captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> lehrer: good evening. i'm jim lehrer. a drop in the unemployment rate announced today, even as employers shed jobs. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. on the "newshour" tonight, we ok at the latest numbers, proposals for job creation and what it all means for the economy. >> lehrer: then, betty ann bowser reports on new figures on health care spending. >> brown: paul solman talks with reagan budget director, david stockman, and gets a surprising take on big banks and taxes. >> the republicans think their mission in life is to cut taxes. sorry, game over. the tax raising business and

we're going to be in the tax raising business for the next decade. >> lehrer: mark shields and david brooks provide their weekly analysis. >> brown: and haitian poet michele voltaire marcelin reflects on the country's tragedy. >> no one knows the exact number of the dead. they were out. they were yours and mine. >> lehrer: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> what the world needs now is energy. the energy to get the economy humming again. the energy to tackle challenges like climate change. what if that energy came from an energy company? everyday, chevron invests $62 million in people, in ideas-- seeking, teaching, building. fueling growth around the world to move us all ahead. this is the power of human energy. chevron.

this is the engine that connects zero emission technologies to breathing a little easier, while taking 4.6 million truckloads off the road every year. bnsf, the engine that connects us. bank of america-- committed to helping the nation's economic recovery. pacific life-- the power to help you succeed. 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.

>> lehrer: the labor department announced today that the nation's unemployment rate fell to its lowest level in five months, but that was only part of the story. >> brown: and the broader economic picture and prospects for a recovery remained uncertain. the labor department reported the jobless rate fell to 9.7% last month, down from 10% in december. as 541,000 americans said they found work last month. but overall, the economy lost 20,000 jobs in january. and today, while outlining new loan proposals for small businesses, the president said the new figures aren't good enough. >> these numbers, while positive, are a cause for hope, but not celebration, because far too many of our neighbors and friends and family are still out of work. we can't be satisfied when another 20,000 have joined the ranks and millions more americans are under-employed,

picking up what work they can. >> brown: job losses in january were led by hits in the construction and warehousing industries. and many of the gains last month were attributed to seasonal data adjustments. at a joint economic hearing, bureau of labor statistics commissioner keith hall said a rise in temporary hiring last month could suggest job growth to come. >> in past recessions, a pickup in temporary help services has preceded a pickup in payroll job growth, so the fact that temporary help services added 52,000 jobs this month and a quarter million over the past four months or so, i would consider to be an indicator of potential payroll job growth. >> brown: still, revised data from last year shows past job losses were actually worse than previously reported. since the recession began more than two years ago, the nation has shed 8.4 million jobs. looking to make up for those losses, the president has

recently put forward proposals targeting areas of job creation, including tax credits and the help for small businesses he talked up again today. yesterday, senate democrats announced they were working on their own proposal, but said they're still hammering out details in a bid to win republican support. the house passed a democratic- led jobs bill in december. in the meantime, uncertainty over the economic picture contributed to take a sharp toll on wall street. the dow jones industrial average gained 10 points to close at 10,012. for the week... the dow 1/2 percent. and we look at where things stand and possible fixes with robert kuttner, co-founder of "the american prospect magazine." and a senior fellow at the

policy research organization, demos. and david malpass, a former treasury official in two republican administrations and chief economist at bear stearns. he now heads his own economic advisory firm, encima global. >> robert kuttner, today's report is in some ways even more confusing than usual. how do you parse the good job news and the bad job news. >> the labor department does two different kinds of surveys. they ask households whether people are working or not and then they ask employers how many jobs they have. so one indicator went one way, the other indicator went the other way. the survey of employers, the one that shows the $20,000 job loss is usually considered the more reliable one on a month to month basis. so this is not terrific news, particularly when you measure it against the loss of something like a million more jobs than

were originally sought to be lost once they went back and they actually looked at unemployment records and tidied up their estimates from the previous year. the problem is you've got the 8.4 million we lost and population growth and you need 11 million new jobs to get back to the unemployment rate prior to where we were at the beginning of the recession. >> brown: david malpass how do you choose it. >> it was a mixed picture. the household survey showed gains but it had shown big losses in december. so on that, neither survey is showing much in the way of job growth and that's hard because we're at such a low level of employment. i think it's just going to take quite a bit of time to rebuild the economy from this lower base. small businesses are critical to

