farther by doing these kinds of medicare reforms which basically says that

younger people, medicare will work like the plan that i have as a congressman and other federal employees have. that's not a privatized system. >> woodruff: medicaid. you would turn over to the states more of the control and the costs for health care. people who are poor, who have disabilities, it would be a lump sum system but the total amount of money would be less. so why is that better? >> here's the problem with medicaid. it is a one-size-fits-all federally run program that is administered by the states. we have dozens of letters from gornors saying give me the freedom to customize medicaid to meet my state's particular needs and problems. we're telling the states how they run this program and the program is not being run very well. it too is going bankrupt putting pressure on state budgets. it's growing as an unsustainable rate. we're growing medicaid at a slower pace. they both grow every single year under this budge it. the key is this, we're giving the states the ability to free up reforms so they can customize their medicaid to fit their population.

>> woodruff: is the ultimate goal fewer people on medicaid? >> hopefully we have more jobs and more prosperity so people aren't on medicaid. of course, we want less people on medicaid because that means people are making more money and having better lives and having more income. this budget also has been scored by outside economists as increasing disposable income, increasing jobs, lowering unemployment and bringing more prosperity to america. >> woodruff: but in the sense that there's less money going.... >> so this grows medicaid. >> woodruff: and these are the most vulnerable of our population, the poor, the disabled. where else do they turn? >> so the key is to fix our social safety net. what we're trying to do here is couple medicaid reforms and food stamp reforms, housing assistance reforms, education reforms, for job training, we are trying to couple these things by sending them back to the states in block grants so the states can combine these dollars to reform the tattered social safety net. the problem we have is the social safety net is tearing apart by the seams. we need to mod werize the safety net for the 21st century because these programs

haven't been reformed since the 1960s. >> woodruff: two other quick questions. revenues. even people who like what you're doing with regard to cuts like alice rivlin and somerepublican senators who have said, you know, who compliment what you're doing, their view is that you can't just go after entitlements. you also need to deal with revenues. they're saying you're not doing that in the essential way that one needs to. >> sure. and i think that's probably an accurate description. i don't think raising tax s is a good idea in this economy. we need to have economic growth afternoon job creation. raising taxes on businesses at a time when they're struggling to compete in the international economy doesn't work. the other problem i would say is this. we don't have a problem with these deficits and debt because people don't pay enough taxes. the problem with our deficit and debt is because washington spends far too much money. we're spending all this money we don't have. it's that spending that is the core root cause of our problem. and so we want to address the root cause of our problems: spending. we want to reform the tax code so that it raises the same amount of revenue it does

today but does it in a far more efficient way to get economic growth and job creation. >> woodruff: to the criticism from democrats who say you're addressing the deficit but you're doing it by letting the wealthiest americans keep their tax cuts but you're balancing the budget on the backs of the poor and the most vulnerable. >> we're getting rid of corporate welfare, means testing programs so we don't subsidize wealthy people as much. we are reforming the tax code to get growth. you have to have spending cuts, spending reforms and economic growth and job creation. that's the key. that's what we're achieving. to democrats i'd say please bring us a budget and let's see what you have to offer. they haven't done that yet. >> woodruff: finally, you are asking for trillions of dollars in cuts. today president obama speaker boehner met just to talk about tens of billions of cuts, a disagreement over cuts in the currenyear budget. much less than what you're talking about. >> that's for sure. >> woodruff: is that a fight that's worth shutting the government down? >> look we're not trying... we don't want to shut the government down. we will have passed three

bills by the end of this week to prevent the government from shutting down but we do have to get a handle on spending. we're trying to get spending reductions. we're talking about shaving 2-4% off this year's deficit. the spending cuts we are talking about would bring our deficit from $1.6 trillion to 1.54 trillion. come on. these are not deep spending cuts. so the question i have is, why hasn't the senate passed a bill to prevent a government shutdown? the house has three times now. >> woodruff: representative paul ryan, thank you very much for talking with us. >> thank you, judy. >> woodruff: late today the white house issued a statement saying the president agrees with representative ryan's ultimate goal. tomorrow night we'll talk to the ranking democrat on the house budget committee, representative chris van hollen of maryland.

