theoretical path to congress? >> the reality is that john boehner and air cantor and mitchell mcconnell and jon kyl cannot give this president a win before the mainly election. it may or may not pass. >> thank you for joining me. >> thank you. >> our coverage of tonight's address to congress continues now "the rachel maddow show." >> hiring hall, let's play "hardball." good evening i'm chris matthews in washington. welcome to a special edition of "hardball." it is now 7:00 eastern time and president obama is just moments away from entering the chamber of house of representatives where he will tell congress and the american people his plan to create jobs. as we wait for the president >> we will have an update on the reportedly quote, credible specific but unconfirmed terror threat on the united states. around what is, of course, the tenth anniversary of the september 11th terror attacks and the latest on the massive power outage in parts of arizona and southern california primarily in the san diego area where more than a million americans do not have electricity at this hour. both of those things happening

and breaking in terms of news relatively recently. an enormous amount of news tonight political and otherwise. but we begin as we must in washington, d.c. when a president addresses a joint session of congress, it's usually for the state of the union address. only very rarely do presidents ever ask congress to address a joint session for something other than the state of the union. before tonight, president obama had only done that once before when he unveiled his health reform plan. his health reform plan that ultimately became his health reform law. republicans now denounce it as obama care and lots of other things besides and they pledge that they will will it away somehow, but his health reform plan passed. the most significant change to the socially safety net in this country since medicare passed nearly 50 years ago. he got that done. tonight, once again, before a joint session of congress,

president obama faced his stiff political head winds and called for another big new initiative. one to fend off the unspoken, but looming, threat that the country may be about to plunge back into recession. after barely escaping a depression brought on by the financial system collapse at the end of the george w. bush administration, after a recovery that tried and tried to bring us back all the way, but now seems to have stopped in its tracks, can washington act to stop a double economic dip? can the gleefully obstruction republicans who control the house and act as a super empowered or not? 447 billion dollar plan 60/40 tax cuts to spending. now this was not a high concept speech. this was not a vague goals kind of speech. the president has a piece of legislation with very specific proposals in it. many of them taken from the republican side of the aisle. and he would like that legislation passed, please,

right now. >> i am sending this congress a plan that you should pass right away. it's called the american jobs act. pass this jobs bill. pass this jobs bill. pass this bill. pass this jobs plan right away. pass this jobs bill. pass this bill. you should pass it right away. pass this jobs bill. pass it again. right away. pass this jobs bill. this plan is the right thing to do right now. you should pass it and i intend to take that message to every quarter of this country. >> ignoring calls from his democratic base to name and shame the republican party for having blocked economic progress thus far. president obama instead noted over and over again tonight the republican origin or past republican support for many of the ideas he was asking republicans to vote for tonight. >> everything in here is the kind of proposal that has been spousted by both democrats and republicans, including many who

sit here tonight. 50 house republicans have proposed the same payroll tax cut that's in this plan. this jobs plan builds on a program in georgia that several republican leaders have highlighted. i agree we can't afford wasteful spending and i agree there are some rules and regulations that do put an unnecessary burden on businesses at a time when they can least afford it. every proposal i've laid out tonight is the kind that has been supported by democrats and republicans in the past. >> sort of a push me pull you move with the republicans he needs to get his jobs bill passed, president obama tonight not only tried to woo them with the bipartisan pedigree he also called out the constraints that republicans may perceive themselves to be under. constraints that would prevent them from voting for this jobs bill. >> i know that some of you have sworn ojs to never raise any tacks on anyone for as long as

you live. now is not the time to carve out an exception and raise middle class taxes which is why you should pass this bill right away. this larger notion that the only thing we can do to restore prosperity is just dismantle government and refund everybody's money and let everyone write their own rules and tell everyone they are on their own, it's not who we are. it's not the story of america. yes, we are individuals. yes, we are strong and self-reliant. and it has been the drive and initiative of our workers and entrepreneurs made this economy the engine and the envy of the world. but there is always been another threat running throughout our history. a belief that we are all connected. and that there are some things we can only do together as a nation. >> taking aim there at what may be the less politically sus sustainable positions of the republican party's activist base characterizing the only thing we

