>> smith: today on "face the nation," the prospects for health care reform plus a look back at the life and work of walter cronkite. president obama wants health care reform bills by august. but the trillion dollar price tag has republicans and some democrats balking. can congress get it done? and where will the money come from? we'll ask two key members of congress: chairman of the house ways and means committee charles rangel, democrat of new york; and finance committee member senator orrin hatch, republican of utah. then we'll look back on the remarkable life of walter cronkite with our own bob schieffer, former senator and astronaut john glenn and historian douglas brinkley. but first fixing health care on "face the nation." captioning sponsored by cbs "face the nation" with cbs news chief washington correspondent bob schieffer.

and now from cbs news in washington, harry smith. >> smith: welcome again to the broadcast. bob schieffer is off but he'll be joining us again in just a few minutes. joining us now from new york congressman charles rangel and here in our studio senator orrin hatch. good morning, gentlemen. >> good morning, harry. >> smith: congressman, let me start with you. the head of the congressional budget office came out this week and said the plans he's looked at so far don't do the job nor... in fact, the cost of health care might go up. have you guys botched this job so far? >> no. i'm surprised that the congressional budget office had these views and shared them with the ways and means committee before we concluded our work. but it's clear that they're working with different assumptions than the white house and the congress is. but we've got to fix this terrible problem that we have in our country. we will do it. >> smith: can it be done without significantly raising taxes? >> well, no.

it's the question of how much savings that we do have. we were able to raise $500 billion by savings in the medicaid and medicare system. we raised $500 billion in taxes. and we had to do this in order to reach the course of the bill. but how much money you have to raise depends on how much savings you had. and so there are certain things that the congressional budget office didn't score. savings that we have with people not getting sick, preventive care, people not having to be readmitted to the hospital. and a variety of things that is just a question of which assumptions are you using. but at the end of the day we will be getting together and we will have national health insurance. we have to have it for our country. >> smith: let me ask you this. a couple of the united states, taxing the rich. the other one is especially putting very tough tax on small business owners. are either of those going to fly with republicans? >> we're talking about more

government, more taxes, more spending. you know, tax the rich. well, if you tax the rich that means you're going to push small business into 45.7% top tax rate which is like 10% more than corporations pay. it's going to kill a lot of jobs, a lot of opportunities. i don't follow why we've got to spend another $1.5-$2 trillion most people estimate on top of the $2.5 trillion we're already spending in this country and yet still have under one estimate at least 33 million people without health insurance. these things that are real serious problems. i think if charlie and i could sit down together we'd get it done. i have a lot of confidence in his ability. we're good friends. but it's become so political, the house bills, total partisan bill. the committee in the senate, the senate is total partisan bill. our only hope is to have senator baucus put something together on the finance

committee. >> smith: the president wants these bills before the recess so they can be dealt with after the recess. is this all going too fast? >> i think so. you're talking about one-sixth of the american economy. you're talking about myriad problems here. you're talking about people who are all over the map as far as what they really want to do. i think there's a really good reason why the president wants to do it. he knows he can't sell it if the debate lasts very long because it is so expensive and costly. >> smith: all right. congressman, let me ask you this because there is overwhelming support across the country for some kind of health care reform. the same question i asked the senator, is this going too fast? and are the ideas that are being put out there, are they realistic? >> we've been dealing with this bill for over six months. we've had hours of hearings and the fact that it's not bipartisan is not because we democrats don't want to have a bipartisan bill. we don't have any republican

answers. it's easy to say what you don't like about this bill. but it would be far more constructive if we had something to work on. i'm depending on my friend orrin hatch to at least in the senate to try to see, is there a republican bill in the senate? it certainly isn't in the house. it's just wrong to say that this is a tax on small businesses. we exempt small businesss from a lot of the penalties. we give tax credits so that they're able to hire and get people health care in small businesses. this is a tax on less than 1% of the wealthiest people in the united states of america. so to say that this is a penalty on small business just isn't so. sure we wish we had more time. but the president has given us a deadline. we're working under it. our committee has reported out a bill. we're waiting for the senate to do what? do anything. >> smith: let me ask you this. this notion of trying to take medicare spending away from congress, give it to a