the growth and they're not yet showing the gains that should be there if we were in an all out recovery. >> brown: david malpass, staying with you. there was this very good sign, i guess, because we haven't seen this in a long time, some growth cc in the manufacturing sector. what's that tell you. >> that's right. well, there are two separate things going on in the economy. the government has made money very plentiful and bailed out the auto sector. so you're seeing job growth in the government sector and in the manufacturing sector related to automobiles. but that leaves the rest of the country paying for it and with weak job growth. that's in the services sector, that's in small businesses, for example. and so i think that's something that has to be thought about. do you really want to draw so much money out of the rest o the economy that are hurt in order to build up the government and the auto sector. >> brown: well robert kuttner that leads to the question what to do because the economy plays

into this debate. i mentioned in our set up there are various things on the table. what do you see happening, what do you want to see happen? >> well i think president obama's initiative is a step in the right direction but i think it's too small a step. if you look at the numbers, the house passed a bill for $154 billion spending program to create jobs, to increase unemployment compensation, to have some direct employment, to give fiscal aid to the states and localities. i mean, the states have lost about $500 billion worth of revenues in the past three years. they're on track to lose another 120 billion. that offsets a total effect of the stimulus. with one part of the government cutting, another part of the government adding, you almost have a draw. the senate is proposing an even smaller bill on the order of $80 billion and everybody's getting obsessed with deficit reduction. it's much too soon in this cycle to focus on deficit reduction. we probably

need another year or two of heroic public investment and democrats and republicans can argue about whether the increased deficit ought to take the form of tax cuts or increased spending. but one way or the other, we need more stimulus before we start obsessing about deficit reduction. >> brown: mr. malpass are you obsessed with deficit reduction. >> i would like to see the deficit reced. but what i don't think works is having the government spend so much and wastefully because then the public conserves and offsets it. there really isn't any net stillless i don't think. we saw $187 billion package last year that they said was going to be shovel ready projects. but in new york state, for example, we don't see that. there's no acceleration of the moynihan train station. that's an important part of the midtown manhattan and so on around the state. so we have this big problem that

washington is sucking the money out of the economy and then there aren't new jobs that come out of that. they're basically just maintaining or transferring money to existing state jobs. there's no net growth. so i'm not in favor of this new spending bill that they're talking about pushing through now this spring. >> brown: mr. kuttner, go ahead. >> well, the money goes right back into the economy. i mean, you see the signs, american reinvestment recovery act all over the place. it's too small, there's not enough of it. but i think this is a matter of thinking short run long run. in the short run, which is a year or two, you need a lot more stimulus to get the economy back on track and create more jobs. then we all need to get serious about deficit reduction. but that's easier if you can get growth on track first. >> brown: mr. malpass, what about the smaller things that are actually being talked about now like tax credit,

particularly aimed at small businesses? >> i was happy to hear robert talking about the openness to tax cuts. now, the tax credit i think that the president is proposing is simply not very helpful to small businesses. basically they're saying we're going to tax banks and then the government going to decide which new banks to give the money to and then they're going to have those banks give it to chosen small businesses. it's a pretzel shop. i would like to see a marginal lower rate that helps businesses so much. right now remember small businesses are facing this giant tax increase at the end of this year. and the president's not really proposing anything that's going to avert that. >> brown: mr. kuttner, is there something wrong with targeting companies like that for the specific job growth? >> well, i think the problem is

that we've targeted wall street for assistance and small banks are starving small businesses for credit because they haven't gotten the same free pass that wall street banks have gotten. so i mean i would like to see more help to smaller banks, the president has proposed some of that in his budget. i think that's good because you need to take your foot off the oxygen hose, small businesses are going to get credit. i would like to see a more robust program of mortgage relief. you have foreclosures on track to reach 8 million foreclosures by the end of obama's term. that's dragging down the whole economy too. you need a multiprong initiative to get a robust recovery going. >> brown: robert kuttner and david mal pass, thank you both very much. >> lehrer: now, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan in our newsroom. >> sreenivasan: toyota's president apologized today for the worldwide recall of more than eight million vehicles for sticking gas pedals. he will head up a special

