temperatures we saw in redding, california. but we do have trepeturas tu bew seasonal. so keep your eye to the sky in >> i'm chris wallace and this is >> i'm chris wallace and this is "fox news sunday." captioning made possible by fox news >> health care reform in trouble. with a new warning it will increase government spending, not cut it. can the president's top priority be saved? we'll ask two key players, peter orszag, and judd gregg, a leading critic. then -- >> the eagle has landed. >> it's been 40 years since man first walked on the moon. we'll mark the anniversary of the apollo 11 mission with former astronaut buzz aldrin, the second man to step on the lunar surface. buzz aldrin, only on "fox news sunday." plus, with a supreme court confirmation hearings like a "seinfeld" episode about nothing? our panel tell us how judge sotomayor said a lot but revealed little. and we'll remember walter cronkite, all right now on "fox news sunday." and hello again from fox news in washington. it's been a tough week for health care reform. there are new questions about the costs and moderate democrats have rsed new objections to taxes to pay for it. we're joined by president obama's budget chief peter orszag. president obama says health care reform must bring down spending and not add to the deficit, but the head of the non-partisan congressional office say the plans the democrats are considering would do neither. here's what he said this week about controlling costs. let's watch. >> we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount and on the contrary the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs. >> you had elmendorf's job. he says spending for health care in the democratic plans would be unsustainable. >> let's look at the facts. president said yesterday he will not sign a bill that expands the deficit. look at the report that came out from the congressional budget office on friday night with regard to the house legislation. once you take into account just maintaining current payments for doctors under medicare, that bill is deficit neutral. third point, the legislation does not include important things we'd like to put in place with regard to the fiscal trajectory after the first decade. for example, we have a proposal for an independent commission made up of doctors to help bring down costs over the long term. >> okay. when you're the head of the cbo, politicians said you were wrong. he says it's unsustainable. are you saying the bills in their current forms the president will not sign? >> no. the president has said the bill has to be deficit neutral. if you look at the cbo score that came out friday night and take off the table maintaining current payment rates for physicians under -- >> wait, there's that caveat in there. what the cbo said on friday is that the bill the house is now considering and rushing to pass in fact would add $240 billion to the deficit by 2019. now, there's talk as you say, there's a dispute about medicare payments to doctors. that's not in the legislation. >> no, the medicare -- the payments to physicians is in the legislation and that is the only reason that the bill shows a deficit. once you take that part out, the bill is deficit neutral. >> but the form you're talking about, the cut in payments is not in the bill. >> the bill prevents that cut in payments, but no one thought you'd have a 20% reduction in medicare, in reimbursement rates for doctors. that was going to happen regardless. it just so happens they added that to this piece of legislation, but that's sort of already baked in to our fiscal trajectory. we're looking at what's happening with regard to new policy and with regard to new policy this is deficit neutral over the first decade. there are additional steps that are necessary to make it even better than that over the long term and i think the single most important thing is this proposal that we have for an independent commission to help bring down costs over the long haul. >> which is also not in the legislation. >> not yet. >> let's talk about taxes. the house would raise a half a trillion dollars to help pay for its health care program by imposing a surtax on top earners. combined with other obama tax policy and local taxes, 39 of 50 states would have tax rates over 50%. i want you to take a look at this. the top rate in denmark is 60%. it would be over 57% in oregon. almost 57% in new york and california. that's higher than sweden and belgium. is the president prepared to say that it is unacceptable to raise taxes that high? >> well, first, look, you were adding in state and local taxes in those calculations. >> that's what people will have to pay. >> secondly, that affects a very small percent of the population, one or two percent. let's talk about the bill itself. again, we have insisted that the bill be deficit neutral. we putn the table a revenue proposal we think is better, that would limit the rates of deductions. >> no one is considering that, mr. orszag. >> i think it's in play in modified form. >> is the president prepared to say that that kind of a surtax that would make top tax rates 56% is off the table? >> no, what we have said is this bill has to be deficit neutral. we think there are better ways of obtaining additional revenue and we have to let this legislative process play out. >> you say it would only hit a small number of people. >> uh-huh. >> in fact, according to studies, 2/3 of small business profits would be hit by those taxes and i want to take a