Is governing getting harder because campaigning is getting easier . This morning the the Supreme Court hears argument on another Campaign Finance case. And a decision this time around could be bigger than anything weve seen yet. Meantime, the shutdown standoff enters an eighth day, and just under ten days to go until the deadline to raise the debt limit. While some talk is quietly emerging about a shortterm deal to avoid default and reopen the government, nobody seems to want to take that deal. Education nation. Today a look at the challenges for higher ed from teacher tenure to degree disparities. We have a former party powerbroker turned boilermaker. Former indiana governor and Current University president Mitch Daniels joins me. Good morning from washington. Its tuesday october 8th, 2013. This is the daily rundown. Im chuck todd. Lets get to my first raelds of the morning. Today were trying to get a little closer to the root of the shutdown and the deadlocked congress. Plenty of reasons for it from lawmakers perfecting the art of gerrymandering to the rise of ideological media and social media echo chambers that reinforced the divisions. But one of the biggest reasons, Political Parties themselves have become decentralized and weak. The days of parties and their bosses holding the pursestrings while candidates are forced to play Party Politics are long gone. If youre a prospective candidate and get rejected by a party, you can get support from interest groups. If you cant do that and youre rich, you can fund your own campaign. Or you can find a rich friend to do it for you. The point is you dont need parties anymore. What does that mean . If parties arent the source of money, they arent the source of power, and thats why john boehner cant lead his conference and why leaders in both parties are weaker than theyve ever been. When Mccain Feingold passed in 2002, it seemed we were on the pass to limiting money in politics but it had an unintended consequence. It made it harder for Political Parties to raise big money. Sounded like a great reform at the time. Until, well, then came Citizens United. That provided a blueprint of how to raise money outside the Political Party structure. So big money was back, just not inside the twoparty system, only on the outside. And today we have yet another Supreme Court case with the potential of removing another barrier to campaign donations. The case is called mccutchen versus the ftc and its a direct challenge to donation limits put in place nearly 40 years ago. Let me explain the limits theyre talking about. Federal law limits the total amount you can contribute in a twoyear election cycle. So no one individual can contribute more than 123,200 total to all candidates running for federal office 2013 and 2014. Theres also a base limit of course in place which says an individual cant donate more than 2,600 directly to any one federal candidate during their Campaign Cycle primary in general. An important distinction. Mccutchen isnt challenging the base limit. Hes challenging the aggregate limit. He told Pete Williams he simply wants to be able to get more money to more people. I would like to see more competition, more candidates, more challengers, more ideas, and not every candidate out there can sell funds, so a lot of candidates are faced with raising money from private individuals because the institutional money is going to go to the incumbents. So, again, i think this is about, you know, changing the world for the better and putting competition into the elections which should be a good thing. Its about freedom of speech for all americans. So i should be able to support as many candidates and committees as i choose with my money. You know, its simple, not complicated. So if what happens if the aggregate spending cap is struck down in nearly, you could have a single donor abiding by base limits who is still allowed to contribute millions by spreading it around the party via affiliates or various candidates. In a brief file, it was argued the result would be marginalizing the role of the people as a whole and ensuring the dominance of powerful factions after e elections conclude. However, one other interesting note here. While mccutchen isnt challenging the base limits, some republicans are hoping the case could be a step towards rolling back all contribution limits. In a relatively rare move, the court has fwranlted the lawyer for Senate Republican leader Mitch Mcconnell time to make that case during oral arguments today. So for more on this case, im joined by nbcs justice correspondent Pete Williams and michael toner, election law expert. Pete, you want to get in to listen to oral arguments today. I know weve been through this case a number of times. You and i have talked about it before. While i know that base limits arent supposedly at the root of this, the fact that theyre going to hear that part of it, the likelihood we could have an expansive decision a la Citizens United out of this court. Reporter well, theres always the chance. Anytime the Supreme Court comes near this issue and opens up the box that has that distinction in it, theres always the chance that theyll strike it down. If you look at the past five cases involving Campaign Finance, the Supreme Court has struck down the limits in the law. Now, it hasnt come close to doing this. This distinction between putting limits on contributions but allowing unlimited spending goes back to 1976 when the Supreme Court had its first postwatergate decision on Campaign Finance law. And ever