committee to investigate quality issues plaguing the automaker. akio toyoda spoke at a tokyo press conference. >> i apologize from the bottom of my heart for all the concern that we have given to so many customers in so many countries. >> sreenivasan: toyoda also said the company was continuing to investigate brake problems in its 2010 prius hybrid. for the record toyota is a "newshour" underwriter. at least 40 people have died in twin car bombings in iraq, at the height of a shi-ite pilgrimage. more than 150 iraqis were wounded. the blasts ripped through a crowd of shi-ites en route to the holy city of karbala for an annual religious ceremony. it was the third deadly bombing this week targeting shi-ites. a pair of bombs in southern pakistan today killed at least 25 people. 100 others were wounded. both explosions went off in karachi. the first hit a bus carrying shi-ite muslim worshippers. most of the victims were women and children. hours later, a second bombing targeted a hospital where

victims of the earlier attack were being treated. shortcomings in the chain of command are to blame for one of the worst ground attacks in the afghan war, which killed eight u.s. troops and wounded 22. last october insurgents overran a combat outpost in a remote part of northeast afghanistan. in a report released today, the u.s. military claimed critical intelligence and other assets had been diverted from the base to assist combat operations elsewhere in the country. in addition, protective improvements had not been made because the post was scheduled to be closed. four british lawmakers face criminal charges over their expense claims. the men were charged with false accounting. they are the first to be indicted in a scandal that has embroiled nearly 400 current and former members of parliament. nine members of prime minister gordon brown's cabinet resigned after revelations that taxpayer monies funded everything from remodeling homes to buying horse manure. the four charged today said they will be exonerated in court.

two u.s. aid workers died in a helicopter crash in the dominican republic on their way back from a mission in haiti. civil aviation authorities said the chopper crashed into the side of a mountain, and there was medicine scattered about the crash site. f.a.a. documents show that the helicopter was owned by a naples, florida based company. secretary of state hillary clinton said today the american government is providing full consular services to the ten american missionaries detained in haiti. they are facing kidnappings charges for allegedly trying to take 33 children out of the country in the aftermath of the earthquake. >> this is a matter for the haitian judicial system. we're going to continue to provide support as we do in every instance like this to american citizens who have been charged. and hope that this matter can be resolved in an expeditious way. >> sreenivasan: if convicted, the missionaries could face up to 24 years in prison. 15 people, including five children are dead, and several

people are still missing after severe and unusual winter storms in central mexico. heavy rains sent rivers in michocan and guanajuato over their banks damaging at least 2,000 homes. in mexico city, the floodwaters caused even more damage and prompted emergency crews to ferry people out through chest high water. rain in central mexico falls almost exclusively between may and october. residents across the ohio valley and the mid-atlantic braced at least two-feet of snow is expected to blanket the region tonight. the nor-easter will advance into new england on saturday. snow scenes preparations started early as residents stocked up ahead of the blizzard. hundreds of flights were canceled and schools closed throughout the area. those are some of the day's main stories. i'll be back at the end of the program with a preview of what you'll find tonight on the "newshour's" web site. but for now, back to jim. >> lehrer: and still to come on the "newshour": david stockman on the banking crisis, shields and brooks and poetry from the

rubble in haiti. that follows our health care update about new figures on the continuing rise in spending. "newshour" correspondent betty ann bowser reports. >> reporter: health care spending devoured 17% of the entire economy last year-- about $2.5 trillion. that's the biggest one year growth since record keeping began in 1960, according to projections from the federal centers for medicare and medicaid services, or c.m.s., this week. maryland small business owner brian england feels the spiraling cost of health care every day. >> i look at my expenses coming up and last year, down by 10%, this coming year it's probably going to be 20% or 30% and i've run out of options. >> reporter: c.m.s. also says that by 2012 federal and state goverments will pick up more

than half the tab for americans' health care. that's because millions of recently unemployed americans are applying for medicaid and increasing numbers of aging baby boomers are signing up for medicare. congressional scholar thomas mann of the brookings institution says the figures show if the trend continues health care spending could soon make up one quarter of the u.s. economy. >> they are increasing at such a rate that they will otherwise absorb a huge percentage if not the entire federal budget and much of the national economy. it's just astounding the relentless march of health care cost increases. and you ask yourself, for something that was 5%, 6%, 7% of the economy not too long ago, now 17%, soon it will be 20%,