separate sort of independent agency as one means of trying to cut some costs, any chance of that that is going to happen? >> they're doing that in england right now. you can't get health care when you need it. when you do get it it's generally too late in some areas. we have a great health care system in this country, the best in the world. republicans have at least four bills that would do better than this. i'm going to file a bill in the near future that would be modeled after the chip bill, the child health insurance bill that was a hatch-kennedy bill. that bill would emphasize and allows the states with all their demographics-- each state is different. utah is not massachusetts. massachusetts is not utah. we would give them the money and let them design their own plan. >> smith: the number of people enrolled in that has been going up. >> that's exactly right. let's be honest about it. one of the big problems is that we really haven't been invited very strongly into either bill in the house or the senate.

there hasn't been a real interchange with republicans on this issue. we have a lot of ideas i think would help. i don't blame charlie for that. i blame the leadership. i blame the president for pushing something so hard so that they're definitely afraid over the august recess that if they don't get.... >> smith: they're going to get an earful. >> that's right. you're talking about mandates on small businesses, businesses with 20-249 employees that really are going to kill small business and kill jobs. >> smith: let me ask you about the idea of taxing health care benefits as a means of trying to draw down some of these costs. is that off the table? >> well, i can't say for the senate. i have no idea what they're doing over there. clearly it's off the table... well, everything is on the table. my committee did not put it in our bill. any recommendations as has been made by cbo has been made after we reported our bill. they believe that it's cost

saving for the administration to be able to set the reimbursement costs of medicare while everything is on the table. i don't see the executive branch being able to set the course. if they can't raise the taxes. so everything is on the table. to say that republicans in the senate are not involved, my friend chuck grassley on the finance committee he spends more time in the white house than i do. the opportunity is there for anyone to jump in. i welcome anything that republicans want to do to improve this bill. >> smith: senator? >> let's be honest with it. the real problem here is that you've got senator baucus who is trying to put together a bill that would use the exclusion, in other words, would tax health care above a certain level. they're talking about $25,000 plans now and taxing above that. i'm shocked that there are $25,000 plans. they tell me there are in new york some of them even for teachers.

well, the problem with that is that if you don't do that, then there's a gradual push-up all the time in cost so that you have cadillac plans over regular plans that really would work. >> smith: has the president done enough to she aerd this through? >> the president is working around the clock to do something. i don't want to be negative about the other party. but quite frankly they haven't presented anything to the senate, to the house or to the country. so the president is doing his part. we in ways and means doing our part. we have a deadline. we will meet it. the question is, what do we expect the other house to do? god only has the answer to that. and my friend orrin hatch. >> smith: senator orrin hatch, congressman rangel, thank you both for your time. >> thank you. >> smith: we'll be back in a minute. you have questions. who can give you the financial advice you need?

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>> the eagle has landed. tranquility we copy you on the ground. >> oh, boy. >> smith: and we are joined now by former astronaut and senator john glenn. with us from minnesota historian doug brinkley and standing by from santa barbara california bob schieffer. good morning, all. >> good morning. >> smith: senator glen, let me ask you this. you even reacted. how many times have we seen that clip in the last two days and we still react to it. did the space program have a better friend than walter cronkite? >> no, i don't think so. he was very much interested in this. i feel like i'm almost sitting in for wally chiarra this morning. after he left nasa and wally passed on about a year or so go. wally and walter were a real team on all those broadcasts after launch after launch after launch. you just expected to see them both. they both did such a great

job. i feel like i'm almost substituting for wally this morning here. walter was extremely interested in the space program. and in the details of it too. it was a... it was something for him he saw as sort of a big thing for this country and a big step for the whole world. he was interested in it. >> smith: bob, talk a little bit about working with him and working for him. here was a guy who was an anchorman during the most tumultuous times during vietnam, during the civil rights era. why did americans trust walter cronkite so much? >> because he was a reporter. because he had been there, harry. everybody knew that walter didn't get that suntan from the studio lights. he got it from being out on the scene of story after story after story. that's why you like to work for walter. walter knew that the news didn't come in over the wire service machine, that some reporter had to go out there, somebody had to climb up to the top of the city hall steeple to see how tall it