since then, some justices had thought thats a silly distinction. There are at least three votes, justices kennedy, scalia and thomas, who would strike down that distinction and let all contributions be unregulated. So the question is what about the two that havent yet weighed in on this issue . The chief Justice John Roberts and sam alito. Thats where the key to it is. People who support these limbs hope that chief Justice Roberts will not want to take that giant step, but thats not the way he likes to do thing, although look at last years decision on the Voting Rights act and you might question that. The lower court said you can make this distinction for a couple of reasons. First of all, they say a contribution really isnt like speech because spending is and the contributors dont do the spending. The candidates do the spending. So its one step removed from it. But the difficulty for the government here is the logic of saying its okay to give the maximum amount to nine candidates. You just cant give it to ten or more. Thats a difficult logical position for the government to defend, although they do have a defense, they say, if you take down these limits it allows people to get around and circumvent the individual limits and start funneling the money to all the candidates they want. The other thing is as a practical matter theres probably only about 600 people that have ever bumped up against this 123,000 limit or the 48,000 limit in direct contributions to candidates. Well, and i want to bring in michael here. The other issue here is that this seems like a silly it seems like a silly restriction now after Citizens United gave the blueprint. Citizens united didnt start the idea of super pacs. We always want to make that distinction. But essentially election lawyers used Citizens United to come up with this superpab pac blueprint that it does allow mr mr. Mccutchen, he can only give a certain amount of money to federal candidates directly, but superpacs allow him to write unlimited amount of money to candidates in a separate committee. Its an important point. Right now candidates in Political Parties compete against one another for contributions because donors might want to give the maximum but they bump up against this aggregate limit. If thing a regae ing a raggrega struck down, the republican and Democratic National committee no longer would have to compete with one another or the candidates for the maximum amount of money. The other thing thats important is were talking about hard dollars here, personal contributions only, noncorporate funds, nonunion funds that are fully disclosed to the public. This case this morning does not concern soft money funds, funds that are never disclosed to the public. An important distinction. It is, but at the same time, the difference between, quote, unquote, hard and soft money, not to get into lingo here, has really disappeared. There used to be real restrictions on the quote, unquote, soft money that Political Parties at the time what they could spend it on. For instance Terry Mcauliffe had excess funds so he bought the building for dnc because he didnt know what else to do with the money so he thought that might be a way to use it. Now they have come up with so many loopholes that the quote, unquote, soft money, which theres always ways for them to go around it. I think you made a good point about the superpacs. Right now people can give multimilliondollar contributions to superpacs. They have to operate independently of the candidates and parties. If mccutchen prevails it could strengthen the Political Parties where theres more of a ma jor tearian instinct and that money is fully disclosed to the fec. Pete, whos making these arguments today . Reporter senator mcconnell will not with arguing on his own. Hell be represented by counsel. The lawyer for Shaun Mccutchen will present his case, then the solicitor general will argue on the governments side to support the Campaign Finance restrictions. Its the first big case of the term. One other thing, chuck. Theres a pretty big line here. Theres a lot of interest in this case. This is the second day the Supreme Courts been in business. The third branch of government is working despite the government shutdown. And the even the people who put the scaffolding up on the Supreme Court are working. Theyre supposed to be taking it down after a long season of remodeling. Well, i hear you on the government shutdown. Obviously the judiciary not affected at snaul no impact on the shutdown on that . Reporter nationwide the federal courts have said they have enough money to operate for ten days. Now, the Supreme Court has said they would hear argument at the end of the week, they would decide. Theres another argument week coming up next week. Well find out on friday whether theyre going to hear argument next week or whether theyll have to shut down too. Michael, assuming, i think a fair assumption, this court will at least aside with mccutchen on the aggregate limits, whether they go as far as to get rid of individual limits, that is in doubt. That happens, do Political Parties suddenly able to raise more money or do you think its not going to have that much of an impact . I do think its more likely than not, chuck, that the aggregate limits will be struck down by this court. Roberts court is has been skeptical of Campaign Finance restrictions in the last five years. Then the key issue is does the court apply what is known as strict scrutiny for contribution limbs. That has not been the law since buckley