the president disagrees, though, with paul ryan's approach. >> brown: still to come on the newshour, negotiations for a surrender in ivory coast; a preschool program aimed at low- income children; and unrest spreading from the arab world. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: libyan rebels were on retreat from the oil port of brega today. moammar qaddafi's forces battered them with sustained rocket and mortar fire, pushing them back toward benghazi. the battle happened on the road outside the strategic oil town, and burned out trucks littered the area. rebel fighters tried to salvage ammunition from the scene. a rebel military leader charged nato is not doing enough to protect the opposition, even though, by nato estimates, nearly a third of qaddafi's military power has been destroyed. at least three people died in clashes in yemen today. ibesmen loyal to president ali abdullah saleh fought with soldiers whose commander has sided with the opposition. the fighting happened in a suburb of the capital, sanaa. in central sanaa, the antigovernment gatherings were mostly peaceful. but in taiz in the south, police fired tear gas to disperse the crowds. the japanese government set its first radiation safety standards for seafood today. contamination levels in the seawaters by the fukushima dai- ichi nuclear plant have exceeded the legal limit, sometimes by

multiple of several millions. the standards mean that some fish recently caught in japan's coastal waters would be dangerous. india became the first country to stop food imports from japan in a three-month ban. meanwhile, operators at the nuclear plant said a radioactive leak appears to have slowed down. engineers have tried a variety of fixes to stop the leak, including using a mixture of sawdust, newspaper, and concrete. the federal aviation administration ordered airlines to inspect older boeing 737 jets for fuselage cracks. it came as southwest airlines announced it found five planes in its fleet have cracks. the airline had grounded its older boeing jets after a crack prompted an emergency landing over arizona last week. the company said, in spite of 700 canceled flights, it is now back on track. in washington, the chairwoman of the national transportation safety board, deborah hersman, said her agency was investigating all the factors involved in the incident.

>> this aircraft is 15 years old. by many industry standards, that would not be considered an aging aircraft in the aging aircraft program. the safety board is not focused on the age or the cycles of the aircraft; we're focused on the safety. and if we think that something needs to be done, whether an aircraft is 15 years old or 50 years old, we will address it. >> sreenivasan: the chief engineer for boeing said today he did not expect to see wear so soon on a plane of that age. paul richter said it wouldn't be expected until a plane had logged 60,000 takeoffs and landings. boeing is now ordering all 737's to be inspected at 30,000 cycles. a line of powerful spring thunderstorms and tornadoes pummeled the southern u.s. overnight, killing at least eight people. most of the deaths were in georgia. the storm system was wide, starting at the mississippi river and stretching all the way

across to the carolinas. the national weather service received reports of at least 20 possible tornadoes across the region. high winds gusting up to 60 miles per hour toppled trees and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of customers. today marked the first anniversary of a massive explosiont a west virginia coal mine that killed 29 miners. the blast happened at the upper big branch mine owned by massey energy. it was the worst u.s. coal mining accident in 40 years. today dozens of mines owned by massey idled production to honor those killed. two workers survived the explosion. state and federal regulators have yet to announce the complete findings of investigations into what caused the disaster. congressman debbie wasserman shultz. the florida representative is in her fourth term in congress. she'll replace tim kaine who announced today he's running for the u.s. senate from virginia. world markets were weighed down today by another downgrade of portugal's credit rating.

it is the second downgrade in less than a month, as portugal tries to avoid taking a financial bailout from the european union similar to greece and ireland. markets on wall street today were mixed. the dow jones industrial average lost six points to close at 12,394. the nasdaq rose 2 points to close at 2791. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to judy. >> woodruff: next tonight, the bloody stalemate in the west african nation ofvory coast, where diplomats are trying to convince president laurent gbagbo to leave office. ray suarez has the story. >> suarez: the reports came as sporadic gun fire and erie quiet haunted the mostly deserted streets of the city of. some residents tried to flee after fighting continued well into last night with those loyal to democratic elected president ouattara seized the presidential residence will gbagbo had been hiding.

yesterday united nations and french helicopters went directly after gbagbo opening an air assault on two of his military bunkers in the city in an attempt to weaken his defenses. there are nearly 1600 troops stationed in the former french colony, also known as ivory coast. early today the french foreign minister said the french and u.n. forces had ordered a cease-fire and were also negotiating with gbagbo to leave. >> today as i am speaking the fighting has stopped. what is going on now is negotiations with laurent gbagbo and his family to organize the conditions of his departure. these conditions have not been decided yet. we demand and i just had a conversation with the u.n. secretary general who is of course on the exact same page that he renounce power. >> suarez: meanwhile president obama said in a written statement he strongly supported the french and u.n. action.

