. >>> kate baldwin on capitol hill. the bill is dead on arrival. what's next? >> reporter: yeah. it really does seem, well, if you listen to the senate majority leader, that it is absolutely dead on arrival in the senate. he says there is broad opposition to many of the provisions in the house-passed bill. let's get to that in one second. first, just to further the point. listen here to senate majority leader harry reid from last night right after the house vote. >> the bill just passed by house republicans tonight is say pointless partisan exercise. the bill is dead on arrival. it was dead before it got to the senate. the senate will not pass it. the sooner we demonstrate that, the sooner we can begin serious discussions how to keep taxes from going up on middle class americans. >> reporter: now senator reid said very much the same thing today as he was speaking on the senate floor even going as far to call it a useless partisan charade, kyra. there is likely to be a vote on this house-passed measure in the senate today.

kate baldwin is at capitol hill with the latest. kate, what's going on?emocrats dropped insistence on this millionaires surtax? >> reporter: this is a major concession on the part of democrats that came this afternoon after a meeting he white house with senate democratic leaders. this millionaire surtax is a provision, is a kind of an issue that democrats as well as the president have been insisting on all along. this is a surtax on income over $1 million. this is what democrats said they wanted as part of any end deal to extend the payroll tax cut in order to pay for it. as republicans are insisting that the tax cut extension be paid for. so this is a major development on the part of democrats who because i'll tell you, anderson, for the past week, there has been very little negotiating if at all. and both sides seem to be retreating more to the corners than actually trying to reach a compromise. so while this is one step forward, it's hard to say that this is, you know, we can see the end game or the kind of end zone, if you will, because it still leave

kate baldwin it sounds like there's some agreement that exists here.o could this actually pass by the end of the year? >> i'll tell you, kyra, there has been a general thought on capitol hill throughout this latest battle that eventually democrats and republicans would come together to reach agreement to extend the payroll tax cut before the tax cut ran out. but i should also say how to get there, to get to that point of agreement, has become increasingly more and more difficult to see over the past few weeks. democrats, they want to extend the payroll tax cut and cut it even further for employees. republicans, i should specify republican leaders at least, want to extend the current payroll tax cut. and in the house republicans proposal that was formally unveiled friday, they also want to lengthen any extension with a provision to speed up the approval of the keystone pipeline, which has become the latest political football on capitol hill. president obama has said he will reject that, saying it's unrelated and other democrats calling it a poison pill.

. >> our congressional correspondent kate baldwin is on capitol hill. kate, you heard the president there saying the plan should be extended beyond february. the plan the u.s. senate passed still faces a tough battle, right. >> reporter: right. the senate passed this version today, but it does need to go over to the house. the house does need to approve it. it's unclear at the moment where the support it and if it has enough support to pass. here's the reason why. on friday, house members have been meeting on friday. there had been this idea of this maybe short-term extension came about. i'll tell you, many republican members, especially more conservative members, were not happy with the idea of a short-term extension. they don't think this is good policy. they don't think it's helped the economy. they don't think a short-term extension will help either. they could vote on this. the house could come back in as early as monday to take it up. the schedule is not yet set. i'll tell you the number two democrat in the house issued a statement saying that the

kate baldwin is on capitol hill. how likely is a compromise?nse up here, fredricka, that in the end democrats and republicans in the house and senate will be able to reach some compromise to extend this payroll tax cut but by how much and how it will be paid for seems to be the question. what we saw last night is the latest fight between democrats and republicans around this payroll tax cut that's set to expire at the end of the year. the payroll tax of course is say percentage of a worker's paycheck is taken out to fund social security. democrats, they want to extend and expand this payroll tax cut for a year to employees as well as to extend it to employers to help spur job creation. republicans, they want to extend the current payroll tax for one more year and to this point, at least up to this point the fight has centered around at least in part how to pay for this tax cuts. democrats are proposing a surtax on income over a million dollars. republicans have rejected that. republicans, they want to extend the current pay freeze on federal wo