versus vallejo. If the that becomes the law, the limits you talk about become vulnerable. If they are vulnerable, thats when these floodgates open and nobodys quite sure what the landscape looks like. That would be a sea change in Campaign Finance. A very, very important Supreme Court case for how the Political Party, the future of them, the future of Campaign Finance, Pete Williams, enjoy these. Be very curious of what you think coming out. Good to have you back. Thank you both. More on this mornings first read coming up. Searching for a solution. Staring everybody in the face. The question is do you take it . As the country moves closer to default. Could the answer be kicking the can down the road . Even for just a few weeks. Well look at options. And the blame game. Republicans bearing the brunt of the shutdown. But nobodys getting out of it unscathed. [ susan ]. As though he had never left. The end. Lovely read susan. But isnt it time to turn the page on your cup of joe . Gevalia, or a cup of johan, is like losing yourself in a great book. May i read something . Yes, please. Of course. A rich, never bitter taste cup after cup. Net weight 340 grams. [ sighs ] [ chuckles ] [ announcer ] always rich, never bitter. Gevalia. They always have. They always will. Thats why you take charge of your future. Your retirement. Ameriprise advisors can help you like theyve helped millions of others. Listening, planning, working one on one. To help you retire your way. With confidence. Thats what Ameriprise Financial does. Thats what they can do with you. Ameriprise financial. More within reach. Well, is eight enough . Eight days a week. Week two of the shutdown. My first read on the shutdown stalemate is next plus the rocky rollout we never expected the savvy Obama Administration would be having internet issues. How the white house tells us theyre fixing those glitches with the Affordable Care act website. Those details coming up. First todays trivia question. First person to tweet the correct answer will get an onair shoutout. Well be right back. For 25 a pop, people can destroy anything they want with their weapon of choice. Find out more on your business sunday morning at 7 30. Building animatronics is all about getting things to work together. The timing, the actions, the reactions. Everything has to synch up. My expenses are no different. Receiptmatch on the business gold rewards card synchronizes your business expenses. Just shoot your Business Card receipts and theyre automatically matched up with the charges on your online statement. Im john kaplan, and im a member of a synchronized world. This is what membership is. This is what membership does. Of providing a free worldclass education for anyone, anywhere. If you look at a khan academy video, they cover everything from basic arithmetic to calculus, trigonometry, finance. You can really just get what you need at your own pace. And so, bank of america came and reached out to us and said, we are really interested in making sure that everyone really understands personal finance. Were like, well, were already doing that. And so it was kind of a perfect match. Back now with a little more of fist read. Day eight, hour 177 and counting of the government shutdown. The nation hits its debt limit a week from thursday according to treasury and its clear the white house is about to take any clean deal House Speaker john boehner could pass. At this hour, the entire republican conference is meeting to talk budget strategy. So far no signs of any sort of shortterm compromise. As the stalemate drags on, the public is becoming more fed up with washington. The poll numbers boil down to bad, worse, and worst. President s numbers are bad. Congressional democrats fair worse. Congressional rapps look the worst and the numbers are declining rapidly. 61 disapprove of congressional democrats. Thats up five points. And 51 disapprove of the president s handling of it, which is essentially even from his last number. The president s Approval Rating is is up slightly as the poll shows more people making up their minds. The white house believes given the president is not running for reelection, they can afford to have his numbers take a little bit of a hit. His hastily planned trip to fema headquarters shows the president doesnt want republican talking points to stick. Theres not a subject that i am not willing to engage in, work on, negotiate, and come up with commonsense compromises on. Were not going to negotiate under the threat of a prolonged shutdown until republicans get 100 of what they want. Really, mr. President , its time to have that conversation before our economy is put further at risk. On monday, white house officials did everything they could to signal that they will take just about any clean deal boehner can cut, even if its just a few weeks. The white house made it very clear unlike in 2011 that includes shortterm extension of the debt limit or opening the government. So a two or threeweek temporary stopgap extension is not out of the question. Again, i think that longer is better for economic certainty and jobs, but it is ultimately up to them. We have never stated and were not saying today that the debt ceiling ought to be or can be any particular length of time. They cant signal it any clearer than that. They will take anything as long as its clean at this point. The white house doesnt want to look like theyre embracing the shortterm extension idea too fully, knowing the more they embrace it the harder it becomes for baner to pass it. But the