Transcripts For KQED PBS NewsHour 20101006

book, "young guns," a republican manifesto for the upcoming midterm elections. >> the overwhelming number of newly elected members come january,' 11 will be members seeking reform. >> brown: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> brown: a high profile freedom of speech case went before the supreme court today in a classic battle of first amendment rights versus individual privacy. it was all sparked by an emotionally-charged protest at the funeral of a u.s. marine. kwame holman begins our report. a warning: this story contains language that may be offensive to some viewers. >> reporter: members of the westboro baptist church of topeka, kansas, gathered outside the supreme court this morning carrying their signature signs and condemning america for its acceptance of homosexuality. inside, the justices heard arguments centering on the church's right to protest at military funerals. >> by your proud sin, america, you have imperiled your soldiers. >> reporter: reverend fred phelps is founder of westboro baptist, and the church is made up almost entirely of his large family. they have traveled the country protesting at more than 200 funerals of service members killed in iraq and afghanistan, regardless of their sexual orientation. margie phelps is fred phelp's daughter. >> it is irrelevant whether that soldier or any of these soldier was homosexual. the primary point can be recapped like this: when you don the doomed american military uniform today, that stands for one thing in this world: same- sex marriage. >> reporter: marine lance corporal matthew snyder was killed in iraq in 2006. the phelps traveled to maryland to protest at his funeral. they brought signs that read "thank god for dead soldiers," "you're going to hell," and others with strong anti-gay language. corporal snyder's father, albert, sued the phelpses for intentionally inflicting emotional distress. we spoke with snyder and his attorney, sean summers. >> the phelps targeted me and my family by name, and they took away the last chance i had to bury my son. the only chance i had to bury matt. >> reporter: today, margie phelps defended her family before the court. >> the rule of law that is implicated whenever someone steps up and says "your words upset me," it's a long-standing- - i mean, well over 100 years in jurisprudence of this nation-- is that the court will not allow the use of an inherently subjective standard like outrage like offense, like annoyance to punish speech when the only thing you are claiming is an adverse emotional impact. >> reporter: 21 media organizations, including the "new york times," the associated press and n.p.r. along with the a.c.l.u. wrote the court in support of the phelps' first amendment rights. >> they asked a whole series of questions struggling with the obvious. there's no line that can be drawn here without shutting down a lot of speech. >> reporter: at the court today, sean summers argued funerals are private events and a family should be free from such a demonstration when mourning the loss of a child killed in service to his country. >> the problem now is whenever al thinks about the funeral, he is also going to think about the phelps, and that is not a lasting memory anyone wants to have regardless. >> reporter: snyder initially was awarded close to $11 million by a jury, but later a federal appeals court threw out the case. snyder then went to the u.s. supreme court. >> you can avert your eyes and reject those words. mr. snyder needs to stop crying and man up. his conscience is bothering him because he didn't do right by his son. he is not going to get peace or satisfaction by trying to shred the first amendment. >> this is a funeral we're talking about, for god's sake. this is a funeral. i do not understand what kind of society do we want if we can't even bury our dead in peace. nobody in the history of this country has ever done this at a funeral. no one. and their own expert witness testified to that in court. it is a funeral. for god's sake, is nothing sacred? >> reporter: the supreme court now will render its decision balancing freedom of speech and the right to privacy. >> brown: marcia coyle of the "national law journal" was of course in the courtroom for today's arguments. she joins us now. marcia, incredibly charged, extraordinarily charged case. what was the atmosphere at the court today. >> well, the courtroom was packed, jeff, with public spectators, members of the bar and also the press. there wasn't a spare seat that i could see. there's also a sense of anticipation because obviously this case has attracted a lot of attention and all of us were anxious to see what the justices would say, what they were interested in. and it was clear that they did feel the emotion. at one point, justice ginsburg said "this is a case about exploiting a grieving family." >> brown: mr. snyder's side went first and we just saw him in kwame's piece saying "this is a funeral we're talking about." is that the argument his lawyer is made. >> well, he opened his argument with that statement, very stark. we're talking about a funeral. if context is ever going to matter, it has to matter in the context of a funeral. and that sent the justices off on a series of questions . justice ginsburg: does mr. snyder really is a claim here? she noted that these protestors were not in close proximity to the church, that i