you begin to say what else gets crowded out. can we really dispose of so much our economy and have health care replace it. and in our public budgets? i think not. we have to do something about it. >> reporter: what democrat leaders want to do is pass a health care reform bill that would expand coverage to millions of americans and place tighter restrictions on insurance companies. auto repair shop owner england says health care is the third biggest expense he has each month. behind salaries for his 18 employees and rent. and he's all for democrats passing their version of overhaul. >> we've got to move on getting these bills passed so we can have health care for millions of people who don't have it. it's despicable that we have 50 million people without health insurance. >> reporter: but prospects for

passing the democrats' health care reform overhaul in congress dimmed last month when republican scott brown won the massachusetts senate seat held by the late senator edward kennedy, who pushed health care reform for decades. brown won in part by promising to vote against health care reform. his victory also stripped the democrats of their 60-vote filibuster proof super majority. democratic leaders have been negotiating behind the scenes about a way forward and insist they will pass something this year. but whatever they decide to do, they've already faced stiff opposition from a united republican minority and from a number of large business trade associations. >> we would love for congress to start over. >> reporter: jeri kubicki is the is vice president of human resources policy at the national association of manufacturers-- the world's largest industrial trade association which opposes the democratic bills. >> it's going to mean a huge tax

increase to our members, it's going to mean less jobs created. >> the reason we're not supportive of the current bills is that they don't focus on reducing cost. they don't focus on reducing cost for manufacturers, that's our key concern, but they don't focus on reducing costs for any consumer. >> reporter: there are other big stakeholders worried about skyrocketing costs. the health insurance industry opposed the democratic plans, but favors reform in principle. robert zirkelbach is spokesman for america's health insurance plans. >> unless there is more of a look at the underlying costs of medical care, rather than focusing on simply the cost of health care coverage, we're never going to be able to make health care coverage more affordable for people across the country. there was very little in the leg that would bend the cost curve.

the legislation included some pilot projects in the medicare program which is an important first start, but in order to really bend the cost curve and make health care coverage more affordable for families and small businesses, there needs to be a much broader look at what is driving the rate of increased health care costs in this country. >> reporter: millions of senior citizens are also opposed to the health care reform bills in their present form, because current democratic proposals are paid for in part with cuts to future medicare spending. >> it's stalled and well, i think it should be. quite simply, to use an old military expression we ought to deep six it and start over. >> reporter: jim martin is chairman of 60-plus, a senior citizens lobbying group that he says represents about five million members. >> you don't take half a trillion dollars out of a system called medicare, which we seniors have paid into for 45 years now. we've paid our dues, we don't think that's the way to go, that's got seniors not only angry, but it scares them.

>> reporter: but john rother, health care policy chief for a.a.r.p.-- the largest organization representing senior citizens in the world-- sharply disagrees. >> walking away is not an alternative i don't think because the results would be disastrous. >> reporter: rother who has been involved in health care reform for 25 years says the only way to bend the cost of health care downward is for the congress to pass a comprehensive health care reform bill-- most of it in its current form. >> i think just about anyone in healthcare would say that over five years without some effort to the reform the system we could have another 10 million uninsured. we could have health care costing so much that employers would drop benefits or scale back benefits. we would have a medicare system that would be on the verge of bankruptcy leading to some

pretty drastic benefit cuts. it would be putting every dollar into a system that would not grow as it should. >> reporter: the latest projections showing a spike in health care spending is sure to be used by both sides to bolster their arguments for and against health care reform. meanwhile, democrats say they plan to announce how they intend to proceed with legislation soon. >> brown: now, "newshour" economics correspondent paul solman continues his series on "bank reform and the future of wall street." earlier this week paul spoke with robert kelly, c.e.o. of bank of new york-mellon. tonight, a former budget director weighs in. it's part of his ongoing reporting on "making sense" of financial news.

>> reporter: david stockman, former michigan congressman and ronald reagan's budget chief, who's also toiled in the private sector at wall st.'s salomon brothers, private equity firm the blackstone group and his own controversial private equity fund. charges against him for accounting fraud there were filed and later dropped, and he settled a dispute with the s.e.c. just last week. stockman's now working on a book about the financial crisis called "the triumph of crony capitalism" and has come out in favor of the president's bank reform efforts. david stockman, welcome! >> thank you. >> reporter: so you like the obama banking proposal, why? >> i would give the administration credit for trying to move us back to something that's a lot saner than trillion dollar banks being propped by the taxpayers which is exactly where we are today. the fact is wall street is entirely involved in capital markets activity which is fine, but that's free market activity,