look at what christina roemer, the head of the president's council of economic advisers, said a couple of years ago. tax increases appear to have a very large sustained and highly significant negative impact on output. wouldn't raising taxes that much on small businesses be a job killer? >> i don't know where you got your 2/3 number of. >> the national federation of independent businesses. >> would not be affected. i'd be happy to -- >> it's not the 2/3 of businesses. it's 2/3 of profits. >> i understand. um, and again, what we are trying to do here is a fiscally responsible health reform. i've actually run a small business. i'd be happy to -- to -- to speak to folks about this. >> would you be happy to pay 57%? >> look, the most important thing for small businesses is getting that economy back on its feet. that -- the key driver of small business activity is demand for their product and that is what we are trying to do getting the the economy back on its feet. that's far more important than other factors. >> let's do a lightning round, quick questions, quick answers, on some of the key issues on health care reform. the head of the cbo says one good way and effective way to cut costs is to tax health care benefits at some point, at some level. but the head of the senate finae committee democrat, max baucus, says the white house has already ruled that out. is that true? >> it's something the president doesn't favor. >> is that because the big unions don't want taxing of their health care benefits which they've gotten the uaw, police unions, firefighters? >> you know, i think it's also because he's concerned about the impact that -- on employer sponsored insurance, on the coverage you already have. >> the president says no rationing of health care costs, but you've mentioneded a couple of times he wants this commission of doctors and medical experts to oversee medical practices. in the end, aren't they going to be telling private and public insurers what treatments are allowed and what treatments aren't? >> this is the biggest kinard in this debate. we want doctors to make decisions. that will lead to a higher quality, lower cost system over time. >> when you say they're making decisions, they would be saying you can have this treatment, you can't have this treatment? >> are insurance companies currently rationing care? there's no set of decisions this commission would have that is not currently resting with either members of congress or insurance companies. >> so they would be rationing care. >> no, because i don't think we're rationing care today and similarly they would not be in the future. what they would be doing is setting reimbursement rates and moving toward a higher quality system. >> are you prepared to say that in a government public funded taxpayer funded public health insurance plan that no taxpayer money will go to pay for abortions? >> i -- i think that that will wind up being part of the debate. i am not prepared to say explicitly that right now. it's obviously a controversial issue and it's one of the questions that is playing out in this debate. >> so you're not prepared to rule it out. >> i'm not prepared to rule it out. >> will both the house and senate pass separate health care measures before they go on august recess? >> that is the goal. >> and what do you think are the chances? >> i think the chances are high? >> let's turn in the time we have left to the economy. when congress passed at $787 billion stimul, the white house said it would keep unemployment a little over at the top 8%. it's now as you well now at 9.5%. i want to putp the projections this week from the federal reserve. they forecast it may hit 10.1% in the fourth quarter of this year and will still be 9.5-9.8% at the end of next year. do you agree with those numbers and why were all of you in the white house so wrong? >> well, look, if you look back last december or so, everyone, almost everyone, thought that the economy was not as weak as it actually was. you can't go from job losses of 700,000 a month, which was what was happening in the months leading up to january, to job growth like that, just instantaneously. it is going to take time to work our way out of this. the situation in december and january was worse than most people thought. >> but in february, you knew h bad the situation -- the president kept saying it was a catastrophe. >> but it was even worse than people thought. if you look back at the majority of the blue chip forecasts and the other forecasts, including from the federal reserve, late last year, which was what we were basing our projections on at the time, they were all somewhat too optimistic because the economy was weaker at that time than anyone anticipated. what we're trying to do is focus on how we can -- and also remember that sense of freefall, minus 6% on gdp growth, that is attenuated. there's a lot more that needs to be done. we're not in the same position we were then. >> just quickly in the 30 seconds we he left, the fed says 9.5-9.8% at the end of 2010. >> it's going to take time to work our way out of it. >> so you wouldn't dispute those numbers. >> i'm not disputing those numbers. >> mr. orszag, we have to leave it there. thank you so much for coming in. please come back, sir. >> thank you. >> for the republican view of health care reform and the economy, we turn now to senator judd gregg who joins us from new hampshire. senator, welcome back to "fox news sunday." >> thank you, chris. thanks for having me