can do is dismantle government and let everybody write their own rules and tell everybody they are on their own and taking aim at that position of the republican party's activist base tonight. the president pivoted and took aim at what he sees his own base. saying tonight he would be willing to consider changes to medicare. since he would be opening medicare for surgery in washington under the care of a republican minority which says they would like at it with a chain saw, please! that was a line about medicare that will cause some sleepless nights on the left and among america's seniors and elsewhere. the president obama said the reappearance of obama, the political fighter. the confident knows where he is going guy who knows how, among other things to win elections. >> to let the economy roll we have to roll back hidden fees by credit card companies and laws that prevent the health

insurance industry from short changing patience. i reject the idea we have to strip away collective bargaining rights to compete in a local economy. regardless of the arguments we have had in the past, regardless of the arguments we will have in the future, this plan is the right thing to do right now. you should pass it. and i intend to take that message to every corner of this country. >> joining us now from the white house is white house senior adviser valerie valerie, thank you for your time. >> my pleasure. how are you? >> i'm great. every night there is an address by a joint session to congress, it's a tyne li little christmas. >> it's a good night for you. >> well, tell me. you look back at this president's choices about big speech venues. he, of course, has had two state of the unions sessions before joint session of congress and the other address happens after the president is inaugurated and

sort of a state of the union but not really. the only other time he addressed a join session was unveil his health reform plan. is this as big a deal? >> absolutely. there is nothing more important to the president right now than getting our economy going, putting people back to work, putting a little extra money in the pockets of folks who are struggling as they face this tough, tough economic time. and i think the message that he made very clear tonight is the congress should pass this plan and they should do it right this minute and that it's fully paid for. it is bipartisan in nature. these are -- provisions in here both the democrats and republicans supported before and no reason we can't move forward this minute. tlrp benefits in here for small business. there are opportunities for construction. in fact, rachel, i was thinking about you this morning. when i woke up, i turned on the tv and i saw the commercial that

you have standing in front of a bridge and you're saying that, you know, the private sector can't do everything. there are certain things that americans expect their government to do. our infrastructure is vitally important. putting people back to work with construction is important. our roads, our bridges, our sewers, our waterways, our dams, this is what makes our country so special and as we try to compete in this global marketplace, we need to rebuild our infrastructure. we need to rebuild our schools. we need to make sure that teachers and first responders and veterans who are coming home from serving our country so proudly have jobs waiting for them. we know all across the country companies are discriminating against people who have been out of work for a long time. this bill has a very important provision where if you've been out of work sever six months, will give a company a benefit if

they will hire you so we can get the long term unemployed back to work with the skills they need. no reason we can't move forward precisely and promptly. they will make it easy for the president next week. >> next week? >> next week. >> does that mean the president has a plan for passage? is he planning to meet with the individual committee chairman and do a full-court press to lobby for this passage? >> the president plans to do a full-court press with the american people. he'll be in virginia tomorrow and ohio next week. he said he intends to take this message all over the country. the reason why he wanted to do the speech this evening before congress is not just speak to the members of congress yet important they hear the message but important he have a chance to speak directly to the american people. they are out there struggling trying to make end's meet and

they are the ones who elected the people who are representing them here in washington and now is the time for washington to remember that and act. >> congressional democrats, among a lot of other challenges this year, have been sort of delighted about the prospect of running against congressional republicans who voted for the paul ryan plan to kill medicare. even dog catcher races are delighted to be a part of the party standing up for medicare given so many republicans voted to get rid of it by turning it into a coupon program and voucherizing. given that the president unilaterally offering tonight to tinker with medicare himself. does the white house not recognize the political impact, not just on the president's re-election chances, but on democrats on every ticket in the country for muddying those waters and making it seem like maybe democrats can't be trusted with medicare either?

>> no, it doesn't muddy the waters at all. in fact, if you listen carefully to what the president said and if you look at the bill, he intends to strengthen medicare. he intends to protect existing beneficiaries and you're right. the republicans intended to dismantle it completely. so there is a clear contrast. the president is fighting to make sure that medicare is available for future generations and that we protect those who are depending on it right now. so, no, i don't think we muddied the waters at all. i think he clarified the waters and he strengthened his position because he made it very clear that he intends to protect medicare. we do have tough choices ahead, rachel. i think he laid that out this evening and there are some pretty clear clois. the republicans for example said they want to protect the income of the very wealthy and corporations that are extremely profitable. the president said we need a