signals are pretty clear. Temporary solution would leave both sides able to claim they stuck to their lines in the sand. President didnt negotiate until he got a clean bill and boehner would keep his debt limit in the funding fight ahead. Cynics say youre just postponing the battle for six or eight weeks. Yes, you are. That means more time for a deal to get done while the markets stabilize, federal workers go back to work. The question is can boehner make a review like in this . Its the house of indecision. We dont have the votes for a big deal, a small deal, or a shortterm deal. More and more House Republicans are expressing scent schism that refusing to raise the debt limit is actually playing with fire. We have in my Household Budget some bills that have to be paid or some that we can defer or pay partially. We are not going to default on the public debt, but that doesnt mean we have to pay every bill the day it comes in. You think jack lew is lying when he says he cant prioritize. Im not going to say anybody is lying. Im saying hes playing politics when he says that. Alternatives to a clean deal are beginning to pop up. This Morning National journal reports House Republican leaders are floating a proposal that would extend the debt limit for roughly a month and include dollar for dollar cuts. Meanwhile the senate plans to move forward on their own clean bill with no strings attached. But to do so harry reid would need support of all Senate Democrats and six republicans. Not clear where reid has those votes. Lipd say graham and mark kirk said they would be open to voting for closure, advancing the clean bill, raising the debt ceiling. If any senator rejects the proposal, it would prevent the bill from clearing the senate and reaching the house before october 15th. Lets bring in our tuesday gaggle, reed wilson from the washington post, the president of the center for american progress, neera tan den and bill crystal, editor of the Weekly Standard. Welcome to all of you. Bill, let me start with you. It seems to me the white house has signaled a given boehner, you always want to give your adversary here a way out if you think of that position. Theyve given bane err way out. Take anything short term. Debt limit increase. Boehner might be more open to that since everyone agrees you cant default on the debt and its tricky to Start Playing games with prioritizing. House republicans are have passed a bill that would allow the prioritizing of government expenditures. I think the speaker and the House Republican might be able to get 218 republican votes. Is that how you do it, though . Always with the 218 at this point . I dont know. Thats a question. If minority leader if nancy pelosi wants to provide some democratic votes im sure hell be happy to take them. You could get republicans on a debt limit increase, clean, short term, maybe. The main point i make is the point you made just a minute ago. Lots is not happening this week. The notion this is a static situation the senate House Republicans, Senate Democrats may have cards to play. Does harry reid have the democrats for a yearlong debt increase . Not sure. House republicans feel good about passing small spending bill s which so far the administration and harry reid have scoffed at. But the death benefits reported on this morning the pentagon is not sending out, the House Republicans passed a bill authorizing and providing funds for paying death benefits to the families of servicemen killed in action. That will pass 4300 in the house. Does reid not take that up . A dynamic situation. Neera, white house signaling they would take anything short term. Have they given too much . Look, i think its reasonable to say were going to take a clean cr. A lot of democrats and progressives are worried about what the next zboeshgs is like they dont like the idea of being locked into long negotiations. If they agree to that, baner is saying were locked in a room for eight weeks. The issue is it needs to be clean for a period of time. And at the end of the day we have to have a big resolution. I think its true that theres been some movement but the core debate here is that republicans have tried to jam the senate, House Republicans have tried to jam the senate. That has been a failed strategy. The American People are rejecting that strategy and coming you know, basically blaming republicans much more and blaming democrats much lelsz. Independents, the people moving are blaming republicans, and thats a big difference. Go inside the House Republican conference. Bob costas reporting there in national review, it is similar things they dont have the votes for any of these strategies. They have to just decide on a strategy. They dont have the votes and its not clear theyre whipping towards any of the votes. They dont know what they want to do. Exactly. If they havent come up with an end game, they cant whip the votes towards that end game. In this day and age of instant politics, the moment they come up with that end game, somebody is going to start whipping against it, which puts pressure on the 40 or 50 republicans who are kind of with the guys who will always be against the debt ceiling, sort of that second tier who can be per swalded to vote with leadership but arent its sending the House Republicans, so dysfunctional, Speaker Boehner 218 votes to three different continuing resolutions with decreasing levels of defunding or delaying of parents of obama care. They are comfortable with where they are now. They are happy to have the debate on the