didn't block the entrance for attendees, and that the protest ended a few minutes after the service began. and he said what this is here is some of the speech on the signs as well as a video that was on the church's web site was private targeted speech and that is not protected by the first amendment. >> brown: this question of being a private person versus a public figure is very important in first amendment cases. >> it's very key to him because there was an earlier supreme court decision involving the late reverend jerry falwell who sued hustler magazine for the same type of injury: injury: inl infliction of emotional distress and he lost in the supreme court in part because he was a public figure. >> reporter: margie phelps, we saw her in the piece, she's a daughter of reverend phelps. she argued the case herself. what were her key points? >> well, she wants the court tos a public figure and she told the court that he became a public figure shohortly after his son's death when he made comments to the media about the war and about the loss of human lives. she then faced a series of questions from the justices about when do you become a public figure if you've been >> reporter: hungary has declared a state of emergency amid fears heavy rain will speed the spread of the sludge. one major river has already been polluted and the danube is threatened. the e.u. says rivers and lakes in six countries are in danger of being contaminated. a criminal inquiry has started. the company says the dam was inspected on monday, nothing untoward was seen, nor was there anything they could do to avert what they called a natural catastrophe. company managers said the waste isn't classified as hazardous under e.u. regulations, which prompted hungary's interior minister to suggest they should swim in it. >> (translated): in terms of who's responsible, we can now declare that there was no natural disaster. but it's not where the wall of the reservoir broke, so the next question is to determine who is responsible for this tragedy. >> reporter: looking like toys, diggers have begun to plug the giant breach in the reservoir wall to try to prevent more waste spilling out. >> sreenivasan: the toxic spill is blamed for at least four deaths so far. the death toll from flooding and landslides across air asia has topped 110. most of the dead were in eastern indonesia where days of heavy rain touched off landslides. thousands of homes were damaged and villagers were left to trudge through muddy torrents. in central vietnam, people had to claim on roof tops to escape rising water. the chinese island of hainan was also hard hit with 64,000 people forced to evacuate. white house officials may have blocked the coast guard and noaa from initially telling the public the worst about the b.p. oil disaster. that's according to the national commission investigating the spill. it said today that early estimates of the gulf spill range from 2.7 million to 4.6 million gallons a day. the figure released to the public was 210,000 gallons. the administration today disputed the findings. it said senior officials announce in early may that the worst case could top four million gallons a day. the nobel prize in chemistry today recognized research that is used in everything from new cancer drugs to slimmer computer screens. the award went to american richard heck and two japanese scientists, akira suzuki and ei- ichi negishi. in the 1960s and '70s, they used the metal palladium to find new ways to bond carbon atoms, to help build complex molecules. heck is now affiliated with the university of delaware and lives in the philippines. >> well, i am very, very honored to get this and, of course, i am very happy to receive it. and i guess i would say it was a total surprise, but it was something that i knew was a possibility, but i didn't really expect it. >> reporter: heck was the only american among the nobel science prize winners this year. there had been at least two every year since 1991. wall street had a mixed day after a disappointing report on the jobs market. the payroll company a.d.p. reported private employers cut jobs in september for the first time in seven months. the dow jones industrial average gained nearly 23 points to close at 10,967. the nasdaq fell 19 points to close at 2,380. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to margaret. >> warner: and to pakistan and its strained relationship with the united states as washington pursues the war in afghanistan. militants struck twice more at at nato supply convoys in pakistan today. in one attack, some two dozen fuel tankers were torched and a driver killed on the outskirts of quetta. >> ( translated ): this morning, armed people came in two cars and opened fire. those under fire fled, and some of these armed men went to the tankers and torched them. these are all oil tankers. >> warner: the truck convoys haul supplies to u.s. and nato troops in afghanistan, but last week's pakistan government decision to close a key border crossing has left hundreds of trucks stranded along its highways-- sitting ducks in the backed up traffic. the current standoff was triggered when two nato helicopters flew into pakistani airspace to conduct a raid last thursday. they fired at and killed two pakistani border guards at an outpost in the upper kurram tribal area 200 yards inside the border. the killings enraged pakistan's government and, within hours, it