to end this violence and prevent more bloodshed former president gbagbo must stand down immediately and direct those who are fighting on his behalf to lay down their arms. every day that the fighting persists will bring more suffering and further delay the future of peace and prosperity that the people of the ivory coast deserve. gbagbo hasn't appeared in public in weeks. and many residents have ventured out only to collect food and water since last wednesday when ouattara fighters began besiegeing the city. gbagbo's last major stronghold. he had refused to cede power to ouattara since the november election. even as the world's largest cocoa producer stood on the brink of an all out civil war. for more on the situation, we turn to dominique dieudonne, the west africa program officer for the national endowment for democracy. she was in ivory coast for the elections. and j. peter pham, director of the atlantic council's africa center.

dominique dieudonne, after the november elections laurent gbagbo dug in his heels, said he wasn't leaving. what has been the trigger, the turning point? what changed in the last several days to open at least the possibility of a negotiated settlement? >> i think he was probably under the impression that he was going to be able to do what he wanted which was sustain power. so i think the events of the last couple of days with the french coming on helping the u.n. and having a sort of a strong military presence that said we're going to do this differently because the political and diplomatic negoations have not worked. and so i think that's probably what changed the corner for laurent gbagbo. >> suarez: peter pham, what is the turning point for you? >> definitely the military action. the forces that supported ouattara, the formal rebels, the republican forces as

they're known now, launcheded a lightning attack which in four days overran 0% of the ivory coast. that changed the balance of power, left gbagbo holding only pockets of the commercial capital. and with his major military assets, he destroyed by the french forces working with the u.n. in the last 24 hours, he really has nothing left to defend himself with but light arms and the few followers he still has. >> suarez: in the end, both military and diplomatic pressure was necessary? >> i think both. because there was the diplomatic pressure which was slowly starving out the resources that he was using for his war machine. but it wasn't happening fast enough. and the people of the ivory coast were suffering in the meantime. something needed to be done to change the balance. in the end it was a military action that gave force to and drove things to a crisis point. >> suarez: did the popular opinion change during this time as well?

was gbagbo losing popular support, not among the army, not among people with money but among the masses of the country? >> i think it was... they were still divided. i think his supporters... there's very little that's going to change their minds. they truly really think in gbagbo's rhetoric that he won the election. they don't look at practically how it was impossible for laurent gbagbo to claim that he won the election. up until now i think he is still going to have supporters who truly believe that he won the elections. now he's sort of adding the rhetoric of divine intervention. his wife is very strong in saying that this is god who wants them to have power and he's had it. so there's a certain number of people that you're not going to be able to convince otherwise. for those who were... they never wanted the country to get to the point that it is now because as peter pointed out it's been a few days.

people are running out of supplies. so you've got fires here and there and the bombardment has been non-stop for about two days. so those who are... never wanted to see the country get to that point after ten years of crisis. those i think are probably going to underspend that you need to turn around a corner and politically will change their minds but for gbagbo supporters i don't think you're going to have a change of mind. >> suarez: peter pham, what role did the united nations and france play in pushing the country to this end? >> i think the united nations played a very skillful game in this process. it left the africans to take the lead while at the same time providing key resources that unable ouattara, the winner of the election, to continue getting his message across, to continue a presence in the capital. and then in the recent last 48 hours or so, ratcheting up its presence, calling in the

french to help protect civilians and to eliminate the possibility that what was a stand-off could turn into a humanitarian emergency. so it's been effective action. the key now though is to move beyond, to look beyond the drama of whether gbagbo has surrendered or not. and look at how we rebuild this nation which was once the pearl of west africa. and the things that needed to be done to bring together this very divided house that dominique has stated. that's going to take a lot of leadership and international support. >> suarez: dominique dieudonne, let's talk abo the region now. this has been a part of africa with terrible problems. in liberia, sierra leone nearby, in other countries in west africa. what does the... what risk remains that the problems of ivory coast could spread to other countrys? >> i think the risks are some that we've known, that elections don't necessarily

bring stability to a country. and so i think the jury is still out with how we've got over a dozen elections expected on the continent within a year. so the jury is still out as to how they are going to interpret the results of what has happened to the ivory coast within their own contexts but i think peter does make a good point that the african sort of did this for themselves very early on. you had some come on really strong with the supporting of the presidency of nigeria. >> suarez: remind people about that. >> it's the economic community of west african states. they came on really strong to support the results of the elections. so the e.u. certainly followed and the u.n. i think that was a strong signal very early on that the rule of law is something that matters.