they shouldn't be involved in it if they've got deposit insurance and if they've got the fed window behind them and that's for deposit banks not for gunslingers and for hedge funds and for capital market players. >> reporter: but you were a gunslinger, right? >> yes! but i didn't ask for any deposit insurance that the taxpayer is going to back up. please wall street banks, don't come and ask the taxpayer of this country who's out in green bay wisconsin, can't pay his mortgage, can barely put food on his table to have the safety net of the fed and deposit insurance in the treasury of the united states. it's an outrageous and they ought to be ashamed of themselves. >> reporter: listening to you, i'm struck by the fact that i can imagine critics on the left saying exactly the same thing. >> i'm mortified by that thought but at some point you have to ask: what's good policy? and we've gotten into this

syndrome, i think over the last 20 years, where policy of the treasury and of the fed has been dictated by wall street, that if wall street threatens to have a hissy fit or the stock market is going to go down, the fed has basically capitulated and accommodated time after time. and is creating a very unstable and dangerous financial system in our economy. >> reporter: the president's first bank proposal a few weeks ago-- to tax financial institutions based on their size and risk-taking-- stirred stockman to write a "new york times" op-ed. "the baleful reality is that the big banks, the freakish offspring of the fed's easy money, are dangerous institutions, deeply embedded in a bull market culture of entitlement and greed. this is why the obama tax is welcome." we asked the c.e.o. of bank of new york mellon, robert kelly, to respond. >> the reality is that banks provide millions of jobs in our economy.

the reality also is that we've had a one in 80 year event. we also have a gigantic economy which you can't run with a lot of really small banks. well, you know those are the talking points from wall street and i take strong issue. the fact is the heart of the bailout was a.i.g., that was $80 billion worth of c.d.s that was going to go sour. >> reporter: c.d.s meaning? >> credit default swaps. okay. and we weren't bailing out a.i.g.; we were bailing out the banks because the banks had bought a lot of low caliber or subprime loans, wrapped some insurance around it from a.i.g. and said, "presto! we have a triple "a" security on our balance sheet." they didn't! they had garbage on their balance sheet and the bailout was to make sure that they didn't suffer multi $10 billion write-downs on that a.i.g. supported loan. >> reporter: so if you'd been in the administration after lehman

brothers failed, you wouldn't have supported bailout out a.i.g.? >> absolutely not. it was the single most, you know, drastic error in policy in modern history going back to the 1930s. this was exactly the wrong thing to do. it's destroyed any basis for fiscal discipline in the united states. i was a member of congress and i know how they think and they think by analogy. if you did it for john, you've got to do it for bob. there is no way that any congress is ever going to vote against farm subsidies or ethanol subsidies or housing subsidies or anything else, refrigerator subsidies. once we've made this tremendous bailout for wall street and we stepped into a.i.g... >> reporter: well spoken like a true gunslinger, but you would have been taking an enormous risk. >> it's part of the capitalist system. you know, if an investment bank gets in trouble, it ought to fail. if a hedge fund gets in trouble,

it ought to fail. the idea that our system is so fragile that the failure of lehman brothers or even goldman sachs which could have happened allegedly in the next few days would have brought the whole system down, i think is baloney. i think it's an urban legend that was created by wall street. almost everyone i talk to says "too big to fail" is a bad idea and yet in republican and democrat administrations alike, it has been the de facto policy. >> reporter: why? >> i think part of the problem is that wall street has this tremendous army of lobbyists who strangle in the cradle any decent idea before it can see the light of day. >> reporter: which sounded a lot like stockman's political polar opposite, paul krugman. >> this is as raw an incidence of the power of money in preventing us from doing something that everybody knows we should do that i've ever seen. >> reporter: and now both men favor a new tax on risk-taking financial institutions. which prompted one last question

for ronald reagan's budget director, famous for the "starve the beast" argument that tax cuts would force government to cut spending. do you still feel that way? >> i think the lesson of the last 25 years is that it doesn't work. you can keep cutting taxes until you reach the point where this year... the year just ended we spent $3.6 trillion and only collected $2.2 trillion, so we are now so far out of kilter that it's irrelevant. taxes are going to have to be raised and the beast needs to be trimmed back, but can it be starved enough even begin to cope with our fiscal problem. and this is where i think all the politicians are faking in both parties, but the republicans especially. the republicans think their mission in life is to cut taxes. sorry, game over! we're in the tax raising business and we're going to be in the tax raising business for the next decade. david stockman, thank you very much. thank you.