blocked the crucial torkham crossing over the khyber pass. usually, nato supplies land at the port of karachi and are trucked to afghanistan on a northern route through torkham or a southwestern route through chaman. the chaman crossing remains open. the pakistani taliban has claimed responsibility for several of the attacks. on monday, nato secretary- general anders rasmussen formally apologized to pakistan's foreign minister in brussels. he called the killings of the border guards "unintentional." today, the u.s. ambassador to pakistan anne patterson issued an apology. also today, a joint pakistani/nato investigation concluded that the pakistani border guards had fired shots to alert the helicopters of their presence, but the helicopter crews mistook them for insurgents. nato and u.s. officials have said they expect the border crossing to reopen shortly. and on tuesday, pentagon spokesman geoff morrell played down any long-term fallout. >> there are incidents which create misunderstandings, there are setbacks, but that does not mean the relationship-- this crucial relationship to us-- is in any way derailed. >> warner: but the dispute has underscored tensions with the u.s. over pakistan's willingness to press the fight against al qaeda and the taliban. the "wall street journal" reported today on a new assessment sent to congress by the obama administration. among its conclusions: the report also says that challenges facing pakistan's civilian leadership "have the potential to impact the stability of the government," and it says the government's failure to respond adequately to the recent flood disaster has sent public confidence to new lows. the white house report's findings echo doubts voiced by administration officials in a new book by bob woodward. at one point, he quotes president obama as saying: last week, at a washington forum, the u.s. special envoy to pakistan and afghanistan, richard holbrooke, underscored the challenge. >> the overall relationship with pakistan is complicated, more complicated than any other strategic relationship i've ever been involved in. but at the end of the day, success in afghanistan-- however you define success-- is not achievable unless pakistan is part of the solution, not part of the oblem. >> warner: to shore up pakistan, congress last year approved a giant package of non-military aid: $7.5 billion over five years. the u.s. has sent additional funds to help deal with the floods-- more than $360 million so far. for a closer look at the strains in this crucial alliance, we're joined by: shuja nawaz, director of the south asia center at the atlantic council and author of its recent report, "pakistan in the danger zone: a tenuous u.s./pakistan relationship"; and david ignatius, a columnist for the "washington post." he recently returned from a reporting trip to pakistan. and welcome back to you both. shuja nawaz, beginning with you. how serious is this rift over the helicopter raids and the blocked border crossing? >> i think it reflects the general mistrust-- which is pretty deep-- and it was extremely badly handled, i believe, by nato and by the coalition. the apology that was tendered today could have easily been done at the very outset, which would have stopped the pakistanis using the blockage of the convoys in torkham and it would have been resolved quite directly and immediately. they missed an opportunity, they got caught in legal ease, i believe based on one report i've received that helicopters were actually returning back towards afghanistan when they came upon this post on which they fired. if that is correct, then nato should have been aware of that. >> warner: how do you read this david? >> well, as your report showed, this is a week in which all attentions that are in this relationship were evident. whatever i look at pakistan andh the relationship, i try to caution myself that public pronouncements, public anger, doesn't tell you the whole story. the reality right now is that these are two countries that need each other badly, and they have a history of patching things together and muddling through. and you'd have to guess that in this case that will happen again but i last week was in pakistan. i had the experience two days before this helicopter attack in which members of the pakistani frontier corps were killed by american fire visiting a training camp northwest of peshawar in which u.s. special forces sort of in secret are training members of that same frontier corps to go out and fight in the tribal areas. so that shows the degree of complexity in this relationship. >> warner: pakistan and the u.s. really are engaged in a covert war inside pakistan. much more than either side acknowledges, right? >> yes and for quite a long time the civilian government has been speaking out of both sides of its mouth and has inflamed public opinion, particularly with regard to the droneses. >> warner: the unmanned predator drone attacks that have seen a huge increase in september? >> yes. in september it was the largest-ever number of attacks in any one month since the drone attacks began in the region. but now in recent months the government had stopped using this as a stick to beat the u.s. with and public opinion was gradually accepting them. but clearly now with the timetable looming, the u.s. hand the coalition is going to be forced into all these measures to regain momentum. >> couric: you're talking about the