it matters for obvious reasons. so i think we'll have to see. it will probably have some positive effects. we'll have to see exactly what it means. it's hard to tell right now what the repercussions are going to be for the region immediately and the rest of the continent. >> suarez: even now gbagbo is telling french television that he's still the rightful winner of last november's elections even as he possibly negotiates his release, peter pham. if this is indeed the beginning of the end, does the man who was affirmed by the u.n. as the winner, ouattara, walk into a situation that's much worse, much degraded than if he had taken office in november? >> it would have been difficult if he had taken office in november. this was an historic moment for ivory coast. the end of nearly a decade of civil war and division. so it needed someone to bring everyone together. now because gbagbo denied

losing, it forced the winner to make some choices that perhaps he would not have taken relying on military forces from one side of the civil war to help bring about the end game. that's going to be yet one more thing he's going to have to overcome. his reliance upon those forces even now to install him and his prime minister who led those forces within the civil war. the atrocities which they've been accused of and credibley by human rights groups and church groups in the last week. so there are a number of things. it would have been difficult in november. it's now even more difficult. there are now more armed people that need to be disarmed, demobilized and reintegrated. otherwise the country won't have a fighting chance. >> suarez: j.peter pham, dominique dieudonne, thank you both. >> thank you. >> thank you for having us.

>> brown: now, how educators in chicago are working to give lower-income students a leg up in the pre-kindergarten years and boost their prospects for life. the newshour's special correspondent for education, john merrow, has the story. >> so let's see. see what i can see here. okay. >> reporter: children raised in homes with educated parents swim in a sea of language. a world of vocabulary-rich conversations. >> why don't you show daddy what you want him to do. why don't you demonstrate. >> reporter: the contrast for low-income children could not be more dramatic. by the time children are ready for kindergarten some will have heard millions more words than others. without intervention, this vocabulary gap can lead to a school achievement gap. that in turn can mean college for some while others drop out without even learning how to

read. >> the cost of school failure is enormous. it's prisons. its unemployment. it's dissatisfaction in neighborhoods and communities. all of that will cause you and your kids money. >> reporter: a lot of money. it costs about $30,000 a year to keep someone behind bars. over two-thirds of inmates never finish high school. >> pour me some water. >> reporter: this program in chicago helps children before they have a chance to fall behind. >> can you fill my cup up. i need me water. >> we spend about 18 to 20,000 dollars per child per year. that seems like a lot of money but when you do the return on investment, we believe it actually pays off. >> reporter: with a per-pupil price tag that is two-thirds of what it costs to house a prisoner, diana rounder program edu-care provides high

quality pre-school for at risk children up to age 5. infants are accepted as young as six weeks. >> the most important time for us to intervene is really in first thousand days of life, a time when the brain is developing so quickly. and when interactions with adults matter so much to children's developing sense of who they are and their language development. >> reporter: educator... edu- care is open five days a week all year round. children get good food, regular exercise, and those with special needs receive aditional supports in small groups. >> would you like me to put the sand in your hand? can you say hand? >> hand. >> okay. >> our teachers all have bachelor's degrees and they have infant toddler certifications. they've worked very, very hard to learn how to appropriately

develop language and social/emotional skills. >> are you finished? >> yeah. >> are you ready to put your beans inside. >> reporter: the program seems to be working. a study that measured literacy skills and emotional development found that students who attended edu-care for five years entered kindergarten as ready as their middle-class peers. >> the only way we're going to systemically break that achievement gap, close that achievement gap, is by investing in early education. >> reporter: chicago has about 90,000 children under the age of five that need a program like edu-care. edu-care has room for just 149 children. .just like when you go to nap at nap time. >> reporter: think about that. that's not even two tenths of one percent. what about the other 99.8% of needy children? what is chicago doing, if anything, to close their vocabulary gap?