on. >> i'd like to get you to react to what you just heard from peter orszag. first of all, he says that what the president ends up signing, one, won't add to the deficit and, two, will cut health care costs. >> well, he disagrees obviously with the cbo director on the second point. it will be a determination how much they're willing to raise taxes. the real question, and i think the nail was hit on the head by mr. eld mendorf, he said that this bill as proposed or the bills asproposed would significantly aggravate the health care cost situation, that the cost of health care would go up significantly and that it would raise significantly the burden on the federal government as to what it had to pay. and as a very practical matter, it did nothing to contain the rate of growth of health care costs. those were pretty damning words, to be very honest with you, and they should make us step back, pause and take a look at what's going forward in the congress and say how can we do this better. and there are ways to do this better. >> i want to follow up on a couple of more points that mr. orszag said. he while not endorsing it, defended the house idea of a surtax on top earners and he basically ruled out any tax on health care benefits. >> well, i'm not sure that he ruled it out. i think, in fact, he did the opposite in a letter that he sent to myself and senator conrad, chairman of the budget committee, and that letter said there are two ways to address health care in a substantive way. the first is the control the deductiblity on high-end cost plans. if you're getting a plan worth $17,000 a year, the amount of that deduction goes up to $20,000, it creates revenue and prevents overutilization. he says you have to change the way we reimburse for health care especially in the medicare arena where you reward quality and not just people doing procedures. he says you can get significant restraint on costs. regrettably, neither of the proposals now pending in the congress do either of those things. >> also, mr. orszag left wide open the possibility that the public health plan will give taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions. that's going to create a lot of heartburn on capitol hill, won't it? >> well, of course, the abortion issue always does. no matter what your views are on abortion, you shouldn't ask people to use their tax dollars if they think abortion is taking a life to use their tax dollars for that purpose. hopefully, that issue can be addressed. i would hate to see the health care debate go down over that issue. we do really need health care reform, and it has to be substantive and we have to have a system that covers everyone. hopefully we won't get ourselves wrapped around the wheel of abortion in this debate. >> you say we need health care reform but the fact is, senator, in every vote taken in the various committees in the house and senate, every republican has voted unanimously against health care reform. is your party -- >> that's because it's not reform. >> if i may just ask -- are you saying, though, that the current system with 47 million people uninsured and with health care costs running way above inflation is better for the country? >> no, that's unacceptable. in fact, in the senate at least there are three major health care proposals from republicans. i have one. it says covers everybody and then the costs of health care without going down the road of this massive increase in costs. the two bills that have been vote odd so far are the kennedy bill coming out of the health committee which i serve on which is a party line bill, old-fashioned expand the government, and the house bill which was even worse, and basically both of those bills lead to putting bureaucracy between you and your doctor and i believe they lead to delay in rationing in the end. >> you say you would like to see the 40-plus million, there are arguments about specifically how many there are, but the 40-plus million uninsured get coverage. under your idea, how would they get it? how would the government help them get it and how would you pay for it? >> well, first, it's not a monolithic group. they're basically youngeople who opt to spend their money on something other than health care insurance. we would require them to buy health care policies for catastphic events. they would have to self-insure under that. but they would not be a burden to the system if they unfortunately contracted a serious disease or were seriously injured in an accident. the balance of those folks, 27 million, are also non-homogeneous, a group of illegal immigrants make up a big section, they could be covered by medicaid already or schip. we would incentive with subsidies those persons to purchase self-insurance giving them options of various plans to choose from which would best fit their needs. >> how much is that going to cost, senator? >> it's going to cost money. the way we pay for it is limiting the deductiblity of high-end health insurance premium plans. we pay for it, cover everyone and put in place a replacement of the reimbursement system so we reimburse doctors on the basis of quality and outcomes rather than on the basis of the number of procedures. the problem we have in this debate is that we've all sort of locked into our position here. it's unfortunate. the president's saying anybody disagrees with him is wrong. other people are saying anybody who disag agrees with the probl is wrong. if we listened to the cbo and proceeded on addressing the problem rather