fairer system. we need balance and those who most depend upon government have government when they need it and extend the unemployment benefits for people out of work and make sure that youth and disadvantaged families have jobs throughout the summer and the throughout the year, so they can experience what it's like to have money in their pocket and develop lifelong skills that will keep them employed over the long haul. we need to make sure we have the ability to offer mortgage refinancing for people who are under water with their mortgages and restructure those and make sure that our neighborhoods that have been blighted by these mortgage foreclosures have tools they need to get rejuvenated again and we need to make sure our teachers are employed. we have so many states around our country who are facing these tough budget times and are having to lay off teachers. we want to make sure we put

those teachers back to work and that we put them in schools where our children are in good schools where the roofs are protected and they are renovated and they have the technology and the labs that they need so that they can compete in this global marketplace. everything i'm describing to you, rachel, is a part of the american dream and a part of the fabric and makes our country so special and the president really wanted to call on congress to remind them of what our mutual responsibilities are to each other and to the country that the americans who elected them. and i think that it was an optimistic message. he is confident that if we put politics aside that we really can work together and that is what he is going take to the american people beginning tomorrow morning. >> one last question for you on a different topic i did not expect to ask you. the potential terror threat we have heard about in the last few

hours. can you let us know if the president is fully gauged on that issue along with his responsibilities of the speech tonight? >> absolutely. he was briefed this morning and received updates throughout the day and ordered his team to redouble our efforts as we go into this weekend where we are having, obviously, the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and he is absolutely vigilant in doing everything he can to protect the american people. >> white house senior adviser valerie jarrett, many thanks for your time tonight. i know you get up early if you see the ads with me in the hard hat. >> the argument sounds much better without the blue hat so a good move you guys didn't go with that tonight. nice to see you. thank you. the latest on the terrorism alert we have been notified about tonight. also a big blackout in san diego and other parts of the far southwest tonight. millions of people affected. plus coming up we have a rather ecstatic reaction to tonight's speech from president obama from an economist who is used to finding himself more on the president's left flank. that's all coming up. i want healthy skin for life.

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president-elect of the united states. from his transition headquarters in chicago, a victorious and look at him, notably much younger looking barack obama announced to congress and to the american people what his first priority would be as president. >> the one thing i can say with certainty is that we are going to need to see a stimulus package passed either before or after inauguration. i want to see a stimulus package sooner, rather than later. if it does not get done in the lame duck session, it will be the first thing i get done as president of the united states. >> a stimulus package. that stimulus package ultimately wasn't passed during the lame duck session of congress. that followed the election, but while bush was still president but when president-elect obama, boy king, said there that the stimulus would be the first thing he would get done as president, he was not kidding.

less than a month after being sworn into office, president obama got that stimulus package. inaugurated in late january and congress passed it in february and he immediately signed it into law. they move really fast on that. why did we move really fast on that stimulus? well, we happened to be right in the middle of catastrophic economic free-fall at the time! here is what the economic picture looked like at the time when he was sworn in. in the third quarter of 2008, just before the presidential election, the economy wasn't just not growing, it wasn't just stagnant, it was actually shrinking. getting smaller. that is very, very bad. the economy shrunk by half a percentage point during that quarter which is a big deal when the economy is as big as ours is. but then in the fourth quarter of 2008, look at that. it went off a cliff. the economy shrank. shrank! another 3.8%! that is the situation president

obama walked into. free-fall and so we got the stimulus. a piece of legislation that was responsible for not only stopping the free-fall but for propping up an economy that was, frankly, plunging toward depression. instead of the economy shrinking at that rate of 3.8% the stimulus is credited forred adding one or two percentage points and it yu the economy because of the stimulus act, up to 2.9 million people had jobs who otherwise would not have had them. in that sense, even though nothing turned up roses, the stimulus did work and did what it was supposed to do. it made things a lot less bad than they otherwise would be. things were still unspoolg at the in 2009. in december 2009, president obama called for a second round of stimulus. remember? >> even though we have reduced the deluge of job losses to a relative trickle, we are not yet creating jobs at a pace to help all those families who have been

swept up in the flood. my economic team has been considering a full range of additional ideas to help accelerate the pace of private sector hiring. >> one of those things that sort of been lost to the political memory hole the last few years because it didn't happen. the lost second stimulus speech. in december 2009, the white house recognized that we needed more stimulus. that we had done some good with the previous stimulus but more was needed. the problem was really bad but nothing materialized. we got health reform but we didn't get a second stimulus. essentially no additional stimulus for the economy since then. since then, here is the most important thing. since then, we have also learned that the whole problem that the stimulus was designed to address, the whole economic problem was way, way worse than we thought it was all along even when they thought it was really bad. remember i said the economy