was. somebody had to do that. walter knew how hard it was to get news because he had been there. so when you work for walter, he knew and you knew that he appreciated what you had done to get the story. that's why when walter said you done pretty good on that one, son, that's why it meant so much to you. >> smith: when the atta-boy came from the news desk that was very much appreciated. doug, we need a little context here. history teaches us that certain people are in the right place at the right time. was that true of walter cronkite? >> yes. just listening to john glenn talk about what a great friend walter cronkite was to nasa. remember cronkite grew up in eastern texas. houston used to be the first word heard in space over and over again. he had a lot of local pride going through his archives you would be amazed how often he would give speeches to business groups, newspaper groups and places all over the houston area and also in austin. he took some pride in nasa for

that particular reason. second, he became popular right when television was just a fringe event. by early '60s tvs were every year more and more appearing in people's homes and cronkite had it down for that perfect minimal half an hour delivery. i mean it's really, as he used to say, about eight minutes that he was on. the old u.p.i.-reporter in him kept it hemingwayesque, very clipped wire service lines. i think people ended up liking that fact that when he said somebody died they died. you didn't have to put flowery language around it. >> smith: it's hard not to think about walter and in the context of space. even last night the space shuttle endeavor, the commander mark pulanski had this to say before lights out. >> we noticed in the news uplink that a gentleman and a pioneer passed away.

that person, of course, is walter cronkite. we thought that we'd be remiss if in not recognizing him for what he meant to a bunch of us who happened to grow up in the era where the early astronauts and mercury, gemini and apollo were going off. i certainly remember watching television and watching many astronauts sitaling next to him providing commentary from a desk somewhere down in florida. >> smith: john glenn, you got to know him personally. what kind of a man was walter cronkite? >> very friendly. very... he was pretty much to me off the air the same as he was on the air. he was just a good guy to be around and a lot of jokes. a lot of fun. in addition to it. there were a lot of pranks down around the cape in some of the early days. walter was right in the middle of some of them. he was highly interested in every detail of the space program. he wanted to get into it himself. i think later on when they were going to open this up for newsmen and for teachers, that

was before the challenger accident, as i recall. and walter was actually, i think he may have actually applied or written a letter that he wanted to do that and go into space himself. he wanted to experience this. he would have been a great reporter up there for all the details of it. >> smith: when you went back into space, walter helped with the coverage at cnn. i know he was enormously jealous. >> he said i brought him out of retirement is what he said. his words. he was peacefully retired until i got ready to go again. then he to come out and cover that. >> smith: i think if he had the opportunity he might have elbowed you out of the way. >> he would have indeed. i know he would have. >> reporter: doug brinkley i want to talk more about walter cronkite as this witness to history. he did, you know, cut his teeth as a upi-reporter and an oil field reporter in texas and disaster theirs all the way through world war ii. he was not an accidental tourist. he was not a... he put himself in these places. >> he did.

you know, as a young boy growing up he actually created his own little wire service for himself. he went to high school and got involved with yearbooks and newspapers and so the time of world war ii he was perfectly... of the perfect age really to embed with the soldiers over there. i read all his articles he wrote during world war ii, he was part of the greatest generation team trying to beat the nazis in europe. later he was at the nuremburg trials by is a very dramatic thing for the reporters to be part of. in the '50s, joe mccarthy reared his ugly head. you started having cronkite really studying under edward r.murrow watching how murrow conducted himself. by the time cronkite is in his prime by the early '60s, the kennedy years he is sort of an advocate of space, nasa and the armed forces. yet he also is a product of murrow's dissent that a reporter has to tell the truth no matter what.