timetable that president obama has set to begin to dial back in afghanistan, which is middle of next year. >> yes. and that's going to create tensions within pakistan and particularly as you reported in north waziristan where they have a huge force presence. something like 35,000 men. but they haven't moved against haqqani. >> warner: the haqqani network, the al qaeda-allied network. so, david, is there essentially a fundamental difference between pakistan and the u.s. over how to fight or to what degree to fight al qaeda and its affiliates or is it because the pakistani military is stretched too thin? >> well, the pakistani military says that's why it can't conduct the offensive in north waziristan that the u.s. would like and i think most u.s. officials recognize that certainly after the flood they are stretched too thin. that they probably couldn't do it. when i talked to pakistani commanders in this zone, in peshawar and outside, they basically said don't expect us to clear north waziristan this juror or probably even next year. i think the frustration for the u.s. is basically we're looking at this porous border. the haqqani network-- really one of the most blood thirsty networks, in our view-- streaming into afghanistan. and general petraeus is saying to the pakistanis "either you do this or we'll do this." we don't really have the forces to back that up. and so in the end, it's not being done. there's tremendous frustration. i think u.s. commanders see the time ticking out on their mission in afghanistan knowing that unless they close the safe havens, they've got trouble. >> warner: so that brings up afghanistan front and center. do the two governments actually have different... a key difference in their aim there is? what's the end state they'd like to see? >> i think pakistan, like most countries in the region, heard the president's speech at west point last year and saw july, 2011, as the date by which the american military would begin withdrawing and the speed is not clear. but that's what they heard and that's what they are hedging their bets on. clearly they don't see a military solution to the conflict in afghanistan. success will be defined by how quickley the afghans take over the fight and how much reconciliation can bring back people like haqqani or other elements of the taliban. >> warner: but, i mean, petraeus and karzai are saying the same thing, essentially, it has to be a political solution. so what's the friction point between washington and islamabad on the afghan conflict? >> the friction point is that the pakistani government would like to be the key broker of any deal that's done with the taliban. and they feel now that they're being excluded. they hear reports about the u.s., the karzai government, the british, various people talking with elements of the taliban. i actually think there's a little less going on than the news of the last week might suggest in terms of real progress. it's in the u.s. interest, of course, for the taliban to think that there are elements of the taliban that are doing a secret deal and that will sew division. but the pakistanis are very frustrated. they think they're being cut out of something and they're saying "you've got to bring us in because it won't work otherwise." >> warner: you know, underlying both in this report, this n.s.c. document and also in the woodward book is the fund amendmental nervousness about the fundamentally... the stability of the pakistani government. do you think that's well foundd? >> i think there's adequate evidence of the weakness of the civilian government. it's been evident in the recent floods in pakistan and the very poor and tardy response to that and the fact that the military had to step in. and even withdraw 70,000 troops from the borders in order to cope with that. so that has really upset the very delicate balance inside the country. >> warner: wean the military and the civilian government? >> exactly. and that's something that the u.s. and pakistan should be aware of. because pakistan's needs are now going to be enormous for a number of years to come and rather than have this kind of mexican standoff on attacks across the border and closing the supply route, they need to focus on where that aid is going to come from. pakistan will need the aid, the u.s. needs pakistan to ensuring stability in afghanistan leading up to july, 2011 and beyond. >> warner: but the real nightmare scenario is that neither military nor civilian government in pakistan can hold it together and that these nuclear weapons can fall into other hands. >> yes. >> couric: how nervous are the people you talk to about that? >> i think the nervousness about the nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the taliban is more something in the press than... >> couric: so that's... >> warner: so that's not driving this? it's an unlikely scenario. this report the white house sent to congress is stunningly frank about how badly things are going in pakistan and afghanistan. reading the discussion, this issue of the civilian government, the weak civilian government versus the military, you almost feel v the feeling that's what's happened-- and the u.s. is really recognizing this-- is a kind of soft military intervention. the military is now the decisive force in just about everything. and this report basically says that's so. doesn't endorse it, but it accepts that it's reality. >> warner: this