shrunk by half a percent in the third quarter of 2008? turns out it did not shrink by a half percent. it actually shrunk by 3.7%. ugh. turns out it wasn't 3.8%, actually, it was 8.9%! that is not a typo. that's how fast the economy was shrinking. republicans look at this chain of events and say, see? well, the stimulus didn't work. everybody else looks a at these numbers and say the stimulus did something but given what we now know what we were up against, it's clear it was not enough. it's clear we actually did need that second round of stimulus the president was sort of pushing for in december of 2009 but not that hard. what we are seeing in the economy is the effect of not getting further stimulus. not only given that the economy has proven to be resiliently bad but way worse than we thought it was when we initially designed the things we were going to do to try to fix it. the hope it is not too late but

time is up and we got to do something now. >> the people of this country work hard to meet their responsibilities. the question tonight is whether we will meet ours. the question is whether in the face of an ongoing national crisis we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy. ultimately, our recovery will be driven not by washington but by our business and our workers, but we can help. we can make a difference. there are steps we can take right now to improve people's lives. >> joining us now is jared better thansteen, a former member of the economic team. he is an msnbc contributor. jared, thanks very much for your time tonight. >> my pleasure. thank you for inviting me. >> i have been watching your

tweets and so i know that vaguely happy but let me get your baseline impression of the relationship between the scale of the problem and the scale of the solution that the president offered tonight. >> that's where i thought the speech was particularly strong. i mean, i was looking for something that would move the needle on unemployment and not just a little bit, but significantly, something at least a point, maybe a point and a half, and when the number was floating around 300 billion, i thought that could help, but i was a little nervous about the magnitude, given the depth of the weakness. now that we are talking about a program in the 450 billion dollar range with lots of components that i think could be fast acting, that struck me as a very positive note. the other thing is the bipartisan nature of these ideas. the president really hammered on

this point that these are measures that in normal times, partisans on both sides of the aisle would embrace. and i was also looking to see if the president had the kind of fight that it's going to take to carry this forward and that, i think, we saw very clearly tonight. >> in terms it of the overall package and the contours of it, it's 60/40 weighted tax cuts to spending. generally speaking, we think of spending being more spending as tax cuts. it strikes me that these particular particular cuts the president is describing here, tax credits for businesses for hiring and payroll taxes they feel right away in their paychecks and $1,500 for the average family with the payroll tax extenses these are the kinds of tax cuts are the most stimulative. is that right? >> it is. tax cuts don't help you if they are saved or leak out on imports. as far as the saving goes, if you're someone who is pretty

wealthy and you're not income contrained, then there is really no multipler associated with the tax cut. these are well targeted in that regard. over the past few weeks you and have talked about this and i say it's a great idea and renew it but it doesn't put the foot down on the accelerator any more. it keeps something in the economy going. in fact, now it does push the foot down a little bit more on the gas pedal because it was a 2% credit. now 3% credit. what was a thousand bucks extra in your paycheck becomes $1,500 if you're earning around 50,000. that is going to help. >> in terms of the spending here you and i have also talked about the idea of investing in american schools as physical places, as buildings, as a physical plant where we send our kids to get educated. in terms of the president's infrastructure discussions tonight, there was talk about trying to prevent teachers from being laid off but talking about

school buildings themselves and investigating in them. is this the fast program we were talking about? >> this is the fast program. we talked about this about a week ago. we had suggested maybe 50 billion for many program. looks like it's in there for 30 billion. i think that is great. i'm more than 3/5ths pleased about that addition. this is a program that can be stood up quickly which infrastructure that's not always the case. you've got a backlog that is very deep in the public schools. you've got a distribution mechanism called title one where you can get the dollars out there quickly and it's labor intensive work and work you see there in your community, so i view this as a big win for the american people. >> jared bernstein, an msnbc contributor and somebody i have not seen this uniformly happy about a thing in washington since i've met you. >> well, let's see where the politics go but we have had a

good discussion so far. bring that in. >> thanks very much. appreciate it. >> sure. i'm willing to talk about rebuilding america's crumble infrastructure over drinks or not. when a florida republican who is the chairman of the house transportation committee wants to come on this show and talk about it with me? i don't need cocktails. that is a full on 100% win and that republican will join me next. i couldn't be happier.