>> let's see who are missing today. one, two, three, four, five, six. >> every child whose parents wants him to be in pre-school and cannot afford to send them to a private school ought to have an opportunity to go to a public pre-school. >> zebra, what do you hear. >> reporter: that's the goal but money for p-school is tight. >> what we're trying to do is to find a model that will provide sufficient support for most of the children who need it. >> reporter: chicago's largest pre-school program costs about $4,000 per student, significantly less than edu- care. >> what number is that? >> reporter: but it's closed in the summer. it's just for three- and four-year-olds and lasts only two-and-a-half hours a day not 11. is two-and-a-half hours a day enough for high-risk kids. >> for this children two-and-a-half hours a day is probably enough.

particularly if we can offer it two years running. >> reporter: the program is called pre-school for all. but that's a misnomer. it reaches only 24,000 kids and at some schools there's a waiting list. even when you add in the children attending head start and other pre-k programs that's only 37,000 out of the city's 90,000 needyiest children who benefit. and the rest? >> remember that hand. i'm here from 6:30 in the morning until about 6:00 at night. they play by themselves. the majority of the time. they love watching tv. >> reporter: jacqueline brown spends each day with her grandchildren while her daughter is out looking for work. >> in this community there's a lot of kids that don't go to school. some parents need their kids to go all day. they don't have an all day here so they just only go part time in the morning time from

8:00 to 10:30. >> reporter: in a large a city like chicago just get to go the program can be a challenge. especially for families with more than one child and no car. >> some people feel that it's a waste of time. go pick them up in an hour-and-a-half. they feel it's not worth it. >> i don't think we understood how much of a barrier deep, deep poverty is in terms of engaging families and creating opportunities for children. >> reporter: maria wheeler's organization helps low-income families find child care and educational programs for their children. it's a struggle. >> almost two-thirds of the three- and four-year-olds in these very, very poor communities have no access to classroom-based pre-school head start or child care programs. >> reporter: the kids who need it the most. >> the kids who need it the most. >> reporter: does this embarrass you? >> it embarrasses me in the

sense that we are unable not just in illinois but throughout the united states to mobilize sufficient public opinn to support something that everybody, every piece of research shows would help us just immeasureably improve child outcomes in terms of education. >> reporter: in these hard economic times, chicago spends on average about 5,000 dollars per child on 40% of its needyiest kids and virtually nothing on the rest. that choice-- provide more services to fewer children or fewer services to more-- is one that maria ejects. >> it's a choice that we absolutely refuse to make. i'll be damned if there are 10 sick children and amoxicillin only exists for one of them. i think the job of those of us who do this work is to go out and break down every door and

every barrier we can to make there are ten doses of amoxicillin for all of those children. >> reporter: as difficult as it is today, the future for pre-school in chicago looks worse. >> the budget situation right now. >> it's dire. many states were using stimus money to support educational programs in chicago. we were using it for our pre-school programs. if we don't have that money next year we will have to cut the number of children that we serve. >> reporter: illinois is not alone. ality least ten states have already cut spending for early education with more certain to follow. >> woodruff: finally tonight, the fallout from the arab revolts on the rest of the world. margaret warner reports. >> warner: the demonstrations that erupted in tunisia last december sparking a wider

revolt throughout the arab world were touched off by a young fruit seller who set himself on fire after being harassed by police. his story and a photo of his charred body in a hospital bed spread on the internet. protests erupted and in less than a month on january 14, tunisia's strong man president had resigned. since then with an assist from social media, arabs elsewhere have taken to the streets demanding more dignity, less corruption and democratic and economic reforms. in egypt in late january, activists masked by the tens of thousands in cairo's to rear square. after 18 days of protests and a push from his only army long- time egyptian president hosni mubarak stepped down. demonstrations also broke out in yemen, libya, bahrain, and syria. and more modestly jordan and saudi arabia. the obama administration has