individual mandate, which is unpopular, and the congressional exemption is unpopular. Those poll numbers, i talked to a House Republican doesnt scare them. Doesnt. Would they prefer they were a few points ahead of the democrats instead of behind them, no, but one of Speaker Boehners staffers told me last night, we remember 1995. Those numbers 21 preference for the republicans over the democrats. Now the republican lgs lose seven and the democrats lose knife the last three weeks, and where president clinton in the shutdown of 96 was at 60 popularity. If we go into the election a year from now, and raeps may be wrong, if they think we go in with president obama at 45 Approval Rating theyre okay with that. And neera, thats the thing. They look at their own polling in their own district. Absolutely. My numbers are better than all three of that. The whole debate here, youre right, john boehner is looking at his caucus and what can be a majority caucus, get to 218 in his caucus and he cant do anything. Thats not the issue. The issue should be the mattmaj the house. Thats why people are saying just vote right now to end this. A clean cr. The speaker has passed republicans voting a law to pass three crs already. American people are united on one issue, which is on every single poll, should we shut down the government to end obama care, defund obama care, delay obama care, 70 , 80 of the American People. That question has been asked and answered by the American People. I just they listen to the American People on that issue. The question has always been forcing mechanisms so the shutdown is partial, not complete, which means there have been limited impacts. But this is the week that states are going to find out state governments are going to find out theyre losing some money. And governors may start blaming washington more aggressively. And this is the week when the very popular programs sort of heart stringtugging programs will start running out of money, the women, infant, and children program. Which the house passed. Which way does it cut politically . If youre a governor thursday, what do you say . I think its governors no, no. What has Chris Christie already said . Open the government. Not open part of government. Open the government. Republican governors have answered. Blue state. The question is hes a republican governor. Cut well politically is for governor who is say im going to keep these particular programs open. Tom korbut, deeply unpopular from pennsylvania, came out late last week, said he was going to rearrange state funding to continue funding the wic program. Head start just got a big 10 million donation. There are tunnels for politicians outside the beltway to use it as a positive. There is a way out of this where everybody can claim they stuck to their positions. Why wont boehner go this way . He will. Just might take a couple months to get there. With the sixweek extension on debt limit. A little more government shutdown. A debt limit extension before the government reopens. Could be. Thats what im thinking. I think theyll be resolved together. Both together. Your sense . My sense too. I think its going to be debt limit, then the government staying partially closed. Stick around. Well talk about another favorite subject here. Health care. For an indepth look on how the shutdown is reverberating in the fight for control of the senate, check out our website. Follow us on instagram because apparently you want more pictures of the show. Our page name is dalyrun down, all one word. Up next, the high cost of higher ed, one of the many challenges facing americas students and one of the issues were confronting as part of our education nation week. Mitch daniels will be joining me next. Could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. Mmmhmmm. Everybody knows that. Well, did you know that old macdonald was a really bad speller . Your word is. Cow. Cow. Cow. C. O. W. E. I. E. I. O. [buzzer] dangnabbit. Geico. Fifteen minutes could save you. Well, you know. [ male announcer ] now, taking care of things at home is just a tap away. Introducing at t digital life. Personalized Home Security and automation. [ lock clicks ]. That lets you be closer to home. Thats so cool. [ male announcer ] get 100 in instant savings when you order digital life smart security. Limited availability in select markets. Opening bell has rung on wall street where the marks are mixed today. Since the shutdown began the dow has fallen about 250 points. Other countries are getting nervous as the debt limit nears. Today china warned the u. S. That the clock is ticking. Thank, china. The dollar is hurting, hovering close to an eightyear low. The longer the shutdown drags don and the closer we goat to october 17th, the higher the risk of actual severe economic damage. As part of the nbc news and msnbcs education nation summit, were focusing today on Higher Education and how to measure the performance of even the priciest schools. The cost of tuition fees, room and board for an outofstate Public School went up 4 to nearly 31,000 this year. Private College Costs dropped to more than 39,500 per year. The cost of Higher Education jumped more than 4 over the last year. Thats almost three times the u. S. Inflation rate and Higher Education costs have jumped three times more than the cost of food prices and the price of a new car or truck. President obama says his administration is working on a new Rating System to help families feel like theyre getting more out of their investment in Higher Education. Im directing