than addressing the politics. >> you say you believe that something -- that's your word -- something will pass this year. why do you believe that? >> because the president has made this his number one priority and the democrats have super majorities in both the house and the sena. >> do you think what's going to end up passing is basically the president's plan or do you think that there's enough moderate democratic and moderate republican votes against it, particularly in the senate, that you can block the president's plan and force him to go some of the way in the direction that you're talking about? >> well, the irony, chris, is the president doesn't have a plan. the only two plans are the kennedy plan and the house plan. the president has thrown out where his lines are drawn in the sand. unfortunately, he's drawn -- hopefully hasn't drawn a line. i was eager to see peter orszag say maybe it's not as hard a line as people are saying on the issue of deductiblity of insurance. but clearly the goals the president said out i agree with. make sure if you have your own insurance and you like it, you get to keep it. those goals are things which i'm a hundred percent for as is the republican caucus in the senate. we think you get there not by moving to a system that creates massive expansion of the size of government but giving people more choices in the market and changing the payment system to the health care community to encourage better utilization. >> senator gregg, thank you. thanks for joining us. please come back, sir. >> pleasure. thanks. >> upext -- the apollo 11 mission to the moon 40 years later. we'll look back at that defining moment with buzz aldrin, part of the team that first set foot on the lunar surface. stay tuned. welcome to the now network. population 49 million. right now, 1.5 million people are on a conference call. 750,000 wish they weren't. - ( phones chirping ) - construction workers are making 244,000 nextel direct connect calls. 1 million people are responding to an email. - 151 accidentally hit "reply all." - ( foghorn blows ) that's happening now. america's most dependable 3g network bringing you the first wireless 4g network. - sprint. the now network. - ( whoosh sound ) deaf, hard of hearing and people with speech disabilities access www.sprintrelay.com. to build a new generation of airplanes to connect the world. airplanes that fly cleaner and farther on less fuel. and make nonstop travel possible to more places. announcer: around the globe, the people of boeing are working together-- to bring us together. that's why we're here. >> the eagle has landed. >> on july 16th, 1969, three american astronauts, neil armstrong, buzz aldrin and michael collins, began a rendezvous with history. >> good luck and godspeed. >> their rocket roared into space and headed for the moon. four days later, the lunar module, named the eagle, touched down on the sea of tranquility. >> houston, the eagle has landed. >> man was on the moon. >> it's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. >> and like explorers before them, they planted their flag on the lunar surface. >> they got the flag up now. you can see the stars and stripes. >> on this 40th anniversary of apollo 11, we are honored to have with us the man who was holding that american flag, buzz aldrin. buzz, welcome to "fox news sunday." >> that was a proud moment to be a military person, to salute that flag on the surface of the moon. >> i would think. i want to take care of some sad business first. as you know, walter cronkite passed away friday night. what are your thoughts about him as a man and also as someone who i think you'd agree helped sell the space program to the american people? >> absolutely, he was the strongest supporter. there were other people, different networks, roy neil, jules bergman, they've all passed away, but walter was the strongest, i think, and the persistent one right from the very beginning. he supported all things that the astronauts have done and scholarship foundation and all the fame and things of that nature. but, of course, i think on this occasion he's best remembered for being speechless with his glasses up on his forehead and with wally wiping his brow. millions of people saw that. but we didn't. we didn't see that till we got back on the carrier. we were on the carrier and they showed us the reaction of the crew to the people cheering. and i just had an impulse to tap neil on the shoulder and go, hey,ook up there, we missed the whole thing. >> let's go back to 40 years ago tomorrow. what has stayed with you? what do you remember most about your 21 1/2 hours on the moon? >> what i want to remember most is the glance between neil and myself with the engine shut off, just those seconds after we touched down. because we had just completed the most critical door opening for exploration in -- in all of humanity. we came along at just the right time, the three of us, all born in 1930, to be given such a marvelous opportunity and for me to accompany one of the best test pilots that's ever come along and demonstrated the x-15, and i couldn't ask for a better commander. >> when you first set foot on the moon, you famously called it magnificent desolation. >> yes. >> take us to the lunar surface. how can it be magnificent and desolate at the same time? >> well, you know, the comedians sometimes like for me to describe the comedy as an absurdity thrown into a normal situation and then treated as if nothing else happened like when we