responded by calling on autocratic arab leaders to make reforms and avoid violence. but in lab i can't last month, the u.s. and a coalition under a u.n. resolution intervened militarily to protect civilians and support rebels fighting president moammar qaddafi's forces. there's been some apparent reaction in other parts of the world as well. most notably in china. the government has cracked down further on dissent and on any stirrings on the streets or the internet of a chinese version of the arab spring. how will these arab revolts affect the wider world? for that, we turn to jessica mathews, president of the carnegie endowment for international peace. she served in the carter and clinton administrations. romesh ratnesar, a columnist for "time magazine," and fellow at the new america foundation. he is the author of "tear down this wall." and mark malloch brown, a former

deputy secretary general of the united nations and a minister in the last british government. his new book is "the unfinished global revolution." jessica matthews, beginning with you. this has been so dramatic, these events dramatic enough themselvess in the arab world. do you think they're going to have an impact on the broader world? >> i do. i think everything eventually everything will be different as a result of this because the relationship... what they really mean is the relationship of people to their government has changed. in this world it will spread. there's eventually, i think there will be no part of the world that will be untouched by it. it will take time. >> i think that's right. i mean, i think jessica is correct. i did not sense things won't be the same again. it's been a huge step up for democracy which has been lingering a bit. you know, we had a period when just a few months ago we started to hear people saying, well, maybe the chinese way of government with its firmness

and its strategic planning has it over the confusion of american democracy. well it's been a very good few months for democracy. but i don't think you're going to see a simple contagion where, you know, the arab spring becomes the chinese spring or the russian spring. but i think as jessica says, things will be different even if in many ways it will take a little time for it to work through and it will work through in these slightly more indirect ways. >> warner: do you think that the discontented publics everywhere in the world and their governments are taking notice? and will be affected? >> i think so. i mean it's clear that the jeany is sort of out of the bottle. it will very hard to put it back in, certain flee the arab world, probably in other parts of the world as well. but i do think that the direction which this goes is still unclear. i think it's going to be a bumpy ride. we've already seen the transition to democracy in egypt and tuchb itia.

it's going pretty well about as well as we could hope. clearly the response in other parts of the region has not been as encouraging. we could see a very uneven and very unstable situation going forward. i think that is something that we have to be prepared for. >> warner: what we see now and certainly in china it's widely believed that this latest tougher crackdown is related to this. in other words, what you have is a government moving pre-emptively to try to head off any hint of this. where else do you think that might happen, jessica mathews, or flip it around. where the publics might be inspired in some way. >> it's very hard to tell. i think where you look is in the countrys that are worst governed around the world. and certainly at the top of my list would be pakistan. another muslim country also. i'm not making any predictions.

but if the core meaning of this has to do with a sense, as your set-up piece said, of dignity and of governments that fulfill their basic job of delivering reasonably good governance, pakistan governments haven't done that for decades. i think those would be the places i'd look. i think it may very well also have impact across africa. because libya... we think of it as part of the middle east and as an arab country but it's an african country. >> i think jessica, it's interesting that you are picking on countries which are democratic. there have been elections very imperfect ones in pakistan and in most of africa, there are now elections. i think that goes to the heart of the issue which is elections are not enough. that doesn't necessarily give you a government that is trust and representative and legitimate which again takes us back to why this is going to be a

difficult transition. because an election in a country which has no history of pluralism, no real middle class to be the kind of bedrock of a new system. well, you wonder in syria, yemen, particularly libya, just how easy it will be. i think it's a very good point. we all know where we want to go but some of these journeys are going to be very difficult. i think it's also worth pointing out in the "new york times" today had an article which i've been waiting for is, oh, my goodness, there's al qaeda inside the opposition in yemen. you know, this is going to be a tough period where the risk that washington or governments in the region flip back to preferring the security and stability of a democracy and choice. >> warner: that is a question. if this world, if these relationships are going to shift, how does the u.s. and

its allys in europe have to adjust? >> well, i mean, i think it's an enormous challenge. it's a puzzle. i don't think it's one that we've figured out how to put the pieces together on. you know, i do think that the bargain that dominated our thinking, you know, vis-a-vis the middle east is being re-evaluated. the idea that we spoke about being for democracy and supporting democratic values but because we had to protect our vital national interests, we ended up supporting regimes that were far from democratic. i do think that that narrative, as the president has said, is changing. i think that evaluation is changing. i think it probably should. but i think we also have to recognize that we have real limits on what we can do and how much we can influence events. we don't have very strong, reliable partners in the region right now who can work with us the way you had after