just about 30 minutes before president obama was scheduled to deliver his jobs speech to congress tonight, a bit of breaking news crossed the wires about a terror threat link to the tenth anniversary of 9/11. late last night u.s. officials

received intelligence what is described as a specific and credible, but the unconfirmed, terror threat involving new york city or washington, d.c. officials are not saying at this point what exactly is being targeted but counterterrorism officials tell the associate press today that the threat was so specific that it could not be ignored. u.s. government officials telling nbc news tonight the intelligence originated in the tribal areas of pakistan and relate to a plot to set off car or truck bombs in washington, d.c. or in new york city. the information indicated that three people would travel to the united states from pakistan to carry out the attack. but the timing and the exact targets of that attack remain unknown. president obama was reportedly briefed on the threat this morning. we heard that just moments ago from valerie jarrett as well. the president reportedly reported the counterterrorism

communities to redouble its effort in response to this new intelligence. shortly after the president addressed congress tonight, republican congress peter king of new york, chairman of the house homeland security department committee spo about this threat to luke russert. watch. >> what i can tell you, it is very specific. it's credible but it's not confirmed. but you combine the specifics and also the fact it's credible with this being the weekend of 9/11, it's being taken very seriously. i have faith that federal law enforcement, all of our agencies, federal, state, and local are appropriate and doing everything that has to be done. absolutely no need for any panic. and but, again, with abundance of caution and also knowing that al qaeda in the past does look for anniversaries, looking for land marks, it is being taken very seriously but, again, certainly no need for any type of panic.

>> again, as congressman king noted this threat remains unconfirmed at this point but it is being taken seriously. congressman king is chairman of the house homeland security department committee. the fbi and homeland security department are looking for a bulletin which may result in further information and monitoring a press conference set to begin by new york city mayor michael bloomberg and police commissioner ray kelly. if there is any information we need to i before to you, we will. there is a massive power outage right now primarily affecting the san diego, california area. left millions of people without power and it has shut down two nuclear reactors in the area. again, to be clear, the blackout caused the nuclear raebtors to shut down. the shutdown was not caused by the reactors. our nbc affiliate in los angeles reporting an event happened between arizona and california affecting major power line

connections causing the outage but we can't get more specific with you than that. nobody not only has that main electric utility for san diego county said that all of its 1.4 million customers are without power possibly until tomorrow, but the "los angeles times" is reporting that these two reactors at the power plant have also been shutdown. a spokesman for the utility saying the outage caused no safety issues and the overall plant continues to have power but they have been shut down in reaction to the overall blackout affecting that large area of southern california. we will keep you posted on the terror threat report and this western power outage as more information becomes available. and we will be right back. i'm good about washing my face. but sometimes i wonder... what's left behind? [ female announcer ] purifying facial cleanser from neutrogena® naturals. removes 99% of dirt and toxins without dyes, parabens or harsh sulfates. so skin feels pure and healthy. [ female announcer ] from neutrogena® naturals.

it's pro-cool technology releases armies of snowmen masseuse, who cuddle up with your soreness and give out polar bear hugs. technology. [ male announcer ] new bengay cold therapy. the same technology used by physical therapists. go to bengay.com for a 5-dollar coupon. everyone here knows we have badly decaying roads and bridges all over the country. our highways are clogged with traffic. our skies are the most congested in the world. it's an outrage. building a world class transportation system is part of what made us a economic super power and now we are going to sit back and watch china build newer airports and faster railroads at a time when millions of unemployed destruct construction workers could build them right here in america? >> for his new proposal the american jobs act, everybody likes to say they are infrastructure whether you're wearing a hard hat while you're

saying but the way it gets done is through congress. infrastructure goes through lawmakers and through laurks committees and lawmakers like john micah of florida. you may remember him the man who forced a partial shutdown of the federal aviation administration this summer because he and other republicans wanted to make it harder for transportation workers to join a union. he faces another deadline gas tax set to expire during this month. looks like a short term extension is in the works. to keep the projects going for the long haul he wants a bill that cuts transportation funding. just when president obama is calling for more investment in roads and bridges. both for the sake of those roads and bridges and for the economy that they drive and for the people who would be employed to something has got to give. joining us now is congressman jon micah. congressman, delighted to have