very frank tone in this, as you said. david ignatius, shuja nawaz, thank you. >> brown: now, the latest housing market mess-- this one to do with what may well be hundreds of thousands of tainted foreclosures. >> we're ally. >> brown: it started last month, when ally financial, the nation's fourth-largest mortgage lender, halted evictions of homeowners in 23 states from maine to new mexico. the lender, formerly known as g.m.a.c., admitted employees signed thousands of foreclosure documents without reading them, a practice dubbed "robo- signing." luey fernandez is one of thousands of people who could be affected. >> they never answered me, they never called me, they never got in touch with me. >> brown: the loan officer on his case has acknowledged authorizing more than 10,000 foreclosures a month without reading them. >> there is something very, very sneaky behind all this. >> brown: and the problem has now spread to j.p. morgan chase and bank of america, the nation's largest bank and a newshour underwriter. both banks have now frozen foreclosures in some two dozen states. the potential number of cases involved could be staggering. >> you're dealing with 50,000 loans in one case, maybe 50,000 40,000 60,000 in another. that's plenty of paperwork to have to go through. >> brown: in the meantime, in recent days, maryland governor martin o'malley, delaware attorney general beau biden, and texas attorney general gregg abbot have asked lenders to suspend foreclosures in their states. today, north carolina attorney general roy cooper added his state to the list. there's mounting pressure in washington, as well. yesterday, house speaker nancy pelosi and 30 other california democrats wrote to the justice department, the federal reserve and the comptroller of the currency. they said: and they asked regulators to investigate whether lenders broke any federal laws. in addition, senate democrats al franken of minnesota and robert menendez of new jersey have asked that congress' investigative arm get involved. they want the government accountability office to examine whether regulators overlooked problems at the mortgage companies. >> we are aware of the charges. >> brown: today, u.s. attorney general eric holder said a mortgage fraud task force is looking into the allegations. and for more we turn to: michael calhoun, president of the center for responsible lending, a policy, research and advocacy group-- the center served as co- counsel in one of the current foreclosure cases in maine; and christopher mayer, professor of real estate, finance and economics at columbia university's business school. we contacted a number of banking industry trade groups and lenders; none agreed to join us for our discussion. mike calhoun, i'll start with you, you're familiar with this process that people go through. fill in the picture that we just presented a bit. what have some foreclosure processors allegedly done? >> well, this is a critical breakdown in one of the most important safeguards in the foreclosure process. before a bank or lender goes to court to take somebody's home, they're required by law to have someone individually review the paperwork and the payment history to make sure the person is, in fact, behind on the mortgage, has not been charged improper fees. and then they certify under oath, under personality of perjury that they have done this individual review. we've now found that on an industry-wide basis that was totally ignored. and that means there are a lot of people out there who had foreclosure proceedings brought against them when they shouldn't have. and we're talking a lot of people. there are about two and a half million households in foreclosure right now, another two and a half million people are at risk of foreclosure because they're behind on their mortgages. >> brown: chris mayer, what's your take on it? what explains why it's happening and why with such numbers and why with such prominent institutions? >> well, i think that this is part of what's been an endemic problem in the industry which was we rush to make mortgages with little to no documentation and we were... you know, the rapid growth in securitize lending between between 2002 and 2005 we almost quadrupled the size of the privately securitized mortgage market and that led to, i think, people pushing too quickly. and then on the other side, people have just been overwhelmed. the industry has never been able to manage this kind of a problem and it's shown up in problems with foreclosures, it's shown up in problems with contacting people and trying to figure out how to resolve many of the problems. >> brown: mike calhoun, i want to understand this even more here. are we talking about people who have lost a home who should not have lost a home or bad paperwork that might have affected the process? >> it's both, but you can't tell without this important part of the process to determine. >> brown: so it's just that we don't know. >> it's sort of throwing darts at the wall determining who has got a foreclosure and who has a defense and shouldn't be foreclosed. and professor mayer makes a real important point. it used to be that you would get a home loan from your local bank, they would keep the loan and you would deal with them throughout the process. now the model has been you take out a home loan and then that loan is sold off to investors and to other institutions and another company who doesn't