the revolutions in eastern europe. you had mitterand and thatcher and kohl, all these people who could help us manage this transition. we don't have that right now. we have to some extent wait to see what happens. we don't have a great deal of influence to shape the environment. >> warner: that does suggest that these... i mean we have seen in this example that the u.s. certainly has not had huge influence. i mean, president obama has been calling on different governments to essentially do the same thing. >> in the libyan case, of course, the military case, it's only we that have the military capability. so one aspect of this that needs to change that i think that will change is the movement revolution spread across the region will be we have to reach some understanding with our british and french allies that they don't take us to war gechbding on our capability without our agreement. you know, there certainly was

an element of that. >> i think though that there's a slightly cynical obs vision that the reason they did this in libya and not ivory coast is that their elderly warplanes could reach libya but not ivory coast. i think that there's another point worth saying which is say from outside america to those of us in europe we actually think obama has had a perret... president obama has had a pretty good crisis. he showed a pretty deft touch with both egypt and tunisia, pressure but without being too overt about it. bravely getting on to the side of change. you know, libya kind of... american and european leaders always break their knuckles on libya. it's a very, very difficult one but i hope it's the exception and thereafter we're not going to see military intervention. we're going to see diplomatic pressures to encourage people to make change themselves.

i think it's terrible if we get into.... >> warner: do you think that militarily though that libya may be something of a new model? or do you think it's a one-off? that is the u.s. just put its military muscle at work on behalf of something though that actually countries are more eager to do and the u.s. essentially lets others take the lead? >> well, i think libya is a very unique circumstance for all the reasons you just pointed out. i mean, you had an imminent threat or what we viewed as an imminent possibility of really sort of horrible ethnic or horrible slaughter of sieve civilians. you had a general international consensus. you had the arabs asking us to intervene. it's hard to imagine that those conditions will be replicated elsewhere in the region but i do think it's a temperature template in the sense that clearly what the administration philosophically wants to promote is this idea that the united states needs partners and we cannot carry the burden for these kinds of missions alone. that goes to this bigger issue,

the kind of constraints on american power. and i think the desire that the administration has to persuade other countries that it's in their interest to take on some of the burdens that in the past we assumed ourselves. >> warner: a brief final thought, what do you think this does the relationship that the u.s. and the arab world has or managing an adversary in iran. i know i put way too much on the table there. >> there's a big challenge for israel which will no longer be able to rest on its laurels so to speak as asserting itself as the only democracy in the region. this poses... this series of revolutions poses real challenge for israel to rethink a frozen domestic political situation. for turkey, of course iran is perhaps a little simpler, right? i mean the pressure will be on a huge push to... for change

domestically. turkey? i think it's hard to tell. it's not quite so obvious that turkey will benefit as it thinks it will because egypt will reassert itself as the lead er in this part of the world. >> warner: unfortunately we have to leave it there at least for our on-air audience. thank you all three very much. >> brown: again, the major developments of the day. president obama rejected a republican proposal that would delay a possible government shutdown by a week. the chairman of the house budget committee unveiled a g.o.p. plan for cutting the budget by more than $trillion over ten years. congressman paul ryan told the newshour that the u.s. has to reimagine its social safety net to bring the budget in line. and u.n. and french diplomats worked to broker a deal for ivory coast's entrenched president to leave office. and to hari sreenivasan, for what's on the newshour online. hari? >> sreenivasan: margaret talked

one-on-one with mark malloch- brown about his new book, he unfinished global revolution." that's on the rundown blog. there's more from our politics beat on reaction to representative ryan's budget proposal. plus our science unit explains the difference between the materials in a nuclear reactor and those found in a nuclear bomb. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, we'll look at the latest on the radiation levels in japan, and the task ahead for haiti's new president. i'm judy woodruff. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you, and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> oil companies make huge profits. >> last year, chevron made a lot of money. >> where does it go? >> every penny and more went into bringing energy to the world. >> the economy is tough right now, everywhere.

>> we pumped $21 million into local economies, into small businesses, communities, equipment, materials. >> that money could make a big difference to a lot of people. moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf. pacific life-- the power to help you succeed. and by toyota. >> and by the bill and melinda and by the alfred p. sloan foundation.

supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

ow! of course. thank you. i'd call her honeydew goodbody, not lisa. the very fact that she is called lisa proves that she exists.