kate baldwin on capitol hill for us. kate, i talked to you an hour ago.er: other than me coming over to capitol hill, not quite yet. i'll tell you that, t.j. you have to offer the appropriate amount of caveats as we're speaking about this. they may be inches but they are far from there yet we have to caution. what we're talking about in terms of where is the inching, where is the movement, well, yesterday democrats as well as the white house made a major concession in terms of this ongoing battle over how to extend the payroll tax cut extension. democrats and the president dropped their demand for including a millionaire surtax as the way to kind of cover the cost of this payroll tax extension. this is significant because they have been insisting on this all along, that it needed to be part of any final deal. republicans clearly opposed to a surtax -- to a tax on income over a million dollars, but again i'll caution that while a development it's into the clear that leaders are any closer to that final end game. leaders for the first time during this battl

kate baldwin is on capitol hill for us. this is the vote that could save people money at the beginning of the year, at least keep them from seeing a tax increase at the beginning of the year. >> chat is absolutely right. the senate passed an extension of the payroll tax cut, but only a two-month extension. we'll get a little bit more to that in a second, t.j. i do want to bring you the latest on the massive spending bill to keep the government funded through the end of september as well as a government shutdown and the senate passed that. the vote was 67- 2. the house approved that same measure yesterday, so the senate has passed it. now it will head to the president. a short time ago, we received updated guidance from the white house. we will be expecting the president to touch on both of the measures. >> why two months on the payroll tax cut? we'll have to have this argument all over again in two months. >> i can tell yew so excited about that. >> yeah. >> this two-month extension comes because, honestly, congressional le

kate baldwin, we'll check in with you again. thank you so much. >> okay. >>> we're coming up on six minutes past the hour now. we'll pick up on presidential politics. mitt romney picked up the endorsement of south carolina governor nikki hayden. >> it is with great pride, great respect, great support that michael and i are very proud to say that we are endorsing governor mitt romney for president of the united states. >> haley won south carolina governorship with overwhelming support. bigger endorsement up for grabs later today. the des moines register will pick up its candidate for endorsement. you're seeing some front-runners who are there, rick santorum, rick perry, michele bachmann but mitt romney is staying in south carolina. newt gingerich is in virginia there to sign a book signing for his wife's new children's book. so they all have a shot in iowa and we'll break all this down with maria cardona and lenny mccall sister. it's about 25 minutes from now they'll be with us. >>> also in the philippines today, thousands of sol

kate baldwin on capitol hill. get out of there for the holiday. >> reporter: of course they are. i feel like we should pause and relish this moment to say that good news came from capitol hill. they agreed, compromised and agreed to avert this government shutdown. that's short lived because they're still negotiating and have not reached agreement on the other big standoff that we have been covering, how to extend this payroll tax cut for about 160 million americans. this tax cut expires at the end of the year and we're told the negotiations between congressional leaders and top aids, they continued late into the evening last night. they will continue today. the hangups seem to be honestly the same hangups that really have been there all along. how to pay for this package, if you will. how to cover the cost of the tax cuts and the unemployment and the other tax extenders in the bill. as well as what to do about the keystone pipeline provision that republicans have insisted must be part of any final deal and house s

it's getting pretty contentious up here as you can see. >> kate baldwin on the hill.s. >>> next hour president obama expected to deliver remarks at 11:55 eastern at ft. bragg. we will carry it live. >>> newt gingrich is surging in the polls and racking up endorsements, but today his campaign is dealing with an embarrassing blunder by a staff member in iowa. deputy political director paul steinhauser has the scoop for us. paul? >> kyra, with less than three weeks to go now, remember, that's the first contest in the primary contest battle, this is not the storyline they wanted to deal with. the story itself, it was a couple days ago that gingrich and mitt romney have been going back and forth on the attack. yesterday gingrich put out a ler saying we will not go on the attack against any republican candidates. neither my staff or surrogates. here's what happened. gingrich's brand new political director in iowa had to step down because earlier in the week before he was in the campaign he was doing a focus group and he was talking about how evangelicals would not consider