own the loan is the one collecting, processing your payments, and also bringing these foreclosure proceedings. so there's a real disconnect there. these companies are not the ones typically that own the loan, they're just foreclosing for someone else. and so they don't have the same incentives, the same need and incentive for care if... they would have if they held the loan and had a lifetime relationship with you. >> brown: so when we start to look at the impact, chris mayer, first of all, the people who are in these homes, what happens to them now? >> well, i think this is one of those places where i think as mike said we don't quite know yet. i mean, we know from other data not just from these... from the problems with the foreclosures that, you know, they're about 5.2 million people who are seriously delinquent, 60 days or worse on their mortgage. i think what we don't know for sure in individual cases, i think it's pretty like they the vast majority of these are problems of paperwork as opposed to the fact that there are just people who haven't made payments and don't underestimate... if you kick people out of theirié home, even in a small number of cases who don't deserve it, the losses are... you know, the cost to us are very large. so we have to fix these problems all that said, i think what's likely to be the case is that we're still going to find the vast majority of these are going to proceed once these sort of... you know, once a human being actually looks at the process that took place. >> brown: is it possible-- i'll stay with you, chris mayer-- that some lenders will now be more willing to negotiate with people in a tough situation? perhaps on the payments or principle balance just because of this doubt about the foreclosure? >> i think the question about negotiating depends critically on what happens when they sort of look under the hood and see what happens. i will say that we have had some experience with foreclosure moratorium in the past. for example, california, you know, had one in 2008 and what happened was it was a short period where foreclosures sort of slowed. it doesn't appear that that really led to a lot more negotiations. and a lot more resolutions. and i think at the end of the day once somebody takes a look at this, you know, there is going to be an additional impetus, i suspect we will find a few cases where there are people who have been unjustly treated and, you know, those are very serious. but i think we'll find a few cases where we're going to be able to modify the loans. but i'm not sure that... i guess i'm a little pessimistic given our past record on this that we're going to find a large-scale change in the number of people that are eventually gobbing to face a loss in their homes. >> brown: what kind of impact do you see in these people on their homes and on the larger housing market, of course. >> you make an important point about the modifications because the people who are supposed to fill out these foreclosure papers correctly are also the same companies that are supposed to determine if homeowners are eligible for modifications of their loan to keep them in their house. >> brown: which has been a big eschew over the last few years. >> it's been a big issue and it's further evidence... these stories echo the ones that have been aired that people try to get loan modifications, would send their paperwork in over and over again, it would get lost and they'd end up being foreclosed on without ever getting an answer to their modification. so it affects a lot of families in that direct way. in terms of the overall economy, the housing market is a real drag on our current economy which does not need any further handicaps. this just mucking up of the whole system will make it harder to resolve both the modifications, the foreclosures and ultimately the settlement of the housing crisis. and finally it's emblematic in a real way of a larger imbalance that has been in effect between the rights of consumers and the rights of lenders that most families have had the experience. they take out a loan and then they gate notice in the mail that says "send your payments to somebody you've never heard of and if you have a dispute you have to deal with them." and no one was really there looking over those companies' shoulder to make sure that was done fairly. with the passage of the financial reform bill, it sets up this new agency, the consumer protection agency, and now giving it the power which will go into effect next summer to regulate these companies and review and inspect these companies that are servicing your mortgages and deciding whether or not you get foreclosed on. >> brown: and a last word from you, chris mayer. the one positive... potentially positive aspect i've heard in all this is the possibility of giving a kind of floor to the... to housing prices as we have this sort of moratorium and letting the market stabilize a bit. is there the that potential for some upside? >> unfortunately, i think i agree mike on this point as well which is i think the mucking up the system, the uncertainty about what's going to happen is, you know... unless we think this is really going to substantively change what's happening, i think that uncertainty is actually going to be worse, not better, for the housing market. if you're thinking about buying a and you say, well, gee, there's going to be a bunch of foreclosed homes that come on