you with us tonight. >> always good and always interesting to be with you. >> i appreciate that. you've said that one of your concerns about the way we invest in infrastructure is that we need to spend our money as efficiently and effectively as possible. tonight, president obama said no more ear marks, no more boondoggles and no more bridges to nowhere. is that persuasive for you? do you think you can back what he was talking about tonight? >> he also mentioned two specific projects which would be ear marks. i guess the bridge between connecticut and ohio and then the houston transit system. but the president gave a very good speech. i think he is interested in the same thing we are interested in and that is getting people working building the nation's infrastructure. he a little bit light on details

tonight and my particular area which is -- which is transportation, but -- and i have to say i would take exception with the one major specific proposal and that was for a national infrastructure bank which is a proposal by a massachusetts and texas senator, bipartisan, but i think it's wrong based. >> why do you oppose an infrastructure bank? the idea i think behind that at least politically was it would harness both private and public investment in a way that could sort of allow market forces to play role in where things got built rather than allowing it to be decided by who is the most powerful congressman with the best connections. >> well, what you described, rachel, about, you know, harnessing private sector investment and participation and getting projects moving people working is right. but the problem i have is creating one more washington based program where you have to

come on bended knees to washington and go through the red tape of washington. you have to go through the approval and then the political process you talked about last. that's not what we need to do. i have 33 states that already have infrastructure banks. i can empower those states. what they need is probably that financial backing and also rather than pay administrative overhead in washington and more bureaucracy and approval here i can get it done quicker and faster and more directly at the local level. >> the local level funded by what, though? >> the same that they would be doing in washington, except, against i cut through that bureaucratic process creating a new bureaucracy. i have 33 states that have infrastructure banks. they just don't have the backing and the financial wherewithal right now. why create that model in washington? i think we could do it there.

so that's just one thing and i think we can work with the president on finding better ways of streamlining the process. i still have, as of last week, 35% of the 63 billion dollars in infrastructure money that was in our particular area stuck here in washington because shovel-ready has become -- you know, it's a national joke. it doesn't exist. but question streamline that process and speed up the process and actually get people to work on long-term jobs and get those big projects under way that hire people for more than just putting in a sidewalk or repaving, which may be necessary, but it's short term, temporary employment. >> i think republicans have tried to make the idea of shovel-ready into a joke but i'm not sure outside of republican circles it seems that funny. i don't mean to be disrespectful. >> i've been with the president and he just, you know, he gets it, i think, that you've got to streamline the process.

it is a joke. i mean, it takes 78 years just to go through the standard approval process for a federal transportation project. >> specifically -- >> that's too long. >> in what the president was talking about tonight, let me get one specific other things he talked about. he talked about infrastructure investment to modernize 35,000 public schools. 35,000 public schools across the country doing that sort of investment. i realize your area of the area in which people come on bended knee to you for permission to do things is transportation specifically, but do you foresee something like that investing and upgrade in america's public schools spending $30 billion on investing in america's public schools and their buildings? could that be something that republicans could get behind? >> well, again, i don't know the specifics. i deal in transportation, not school construction. but if we can speed up the

process and, again, i think the president made a commitment to pay for these projects as we go. we have been borrowing 43 cents on every dollar from china or whoever to pay for projects now. we want to do it responsibly. i'm not oppose to do that. ithought the president had some other good ideas. i think a tax credit for people who have lost a job. i would probably base it on a percentage of the salary rather than just a 4,000 dollar amount, but i think that's a good beginning because there are people have been out of work a long time. we need to get them working and we need incentives for people who create jobs, private sector employees to employee employ and expand employment of people. >> i'm struck by how much we are all counting on you as a country right now. to the extent that if we believe that the government needs to do something to try to put people to work right now and one of the

things we know that puts people to work right now is, quite literally, transportation infrastructure projects and the president wants a big infusion to do that right away in a rushed way with a sense of urgency. i find myself really desperately wanting you to say that you have a sense of urgency about this too. do you feel like this is something that can be done urgently or do you think this is all long-term stuff? >> rachel, that's a very good point. really, you go back and your heart aches for people who are losing their homes. they have been out of a job. and it's affected so many america's 14 million americans. i think in our committee, we have that ability. today, we marked up legislation. we do a lot of things that don't get attention. tomorrow i'll introduce an faa bill. i didn't close down the faa before. i had the bill to the senate in time, but, you know, i wrote the last bill in 2004, it expired in