that combination i think made him absolutely irreplaceable in the 1960s and '70s. >> smith: let's talk about that moment in time when he really did come back from vietnam after a couple of trips there. and have the courage to speak truth to power. bob schieffer, that was a seminal moment in america and how it viewed this war. >> yes. it was very different, harry. because we have so much opinion journalism now where so often you see, you know, the anchors say... they express their opinion. you know where they're coming from. walter seldom if ever expressed his opinion or took a stand on anything. so when he came back from vietnam and said this is going nowhere, basically what he said is we've got to find a way to get out of here. this is not working. when he said that it really meant something because walter so seldom ever took a stand on something like that. we all know the famous story

of how when lyndon johnson heard what walter cronkite had said he said if i've lost walter i've lost america. walter always sort of seemed to express what the national mood was. i mean, you know, when john kennedy was assassinated our hearts were broken. you can see that in walter's face. his heart was broken too. when the man stepped... took that first step on the moon and i'll never forget walter, you know, taking his glasses off and saying, oh, boy! that's how everybody in america felt. once glen... once again, walter not in words but in his whole demeanor found a way to express what the whole country was feeling because that's how he felt too. >> smith: did he read like that for you, senator? >> i think bob put his finger on it. i think walter went for the facts. he didn't give a lot of additional opinion and his own views and so on. people would automatically think, well, they might be true or might not be true.

he stuck with the facts. i think that's the reason he came to be trusted so much was because people knew that when they heard from walter cronkite, why, it was true. he looked into the background of it. it wasn't just his opinion. he was giving the facts, whatever the situation was. i think that was valuable in the early days of the space program when aate low of people still doubted whether whether we should be going into space and some of those debates still continue to this day. walter had no doubt about the wisdom of it. >> smith: this notion though of speaking truth to power. i mean the audacity, it would seem audacious even in retrospect to have a reporter go over, go into the field of battle, and say something contrary to whatnot only the white house was saying but what also the military establishment was saying. we don't see that now. >> no, we don't. i think there's... well, you people are the more experienced than i am in the news media but i think there's a lot more of people expressing their own opinions

that may or may not be true and people realize that. i think walter was one that really stuck with the facts and i think occasionally though where he felt so strongly about something as he did about vietnam, he got off just the facts reporting of how many people were killed or whatever it was and giving his view on things that this was so important that he had seen and he wanted to impart that to other people. i think that part of walter was reserved for very few events. >> smith: let's listen.... >> harry.... >> smith: bob, hang on one second. let's just liss tone what he said. >> it is increasingly clear on this reporter that the only rational way out then would be to negotiate not as victors but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could. >> smith: bob, what were you going to say? bob, go ahead. >> what i was just going to say about that, harry, is is

walter went over there himself. he took the trouble to go and find out for himself before he took that position. this was not some opinion he arrived at, you know, looking at the situation through binoculars from far off shore. walter went over there, made up his own mind after seeing it with his own eyes. i think that's another thing that people really appreciated about him. >> smith: doug brinkley, a final thought. >> yes. i looked aate the notebook the tet offensive 1968 that cronkite kept. he went over to vietnam and he would write, is it worth this many deaths? over and over again throughout the notebook. then you have a word "source." source people that he talked to. a captain or a local person. he flip through the notebook. it's pages of pages of cronkite come to go the conclusion that the war was unwinnable. then he came back and made that very historic dissent. also in the archives of mr. cronkite at the university of texas is a letter lady bird

johnson wrote to walter cronkite later. in 1981. she told him he did the right thing and walter cronkite was her hero for doing the right thing for america. >> smith: doug brinkley, thank you so much. senator glen, thank you very much. bob schieffer, do appreciate it, sir. bob, of course, will be back next week. there will be much more about walter cronkite on a cbs prime time special tonight at 7:00 eastern. 6:00 central time. we'll be back in a moment. this is humiliating. stand still so we can get an accurate reading. okay...um...eighteen pounds and a smidge. a smidge? y'know, there's really no need to weigh packages under 70 pounds. with priority mail flat rate boxes from the postal service, if it fits, it ships anywhere in the country for a low flat rate. cool. you know this scale is off by a good 7, 8 pounds.

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