the market six months from now, maybe i'll waitment or if you're a lender saying you know what? i was thinking about lending but i'm afraid six months from now the housing market is going to take a big hit again, i think uncertainty is bad for all of us at the moment. it's bad for confidence by consumers, it's bad for confidence for homeowners and this is just a really unneeded problem. i also agree that we... you know, we're going to have to find better ways in the future intoer to move forward. >> brown: okay. >> but, you know, like what happened with the housing tax credit, we had a temporary boost while the housing tax credit was in force and as soon as it expired, bad news hit again. and i think it really behooves everyone to work quickly to resolve this. >> brown: all right, we'll leave it there. chris mayer and mike calhoun, thank you both very much. >> thank you, jeff. >> thanks a lot. >> warner: finally tonight, a book conversation about the direction of the republican party. "young guns: a new generation of conservative leaders" is a roadmap of sorts for how the g.o.p. should govern if republicans win control of the u.s. house of representatives this fall. it's written by three up-and- coming republican congressmen: paul ryan of wisconsin; eric cantor of virginia; and kevin mccarthy of california. ray suarez sat down recently with two of the three authors to discuss the book. >> suarez: well, congressmen, welcome to you both. >> thanks for having us. >> suarez: in the book, you both take pains to distance yourself from the activities of previous democratic and republican-led congresses. you call the book "young guns" congressman cantor. what's different about you guys? >> well, "young guns" was a project that kevin, paul ryan, and i were working on several years ago. and the name was sort of given to us by fred barnes who'd written an article about the work we were doing. but essentially what happened was we were tired of losing as a party. we didn't want to be a part of what we had seen transpire over the last several years which resulted in the voters firing us in '06 and then again in '08. and what we saw was, you know, we really needed help in terms of finding more people to come to washington to join us, but join us for the right reasons. >> suarez: so to an extent this is not just your... the three of you's argument against the democrat but also to the approach of other republicans? >> the whole concept of "young guns" is about ideas. what we've done is we've taken the brand of "young guns" that fred barnes gave us to go out across the country and find candidates willing to challenge democrats based upon principles that would solve problems. because you're right, we talk about the wrong policies of the democrats but we also talk about the wrong policies that the republicans have and why they got fired. so we look for candidates that maybe have not been elected before but have been successful in their own community and their own business to come to washington to change it. to solve a problem because for too long problems are not being solved. >> suarez: so will there be a hot debate inside the republican caucus if you have a majority in the next congress? >> yes, i do think that the overwhelming number of newly elected members come january '11 will be members seeking reform. seeking to change the way that washington does business, change the way washington looks after taxpayer dollars. i mean, after all, that is a central tenet in the tea party movement today as well as most inspects, democrats and republicans across the country. >> suarez: but if you take the cuts that have been mentioned in policy papers from your side of the aisle and keep all the bush-era tax cuts, those two trend lines don't cross. you don't get to balance at some point in the future. >> there are many ways for us to go and get back on a path towards balance. none of them are easy. so there's no easy solution here >> suarez: so what goes? >> first of all, sparse the tax rates are concerned, you know, so many people are talking about tax cuts when the reality is one of two things is going to happen january 1, 2011. either your tax rates are going to go up or they're going to stay the same. nobody's talking about any tax cuts. and small businesses out there right now are looking to see, oh, my goodness, are my taxes going to go up? can i really afford to keep the lights on and employ people right now? so that's when kevin says first order of business has got to be to settle the uncertainty to so we can get folks back into a mind-set that they can begin to grow again and create wealth. not just depend on the government to take it from them and redistribute it. >> suarez: members of your own caucus have said "don't worry, social security's not on the table, military spending's not on the table, and medicare's not on the table." well, if you take those three and you say "we're walling them off" it's hard to imagine what you could cut to get us to balance at some point in the future. >> not really. not really. >> suarez: give me some examples. >> i'll give you an example. anybody that rides a first class ticket on amtrak, that's only 16%. but you know when you buy that sleeper car tarks t taxpayer spends $364 subsidizing your ticket so you could have your bed drawn down. do you realize that people that represent a union and work for a federal government, they go out on their off