2007, and i agreed to 20 some extensions and, finally, i said, let's just cut this baloney out. we need to do a long-term faa bill, a long-term transportation bill. because these are the bills that can actually get people working again. so whatever it takes. today, i sat with mr. rahal, who is the ranking democrat. i sat last time with barbara boxer, we have done bipartisan hearings. we have got to get this resolved because people are counting on us and we can't play games, particularly on our nation's infrastructure. >> congressman mica, appreciate the time to talk with us tonight. i hope you know that i mean it earnestly the eyes of the nation are upon you in terms of trying to turn all of this talk into something moving through the congress. thank you for speaking with us, sir. >> thank you so much. >> we will be right back. sam higgins? you have frequent heartburn, right?

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effective political tools democrats had in campaigns was the promise to protect programs like social security and medicare, which they invented and voted for and protect, and which republicans have sort of had a chain saw out for quite some time. the guy in charge of electing a democratic majority to the house of representatives in the next election said in may that his strategy for electing a democratic majority in the house in the next election was a three part strategy. the three parts were medicare, medicare, and medicare. >> that is the defining issue. we're going to continue as democrats to fight for medicare in any congressional district, no matter how high the hill, no matter how great the odds. >> tonight, did the hill get higher and did the odds get greater? when president obama said in his

speech to joint address of congress that he, too, has some ideas for medicare. >> millions of americans rely on medicare in their retirement. and millions more will do so in the future. they pay for this benefit during their working years. they earn it. but when an aging population and rising healthcare costs, we are spending too fast to sustain the program. if we don't gradually reform the system while protecting beneficiaries, it won't be there when future retirees need it. we have to reform medicare too strengthen it. >> joining us now, steve israel from the great state of new york, congressman, thank you for joining us. >> happy anniversary, three years on the air. congratulations. >> thank you very much. i forgot and got a nice love letter to the show, written to me by my dear old dad this morning.

it was nice. thank you. when republicans talk about medicare, their policy as far as i can tell is to kill medicare. what they say is they want to save it or strengthen it. now we have the president saying he, too, wants to strengthen medicare. does that give you the willies at all? >> no, we always said consistently from day one, we will negotiate to improve, strengthen mid care. we will not negotiate to end medicare. it is not what the republicans say, it is what they have done. paul ryan ends the guaranteed medicare benefit, turns medicare into a coupon program. democrats united, democrats in the house and the senate and the white house that we are open to ideas for efficiency in medicare to extend its solvency, but we will not negotiate what republicans have been trying to do 20 years now, and that is to end medicare. >> in terms of that as a potent political issue, one of the reasons i wanted to talk to you

about this, you're in charge of converting that issue into electoral gains for democrats. i know you're confident you can do that. does that also apply to social security? are democrats planning to draw a line between a democratic plan to protect social security and republicans putting it at risk? >> this election in 2012 is going to be very much a referendum. do you want a crowd dedicated to terminating medicare, privatizing social security, or do you want a majority of democrats who are going to promote pro-growth agenda, create jobs and protect medicare and social security. and i have to say, rachel, we found a new ally in this fight, surprise me, but rick perry. he calls social security a ponzi scheme. i give him credit. he is honest. he unmasked what the republicans sought to do. they talk about strengthening social security, he told the truth. he believes it is a ponzi scheme and they want to end social

security. >> the media is better at covering conflict than it is at covering policy. i feel like we got a bless whg mitt romney attacked rick perry for having said that because it made the beltway media cover the issue of how at risk social security would be under a particular republican politician. my question to you, though, is mitt romney's position on social security substantively any different than rick perry's, or is he planning on putting it at as much risk as rick perry would. >> mitt romney can say what he wants, dance around it. fact of the matter the ryan budget that passed the house of representatives and has been embraced by every single republican presidential candidate ends medicare, turns it into a coupon. it costs the average american senior an additional $6,000. they can speak in sound bytes, but i think the american people will hold them to their actions and words. it is a matter of action, passed

the house of representatives, endorsed by every single republican presidential candidate, ends the medicare benefit. >> steve israel from new york. thanks for joining us tonight, sir. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back. i want healthy skin for life. [ female announcer ] improve the health of your skin with aveeno daily moisturizing lotion. the natural oatmeal formula improves skin's health in one day, with significant improvement in 2 weeks. i found a moisturizer for life. [ female announcer ] only from aveeno.