>> lehrer: to the analyses on shields and brooks and david brooks. mark, scott brown has finally officially become the 41st republican senator. how much is it going to matter? >> well, it's going to matter a lot to republicans because the reason he came in early, he was supposed to come in next week was the national relations board has been stymied for years now because there's only two and it requires three for a quorum. that serves the american business who haven't had a worker complaint acted upon. the senate labor committee reported out craig baker, union

friendly, worker friendly nominee and he's going to be voted upon and mitch mcconnell in the chamber of commerce said scott come on down and down he came. i can tell you this -- >> lehrer: are there other ramifications. >> the ramifications i think are apparent already. there's panic in the democratic rank. first of all they lost massachusetts, and that just makes everybody vulnerable. everybody who is up facing re-election. secondly the panic is there's a loss of confidence in the whitehouse political operation but they didn't see it coming. they in no way anticipated what was coming didn't act upon it. so there's an anxiety. are we all in trouble of vulnerability. i think that's the principal emotion that's dominated the democratic side. >> lehrer: david, some say this is a good thing because it's going to cause everybody on both sides to kind of get together because if they don't get together, there isn't going

to be any governing. >> yes, right. well some people say it's a good thing and some people are spinning you, it's not a good thing. some people say some democrats say we never really have 60 votes anyway, this just makes it obvious. i guess that point is fair enough. i'm struck by their sort of like three climatic moves, especially thursday, yesterday. the republicans are just excited. the republicans on the hill there, all the prospective house candidates are arriving on the hill to talk through how they're going to run in november and they're coming out of the woodwork. dan coats in indiana was going to run in the senate. a former senator will challenge kevin by. the republicans feel the wind is at our backs, keep it going. on the congressional democrats you've got as mark described these degrees of panic. frankie from minnesota attacking david axal rod, lincoln criticizing president obama this week for not being liberal or not being conservative or different.

then on the whitehouse side i detect an atmosphere of serenity. there's constancy, keep on keeping on. they're not fighting amongst themselves, they're not really changing, they're not going to switch into some clintonite mode. there are these three different groups. >> does that mean that president obama and his folks feel they're off the hook now because they can blame a lot of the republican no voting obviously and take the heat off themselves. is that what's going on here? >> that may be part of it. it's a major element in the serenity david describes is the calendar. every host member is up every two years. they're all facing the voter's verdict this november. the president has a four year term and a four year cycle. remind you of president reagan

who lost 26 seats in his attempt and got re-elected four years later. clinton lost 56 seats and got re-elected. so the serenity is partly induced by the fact that look it may be rough patch right now. we're not on the ballot this november, the other people are. >> i also think, well it's partly that. i think also to their credit they're not fighting, they're not stabbing each other in the back in the whitehouse. there still seems to be general cohesion. i also think they don't get it as much members of congress. members of congress are more directly connected to the electorate so the tie that is out there which i think is a very powerful tie and should never been under estimated, i don't quite think they in the whitehouse understand how unusual the political circumstances we are now in. >> lehrer: coming up with another thing which is part of the huge focus to the 41 votes, the super majority, the 60 votes required to get anything through congress.

how do you come down on that? >> i think as a matter of culture, if we had a culture of bipartisanship i think the 60 votes would be invoked less frequently. we would go back to that period. i would like to see do that. i'm not sure i would like to see a legislative change totally eliminated. republicans tried when they were in office and now a lot of democrats are talking about it in part because i do think the 60 votes a represents some caution in our government, and two, it forces some level of bipartisanship. in general over the long haul i think that's generally healthy, it's worth tolerating the inconvenience that the party in power always feel to get that 60 votes. >> lehrer: you have a filibuster position, mark. >> i do, yes. >> lehrer: what is it. >> president biden made a good point when he said losing, putting as rosy a scenario as he could on the result, losing the 60th vote was really a sense of relief because you were expected to pass things. it's a little bit of serenity but there's a certain reality in