my administration to come up with a new more useful Rating System for colleges. We should not be subsidizing schools that are not getting good results for the young people who attend them. Dozens of publications calculate rankings for colleges and universities. One University President says those ratings encourage, quote, bad behavior and award higher ranks to colleges that spend the most money. That University President wants to revamp those Rating Systems and test students before they graduate, too. Hes betting part of his paycheck on student performance. He joins me now, the president of Purdue University and a former politician, although when youre a University President its probably even more politics than he ever had as governor of indiana. Anyway, mr. Purdue president , good morning to you, sir. Hi, chuck. By the way, before we get started, what is tougher politics . Statehouse politics or University Politics . I think the former. Weve got plenty of problems to deal with in our school but theres a pretty good spirit of collective action and common purse. Havent seen too much of the famous campus variety. I want to go to this issue of the more expensive a school is the higher its ranking or the belief by many applicants that this is a school this is an issue that the authors of freakonomics point out, sometimes the more something costs the public think it must be better. Dont you have to change the culture of that . I think its changing from under higher ed and its about time. Economists have technical terms for it. My wife would call it the tiffanys effect. But people are waking up to the fact that higher ed, at least, higher Sticker Prices dont tell you anything about the quality. In fact, almost nothing does. You mention these ratings which are long since i think obsolete. If they ever had a value, they tend to measure inputs much more than performance. At purdue, first of all, weve announced were off the Sticker Price escalator. We think the reputation, the proven success of our students, our graduates in the mark place, speaks to the quality. We froze tuition for two years. Weve cut the price of meals and work study experiences for thousands of our students. It will be less expensive this year than last. And the next frontier is to start measuring the growth of students while at purdue in a scientifically credible way so we can say to the world and say to future students come here, youll learn a lot. Testing students, College Students is something that hasnt gained traction as far as sort of to try to figure out which schools do the best on all of those things and student performance. Explain how this could work if you could get this system accepted by a wide range of universities. We ask a fact um ti committee, i did, to go to work on this. I ask them on the very first day on the job. That is to say measurement of student success. Its not an easy subject. But the fact that its difficult and new cannot be an excuse for not stepping up to the duty to be accountable. Were pretty close to an answer now. There are some instruments that we think are proven and reliable that show how much a student grew, for instance, in critical learning. Well probably have to supplement that with some disciplinespecific measurements, how much a chemistry major knows and so forth. Finally theres a dimension we think to be studied in the success of graduates a few years out and maybe more years out, and this can be done through both public opinion, data collection, as well as more quantity final things like salary. So if you went about this obviously, thats the hard part of student testing, right, which is you want to english majors, okay, i think we know how to put together an english test. But then youd have mechanical engineers. Youre a large engineering school, purdue. So i would assume you would want a specialized test so that all mechanical engineer garage walt who is graduate with an m. E. Then end up being tested with the same test nationwide. That would be your vision here . Yes, ideally. There are a lot of those around now, and where they arent i think the market is demanding this. So yes, its difficult. Yes higher ed has avoided it in the past, but the marketplace is demanding it. Ive just come from a panel here at education nation where those who some of the leader disrupting higher ed through new technologies and so forth are talking about the fact thf thai intend to be able to demonstrate the competency of their graduates. Were going to have to be able to do the same. Is there a way the federal government should do we have this race to the top program that had some bipartisan appeal sort of using almost a carrot and stick approach for improvements and primary and secondary education. Is there a way that the federal government should use its pell grant money, for instance, or, you know, where a student is eligible to use a pell grant or things like that, federal benefits that are give on the them for Higher Education, where maybe if the university doesnt meet certain financial requirements, if theyre spending too much money, if theyre not devoting it to education resources, then maybe the federal government funding wouldnt be there for that student. Should the government be doing Something Like that . I think they should be headed in this direction. I would certainly applaud the general themes of the president s recent discussions, and ive talked to secretary duncan about them. Im not sure about the government establishing an arbitrary ratings system of its own. It might be