let's check in with kate baldwin who is monitoring. kate, what are you hearing?derson. some very significant developments in the capitol late this evening. first off, we're told by democratic sources that a government shutdown has almost certainly been averted, as the negotiators of this massive spending bill that would take the government and fund the government through the year 2012, they are signing that conference report, as it's called, but basically signing off on this funding bill this evening. of course, that would mean is that the next step is that both the house and the senate would need to vote on this conference report, but almost certainly, barring some unforeseen problem, it appears this evening, they've reached a point where they can say that almost certainly a government shutdown has been averted, and much more, if i could go on, anderson. we're also told as senate majority leader harry reid, he was just leaving the capital and we caught up with him, he says they're continuing negotiations on the other major issue we've been following, and it's be

." >> kate baldwin following all of the developments for us and she joins us now live from washingtonoposing on this new, new, as they call it a compromise offer. obviously, republicans beg to differ and call it really a poison pill that you talk about, that millionaire surtax. like their original offer that failed in the senate last week, democrats are proposing to extend and expand the employee payroll tax. taking it from a 4.2% tax to 3.1% tax. if congress doesn't act, that rate will go back up to 6.2% in january. and here are a couple of the major differences in the democrats' new plan. it would no longer provide a tax cut to employers in order to bring down the overall cost of the package and try to attract more democrat support. they have scaled down the tax on income over $1 million as you heard senator casey talk about. down to just under 2% tax from a little over a 3% tax. they also made that millionaire surtax temporary. they've done that in response to republican opposition to imposing a permanent tax to pay for temporary economic stimulus. we could see a first test vote on

congressional correspondent kate baldwin is joining us. kate, help us understand this. i think the speaker, he was drawing a line in the sand. it seems like he's reversing himself. i thought he approved of it and now he's saying, wait a minute. this isn't going to fly. do they have the votes to block this thing, this temporary extension passed by the senate? >> reporter: speaker boehner says that he believes they do have the votes in the house to block this senate compromise that came over that was voted on over the weekend. as you heard right there, speaker boehner says that house republicans are opposed to the short-term extension because, simply put, he says they're done with short-term fixes or gimmicks, as he has said. if house republicans are going to go along with any extension of the payroll tax cut, they want it to be a one-year extension. i'll tell you, senate democrats, they do not seem to be budging. there is no indication amongst senate democratic leaders that they'll bring the senate back in to vote on anything. if the house changed the bill t would have t

kate baldwin. in the middle of all of this on capital hill, kate, it's almost like ground hog's day. you get on the brink of disaster and congress takes action. what happened? >> it sure seems like that's exactly what happened. they needed the pressure of coming very close to another deadline on the brink of government shutdown for both sides to come together to hash out their final differences and reach agreement. that's basically what happened last night. negotiators, congressional leaders last night, they were able to finalize this massive spending bill. it's hundreds and hundreds of pages to keep the government funded and fund the government through the end of september, really through fiscal year 2012. so they hammered out the deal. they signed off on it last night and they'll move forward to rubber stamp it and push it through with votes hopefully today. it is a bit of good news. hey, i think we should take what we can get, that they were able to reach a compromise on this. it's all the partis

kate baldwin is on capitol hill. ybe we're finally seeing some sense that they're giving ground? tell us what's going on. >> reporter: what we're talking about here, there could be some giving of ground, if you will, suzanne, is that it has to do with the millionaire surtax. democrats and the president kind of all throughout this process had been demanding that this so-called millionaire surtax be part of any final deal to extend the payroll tax cut, and this would be the way to cover the cost of the payroll tax extension. so that's a significant give on their part, a significant concession. i'll tell you just from the looks and what we heard from the two republican and democratic leader on the senate floor this morning, suzanne, there was a noteworthy change in tone. much more upbeat and optimistic than i've really heard them throughout this whole battle. this doesn't necessarily mean they're at a deal, but we do know on the staff level talks are continuing today and they are working. >> all right. payroll tax cut ex

kate baldwin is standing by as well.antime, more on what's going on in the korean peninsula right now. the stakes are enormous. from washington to tokyo world leaders are weighing the death of the north korean mysterious dictator. they say kim jong il died of a heart attack over the weekend. the government has dubbed his youngest son, quote, the great successor. he'll have to rely heavily on advisors. he's had little grooming for the job. 's not even 30 years old yet. south korea responded by putting its military on a higher state of alert. the united states has nearly 30,000 troops on the demilitarized zone. it has stepped up its monitoring of north korea and the north korean military. just over a year ago kim jong un entered the international spotlight getting a promotion and important title and becoming his father's presumptive successor. his first big presence was in a military parade in pyongyang. alina who was there. >> reporter: the most reclusive dictator in the world opens his arms and his doors to the world. an