the sense now there is a responsibility on the other side as well. because when you have the 60, there's the sense well we can do it, we don't have to pay attention to the other side and the other side is therefore just not only simply ignored, but they're alleviated of any responsibility. i do think, jim, that, i'm not against breaking the 60. i do think we have to return to the concept of constitutional majority. and that's 51 senators. i mean, george bush would not have passed his tax cuts without using 51 senators. they bypassed the 60. they went directly to voting through what they call a recollect sill information. but it was a constitutional majority. ronald reaganen's tax cuts would not have been passed. the medicare provisions under george bush in the pharmaceutical drugs would not have been passed, except with 51 votes, 53 votes by going, bypassing the 60. i think it's time for the majority, the 59 to use the

constitutional and vote the constitutional majority and say there are important things that have to be done in this country, i'm sorry we're not going to stand that finality of the 60. we saw the spirit of bipartisanship already today when dick shelby, richard shelby the republican senator in alabama put a hold on 70 nominees of the administration who are on the executive calendar waiting to be confirmed. why? because the air to air tanker contract from mobile, alabama has been held up by the pentagon. some people call that an earmark. that's partisanship at this point. >> lehrer: is it. >> that's that one person can do this and that's always been the case. the senate famously juices the milk cools, seam messing that up but it's sort of like things rush through and things cool down in the senate. they want a government in which it's extremely difficult to do stuff and it's extremely

difficult because of the polarization. to me it's the polarization that's a problem not the constitution. the polarization has cost us to resort to the 60 much more often as necessary. unless you actually get the parties work together to some degree, the rules will change -- changing the rules will not help. >> lehrer: second of defense gates and admiral mullen already made news with his statement saying it's time to move on from don't ask don't tell in the military. what do you think of that? >> well,ists really struck by admiral mullen's words. he's a naval officer since 1968. i've served with gay service members who served their country well. i've known that. and i have come to the conclusion that this is unacceptable to exclude people and isolate them on the basis of their sexual orientation. i think in this case, jim,

people have compared it to race and harry truman in 1948. in that case, the president and the military were reading society. i mean, to desegregate a major american institution in 1948 was really -- >> it came out of no where. >> it came out of no where but it was an historic act. i think now, just looking this morning, in 1987, the peer poll asked do you think a local school board hands the right to fire a teacher who is a known homosexual. 51% americans thought it did just on that basis alone. 20 years later it dropped to 28%. and it's dropped even more you can be sure today now three years later because it's a generational thing. i think in this case, the military is basically following society and its lead. >> lehrer: do you agree with that. >> i agree. the i support the move and support the way they've done it and they've done it in a very slow way. we're going to study it try to reconcile it and sometimes you put something into a study when you don't want to kill it.

in this case, for a lot of us who would like to see it done faster, we're not in the military. it would be a mistake to try to impose this from outside on to that institution. i think it's important to let that institution get used to the idea. and i think there's, if there continues to be leadership to the top, you'll get progress without rejection or recoil which would come if you tried to push it too quickly. i think the way they're doing it is actually quite wise. >> lehrer: what about the idea here, it was president obama who first mentioned this, very direct way and in the stated of the union address just a few days ago and now suddenly the secretary of defense says that's fine that's fine and they challenge the joint chiefs and the republicans are saying they're being ordered to do this by the president. >> i don't think gates and mullen are necessarily ordered by colin powell in his day. he's now changed his mind but in his day he said no, i'm not ready for this. so i suspect there are a lot of people especially at the top of the military who have shifted.

i suspect a lot of people in private have shifted just as society has shifted. nonetheless i do think the pace they're going on while very slow is correct. >> lehrer: the marine corps and the secretary crushed him not to do it in a hurry. admiral millen was very frankie he said he spent the last year figuring out how to deal with the problems. it didn't come as a surprise to him. he had come to this conviction himself. >> lehrer: one of the most outspoken of this criticizing mullen to his face income are you reading what's going on with john mccain right now. >> there are two things at work. first of all when anybody runs for president, there's a burst of pride in the home state voters. and when that candidate loses as most candidates for presidents

do, like 95% do and they turn and they say, you know, you did a hell of a job, what are you doing running for president. mccain's got that going against him in arizona. but in addition to that, he has problems. he's being challenged on his right by jd hey worth the former how can conservative republican from the state. anti-immigration, harshing however you want to put it, going after mccain. going after mccain as well on his opposition to george bush's tax cuts in the previous administration. so john mccain, the thing that really surprised me the most was, he was a supporter of the greg conrad budget commission to bring down the deficit, which required the members to consider openly both tax cuts and entitlement cuts. it was a tough tonic. he was the sponsor of it and he ended up voting against it. and the only explanation that