subject to the same unintended consequences and perverse outcomes that the current ratings are. But more information, more transparency to future students and parents about what things really cost, how dollars are really being spent, how much on instruction versus administration and so forth, i think very, very helpful. And frankly they ought to restructure the loan and grant progr programs which have been a big driver, honestly, in running up the cost of education. The more the government with the best of intentions has flooded the marketplace with these dollars, universities have simply raised tuition, pocketed the money, students were left sometimes worse off. Right. The advent of socalled free credit, particularly over the last 15 year, i think universities took advantage of that more sometimes than wall street did. Anyway, Mitch Daniels, the president of Purdue University, former governor of indiana, always good to have you on. Thanks for participating in education nation. Thanks, chuck. A reminder. You can watch the summit live at educationnation. Com and on the nbc news youtube channel. You can also join the discussion by hughesing educationnation and whatittakes, this issue of how universities deal with the costs of education. I know its a hot topic. Coming up, health care on the hot seat. The Obama Administration had three years to set up the web enrollment for the president s centerpiece legislative achievement. You know obama must have had the tech end buttoned up. That would be like if lincoln didnt bother proofreading the emancipation proclamation and ended up freeing the daves. Well, its no laughing matter for the Obama Administration or for the people struggling to sign up for health insurance. Well discuss that after the break. First the white house soup of the day. It is still turkey chili. For the eighth day in a row. As long as theres a partial shutdown, folks in the white house mess are stuck with turkey chili. Hello . Hey, i notice your car is not in the driveway. Yeah. Its in the shop. Its going to cost me an arm and a leg. Thats hilarious. Sorry. You shoulda taken it to midas. Get some of that midas touch. They tell you what stuff needs fixing, and what stuff can wait. Next time im going to midas. Highfive arg i did not see that coming. Trust the midas touch. For brakes, tires, oil, everything. whistling a man who doesnt stand still. But jim has afib, Atrial Fibrillation an irregular heartbeat, not caused by a heart valve problem. That puts jim at a greater risk of stroke. For years, jims medicine tied him to a monthly trip to the clinic to get his blood tested. But now, with onceaday xarelto®, jims on the move. Jims doctor recommended xarelto®. Like warfarin, xarelto® is proven effective to reduce afibrelated stroke risk. But xarelto® is the first and only onceaday prescription blood thinner for patients with afib not caused by a heart valve problem. That doesnt require routine blood monitoring. So jims not tied to that monitoring routine. [ gps ] proceed to the designated route. Not today. [ male announcer ] for patients currently well managed on warfarin, there is limited information on how xarelto® and warfarin compare in reducing the risk of stroke. Xarelto® is just one pill a day taken with the evening meal. Plus, with no known dietary restrictions, jim can eat the Healthy Foods he likes. Do not stop taking xarelto®, rivaroxaban, without talking to the doctor who prescribes it as this may increase the risk of having a stroke. Get help right away if you develop any symptoms like bleeding, unusual bruising, or tingling. You may have a higher risk of bleeding if you take xarelto® with aspirin products, nsaids or blood thinners. Talk to your doctor before taking xarelto® if you have abnormal bleeding. Xarelto® can cause bleeding, which can be serious, and rarely may lead to death. You are likely to bruise more easily on xarelto® and it may take longer for bleeding to stop. Tell your doctors you are taking xarelto® before any planned medical or dental procedures. Before starting xarelto®, tell your doctor about any conditions such as kidney, liver, or bleeding problems. Xarelto® is not for patients with artificial heart valves. Jim changed his routine. Ask your doctor about xarelto®. Once a day xarelto® means no regular blood monitoring no known dietary restrictions. For more information and savings options, call 1888xarelto or visit goxarelto. Com. Trivia time. How many of the current Supreme Court justices served as a Supreme Court law clerk . The answer is three. Chief Justice Roberts and associate justices breier and kagen. They their entire careers were designed about getting to this court and they succeeded. Todays winner, roger moore. Well i drove grandpa to his speed dating this week, so i should probably get the last roll. Yeah but i practiced my bassoon. [ mom ] and i listened. [ brother ] i can do this. [ imitates robot ] everyone deserves ooey, gooey, pillsbury cinnamon rolls. Make the weekend pop. Health care. Gov has now been online for a full week but we still dont know how many consumers have within able to sign up for health care using the onsign exchanges. Site users of experienced technical problems. Jon stewart spoke with hhs secretary Kathleen Sebelius last night. Were going to do a challenge. Im going to try and download every movie ever made and youre going to try to sign up for obama care and well see which happens first. The Obama Administration is now acknowledging these problems, insisting they are aware of the issues that caused