time... on their time to work for the union, the federal government pays for that union work. that's another $120 million. do you realize that we give economic aid-- not human tear aid-- to count these have $50 billion or more in debt they owe for us? meaning that we're borrowing 40 cents out of the dollar from china to give them the millions of dollars. there are so many places we could go through one by one. and when we say to do this, do you realize discretionary spending that we're talking about yielding back grew 88% in the last three years? why do you have 87 different programs for child nutrition? couldn't you merge those together and get some savings? business had to do this; homes have to do this. if families are doing it, the government should learn to do it as well. >> suarez: one of the agenda items being discuss bid many members of your caucus is repealing the recently passed health care bill. some parts of it are coming on scream now and you say in the book that the people were not listened to. will you listen if people say "you know that? we like having our 24-year-old son on our health insurance plan. we like not getting kicked off an insurance plan if we actually get sick. we like not being turned down for preexisting conditions." >> sure. right now the ability for insurance companies to deny preexisting... existing coverage shouldn't be tolerated. and we had an answer far in the republican proposal. because we say you should begin to form an adequately fund universal access programs at the state level and then provide a cap as to what the premiums should be in those programs so no one is left without coverage. but for the broad spectrum of population that does not come under the preexisting condition category, we want to work to bring down those costs. and the way you do it is you provide choice. and you begin to try and fix the problems in the existing health care system that we have today, not compound them. and that's exactly what has happened. we all know that doctors and providers are flying off the medicaid rolls now. they're saying we just can't do it anymore because we can't afford it. why would you want to put an additional 15 million people in a system that doctors are fleeing from right now? that's what the obamacare bill did. so we've got to repeal the obamacare bill, provide the health care coverage that people do want, but give it to them in a way that's cost efficient and sustainable. >> suarez: i think when the history of this time in our politics is written, the tea party movement is going to get a lot of attention. and the kind of spontaneity and energy and enthusiasm they've brought to the act of campaigning is something that i think everybody would like to tap into who makes their living in politics. but i'm wondering if you want to govern after these new members get here in january, does it give you a team you can govern with when it's a leaderless highly differentiated point of view kind of group? they're not coming necessarily with your ideas in mind or your ideas in mind or leader boehner's ideas in mind. are you going to be able to unrun with these people? >> we can. the tea party is created not by one single leader, it's organic but it's created around spending and if we don't get that under control, we can lose all. every great society has failed when their debt got too high. so i think it's more than positive. >> the tea party folks that i've spoken to as well as most americans know and can believe in america again. that's what will drive our agenda. people who will come to washington, who will talk straight, tell the truth and not make representations they can't live up to and then deliver for the people. >> suarez: congressman cantor, congressman mccarthy, gentlemen, thank you both. >> thanks for having us. >> brown: and again, the major developments of the day: the u.s. supreme court took up a major first amendment case over a church group's right to protest at a military funeral; and the u.s. apologized for a helicopter raid inside pakistan that led to the pakistanis closing a border crossing for nato supply convoys to afghanistan. and to hari sreenivasan in our newsroom for what's on the newshour online. hari? >> sreenivasan: we have a follow-up on the b.p. oil spill, with the latest findings from the oil commission report on the size of the disaster. on the midterm elections, judy woodruff writes about an unusual phenomenon: candidates who duck debates. that's on the rundown. and see a slideshow of photos from hungary's toxic sludge flow all that and more is on our web site, www.newshour.pbs.org. jeff? >> brown: and that's the newshour for tonight. on thursday, we'll have an interview with supreme court justice stephen breyer about his new book, "making democracy work." i'm jeffrey brown. >> warner: and i'm margaret warner, see you online and again here tomorrow evening. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org announcer: find your voice and share it. american greetings-- proud sponsor of "the electric company." - beaches resorts is a proud sponsor of "the electric company," connecting bright ideas and countless outlets for high-energy excitement. from the u.s. department of education's ready to learn grant, and... - ok, so here are your 5 words. wicked. if someone is wicked, they are not good at all. they're actually really mean and bad,

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