even people who loved john mccain can do at this point is that the fear of being considered soft on taxes, on tax increases would make him vulnerable in the primary and i think for that reason he deserted a position he held. >> there's been a series of shifts back campaign finance, global warming, the gays in the military. there's that element and i can't psycho analyze mccain. i think there's also a great deal of anger in the military -- excuse me, of the media, he was a darling and felt was disloyal to him in the campaign. great deal of anger at president obama who he thinks is a bad president. so i think there's a lot else going on that has to do with running for president, losing that has shifted in a more conservative direction. whether it's intellectual shift, an owe motional shift or political shift caused by jd heyworth. all those things probably played some role in what has been a shift to

the right for john mccain. >> does he seem to be more angry than he has been in the past. >> when he came back after he won he was energized. remember the stimulus debate he was very outspoken in that. he's been outspoken in the senate but i guess among fellow senators they would say he's become angrier. no one loses the presidential election is affected by it. everyone is affected by it in some way. >> lehrer: thank you very much, both of you. >> brown: finally tonight: the catastrophe in haiti through the words of a haitian-born poet. >> my name is michele. michele voltaire marcelin. i'm an artist, poet, spoken word performer. i'm a teacher and mother and daughter. i live in brooklyn, new york. i was born in port-au-prince. we lived in an area in port-au-

prince which was called cortage. it was by the sea. i lived with five siblings. my mother and father. but very extended family because we had uncles and aunts who also lived in the neighborhood. my mother is still there. when the catastrophe happened, the very first thing i did was call her number and this is all i kept on doing, calling the number until i would reach her. it was a few days when i did.

>> i wrote a few lines that came to me after the earthquake, which i think were very important to me because before the earthquake, we've been talking so much about how we were divided as a people. and how we needed to be together. "underneath the beauty was a rift in the heart of the land was a rift and the rift in the land reached the rift in our heart and we lost our people and the land" it is so sad when i go back and read the poems that i wrote. there was a major hurricane called hurricane jane, which hit the city of gonaives which left 5,000 dead. houses engulfed in mud. children dead. and i wrote this poem and after

the earthquake i went back and looked at it and i said, "my god, if i changed just the words water to the words cement or earth, it will have been the same. "life is split at the seams no one knows the exact number of the dead they were ours they were yours and mine yet we let them die so i will write a poem and you will write a letter and he will send some money and she will say a prayer but we will forget as we have forgotten before we closed our eyes covered ourselves up when this island without secrets

this island caught upside down spread open by the great storm went belly up exposing memories and guts disaster on disaster mud on mud life is split at the seams" >> lehrer: again, the major developments of the day. there was a drop in the unemployment rate in january, even as employers shed jobs. and the president of toyota apologized to customers worldwide for the recall of more than eight million vehicles. the "newshour" is always online. hari sreenivasan, in our newsroom, previews what's there. hari? >> sreenivasan: there's more about the employment picture on our "making sense" site, we have a web-only video with an economist who calls for a federal jobs program. plus, we surveyed small business owners asking them how best to create jobs.

judy woodruff's series on climate change legislation continues. tonight, the view of texas congressman joe barton, the ranking republican on the house energy and commerce committee. a conversation about the newly published version of ralph ellison's second unfinished novel. jeffrey brown talks to john callahan, the book's editor, who worked on the project for more than 30 years. and for those facing a record- breaking snowstorm this weekend, our "art beat" blog has a seasonal slideshow-- photographs of snowflakes taken 100 years ago by a vermont farmer-turned photographer named wilson bentley. here's a taste of it. >> it would take a microscope and he jury rigged some way of attaching it to his big clunky bellows camera. and then after a long period of trial and error, a lot of failure with a lot of early scientists and photographers maybe, voila, he discovered that

he could take a photograph of a snow flake. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> lehrer: and again, to our honor roll of american service personnel killed in the iraq and afghanistan conflicts. we add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. here, in silence, are 11 more.

>> brown: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. i'm jeffrey brown. >> lehrer: and i'm jim lehrer. can be seen later this evening on most pbs stations. we'll see you on-line and again here monday evening. have a nice weekend. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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