the site to crash and are working to fix them. Todd park, obamas chief technology officer, said this is no different than any other websites that experience unusually high traffic. He told this to the new york times. At lower volumes it would work fine. At higher volumes it has problems. He added, weve got what we think we need. The contractors have sent reinforcements and are working 24 7. We just wish there was more time in a day. Park and the white house also released a few other fact sheet talking points last night outlining the ways they are working to fix the site. They include adding more server capacity, switching to more powerful hardware, making Software Changes to enable the system to handle higher volumes. The white house is focused on fixing the problem and are ducking questions about how many have signed up. When pressed, spokesman jay carney told reporters yesterday, a large volume but gave no specifics. He said enrollment data would be released on a monthly basis, which of course means that this will probably be our new monthly number to watch. Lets bring in the gaggle, reid wilson, neera, that interview last night was about as rough as anything the administration has experienced when it comes to defending the rollout of health care. I go back to the same question i asked yesterday, which is the obama brand is about technology. If there is any administration you would expect to get this right, it would be this one. What went wrong . So, i think, look, it is extremely an extremely complicated system at the federal level. It is you know, its really unfortunate that weve had these glitches. It is important that people are signing up at the states. Were getting data at the state level there are lots of people that are getting insurance. There is a huge demand. Its a sixmonth period but i think it is unfortunate that weve had these glitches. I went through Medicare Part d, the problems were graver on the Medicare Part d situation because people were actually getting the wrong prescription drugs, actually wrong things were happening. So i think but its unfortunate when anything like this happens and, you know, fortunately we have six months signup and people will have to keep at it and hopefully this week, at the end of this week issues will be resolved. I think the bit of irony here, the staterun exchanges have apparently experienced far fewer problems. Its the federal government is running about 36 of these state, quote unquote, changes, and thats been sort of proves that the federal government maybe doesnt have the capacity to do it. The whole design of the program is they were hoping it would be state based and its not. A lot of the states are having some of the minor glitches that are showing up in larger quantity on the federal level but in a lot of states, oregons Health Care System is going pretty well. That was all designed in the state. The Washington State system has signed up 10,000 people the Seattle Times reported this morning. A number of these actual in the states, when they get to design the system for a smaller volume, well, theyre able to do it. Federalism at work, state exchanges working better than the federal government. Thats exactly what its the law of the land, let them buy these things. Maybe they shouldnt be mandated to buy insurance from these websites that are full of privacy and security concerns. Medicare part d is not required. Any other website you want to, you can choose not to buy whats offered there. Whats so great is people are really theres a huge demand for this. So why not suspend the individual mandate . Why didnt they expect 250,000 visitors a day . The white house has been not been able to answer that question. I think it should have been designed to be able to get more traffic, but hopefully the fact that a year from now well be happy that theres so many people in it. Jon stewart kept asking this individual mandate question too. It seems as if you lost jon stewart, youve got problems. Shameless plugs. Bill, you first. A lot of good stuff on the Weekly Standard this week. Thats good. Its really a fine magazine. Thats why we call it shameless. I hope its every week. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers teamed up to focus on the congo and a big event yesterday so were really invited. Im still plugging the new blog on state politics and policy. Were focusing on governments that actually work outside the beltway. Beating up washington is going to be the easy trend that were seeing in the states. Thats it for this edition of the daily rundown. Well be back here tomorrow probably covering day nine of the government shutdown. Coming up next, chris jansing. Byebye. Im meteorologist bill karins with your Business Travel forecast. In the northeast yesterday, horrible airport delays as that cold front went through. Today a lot better. Unfortunately the southeast, were still lingering with some of that rain and wind and clouds. There could be some minor travel inconveniences there. Middle of the country looks great and the pacific northwest, just some showers but overall a much better travel day on this tuesday. announcer at scottrade, our clients trade and invest exactly how they want. With scottrades online banking, i get one view of my bank and brokerage accounts with one login. To easily move my money when i need to. Plus, when i call my local scottrade office, i can talk to someone who knows how i trade. Because i dont trade like everybody. I trade like me. Im with scottrade. announcer scottradeproud to be ranked