. >> we want to go live now to washington where our kate baldwin is standing by live.n and pretty much everybody thought congress had finally reached a deal, here we go again, now another twist in this bitter, bitter year-end battle. house republicans are not happy with the compromise the senate passed. the vote saturday was 89-10. the senate in that vote approved a two-month extension and that was because leaders couldn't agree on a more comprehensive deal that they were trying for to extend the payroll tax cut for a full year. now speaker boehner says house republicans are opposed to that two-month extension because quite frankly they say they're tired of the short-term fixes. if they're going to agree to any extension, it does need to be for a year. that's an apparent shift from boehner from just this weekend. during a conference call with house republican members, boehner, according to a republican source, called the senate vote a good deal and a victory. democrats now from the white house on down are pouncing on this saying that the house was two choices, pass the

kate amara reporting. >> thank you. still ahead, actor alec baldwin goes to the extreme to feed his words with friends addiction. plus, a popular grocery chain opens in south baltimore. the opening of harris teeter. first, why a teacher in >> covering the nation, a hearing is being held today for virginia tech to appeal fines they received. they were fined $55,000 for failing to notify the campus about the shooting. the agency says virginia tech violated a safety lock. a teacher's change to a christmas carol causes some controversy. the music teacher gave children a change to verse, dawn d and now our bright apparel. >> there have been some children snickering at the lyrics, and she attempted to get them back on track. she decided to make a change in the wording. >> parker wishes the situation where a teachable moment. the word means happy or joyful. a special birthday for ilion gonzales, the boy who was the focus of a long diplomatic battle. he turned 18 years old on thursday. he was shy of the sixth birthday when a fisherman found him cling to an in

baldwin. the squirmish over the soon to be expired payroll tax turns to be a kate bolduan, we go back to you on capitol hill. the house today rejected the two-month extension. that version of the bill, as you and i saw, the president spoke in the daily briefing, then the house speaker, john boehner, held there's no news conference. what did he say? >> reporter: the house speaker came to respond -- let me get a microphone on. that would be good. it's been a long day of live chats. the house speaker -- >> continue. >> reporter: thank you. john boehner came out and said that house republicans, they oppose the two-month extension over the weekend because it doesn't provide the certainly that americans need, the kind of stimulate the economy in the way that the payroll tax extension they would hope would do. so he made it very clear that they are not ready to budge from their decision. he says they have acted and now it's time for the president and senate democrats to do the same. i think we have a sound bite from speaker boehner. >> now it's up to the president to show real leadership. he said that

baldwin, after he won't stop playing with his cell phone. what led to the rage on the runway? >>> double date. will and kate step out with charles and camilla. but all eyes were on the duchess. is she carrying her purse like that to hide a baby bump? >>> yeah, yeah, yeah. >> give it to them. >> where was she supposed to hold her clutch? that's where one holds their clutch, george. >> are you making fun of me? >> no. he was. >> we have a lot to get to this morning. >>> battle lines being drawn in this presidential race. everyone took it up a notch yesterday. the president channeled the republican teddy roosevelt, to take on the republicans. he used tough language. he called this a make-or-break moment for the middle class. you see newt gingrich. he's taking new incoming fire, as well. and we'll tell you how mitt romney is take him on. that big debate coming up on saturday night. >> you and diane will be there on saturday. >>> and we told you yesterday of the amazing survival story of former model lauren scruggs, after her encounter with a prop plane. she has spoken her first words. we'll have more. >>> first

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