were cleared for liftoff. i said, roger, houston, we're number one on the runway. well, you've got two of them right there in one sentence. well, magnificence is the achievement of humanity to be able to get there and for us to be a part of that, to carry that out. but the scene was so desolate, so totally lifeless. it probably hadn't changed much in 100,000 years. the sun goes over it in 14 days. it gets hotter than -- and it gets colder. it's not a hospitable place. you have to have a compelling reason to invest in human habitation. >> we'll talk about the future in a moment, but i want to talk about your new book which you call "magnificent desolation" and ich, quite frankly, you talk openly about wha a tough time you had when you returned from the moon. alcohol, depression, divorce. and you weren't the only one. there were a number of apollo astronauts who had tough times. was it that at age 39 you knew you'd already reached the summit of your life? >> i don't think so. i certainly hope not. but the steps after that i -- that came to me, i had wanted to transition back into the military that i came from, and the best way to do that would have been after 11 years at the academy. i was not a trained test pot. by sort of design, i wanted to be more of an analyst and a deep thinker looking into the future as a technology person, how can we do things better rather than just a precise operator, recorder of what is happening to machines. >> why do you think you had such a tough time? you say in the book from the age of 45 to 55 that you were essentially non-functional. >> yes. yes. at a very crucial transition point. and it really started a little bit earlier than that. >> why did you have such problems? >> i was trying to transition from a very structured career, west point at the age of 17, very structured, goal oriented. i get in the air force and immediately i'm in the korean war. that's impressive, but it's responsibility. shot down two airplanes. came back. trained people. was at the air force academy. then i ran into my good friend from west point, ed white, in the fighter squadron in germany. he rotated back. we eventually went on alert with nuclear weapons. that's a sobering thing for a guy in his 20s. >> how did you turn things around from that terrible down period? >> i got help. and i opened up. it just seemed to me an appropriate thing to do to discuss this in an op ed piece in the "l.a. times." as a result of that, i was on the board of directors, national association of mental health. then i was national chairman for mental health. it's not what i set out as a son ofn aviator, pioneering aviation family to be associated with mental health. it was not an encouraging situation in my life to go back to the air force, see that that didn't work out, then i'm -- from the frying pan into the fire sort of with an unstructured life, not knowing what to do yet. >> the fact is you did. >> but i got into escapism, addiction, and i certainly inherited that. my mother committed suicide a year before i went to the moon, and her father committed suicide before i was born as an army chaplain. i could see that the structure and the unstructure with not knowing exactly what to do for me to decide what to do was kind of tearing my life apart and in a way the way of salvation, the way of recovery, was by getting someone else to tell me what to do. >> we have a few minutes left and i want to lk about the future of the space program, because i know you want to talk about it. we haven't been back to the moon since 1972. nasa has focused on the shuttle and what you call low earth orbit. was that a mistake? did we take a wrong turn? >> no. we advanced technology in space capability so much in order to challenge our nation and beat the soviets and we succeeded in doing that and the soviet union came apart much sooner than anybody thought. now, what did we do? we wanted to consolidate what we hadn't done. we wanted to develop reusable transportation and a laboratory to go to. that's two things. our process to do that, we maybe were a little over-confident. shuttle didn't live up to expectations. didn't fly once a week ever. nine people was the maximum we could put in. cost more than the saturn 5. >> looking forward, you say that what we should do is not go back to the moon, which is what the current nasa plan is. you say that 20 years from now, on the 60th anniversary, we ought to be landing on mars. with all the problems that are out there and it's the same question that guys like you were asked in the '60s, why spend that money? what do we get out of it? >> that's a little optimistic. by the 50th, we should confirm a pathway we can take now that doesn't abandon the moon. it puts us in the experienced leadership position. >> why the ultimate goal of mars? >> because it's much more suitable to earthlings. much more habitable. it's possibly the source of life. it could have been the source of our life. it is much easier to approach once you get there. it has a moon that goes around very close, every seven hours. from that location, we can control things on the surface. that can be by the 50th anniversary our confirmation of the pathway. we commit to people and then as we learn more, then we commit to people on the surface. it's exciting to do and it's a pathway that does not ignore the moon. it's an affordable pathway right now. if we decide to make a change. and i think we should make a change. >> buzz aldrin, we want to thank you so much for being here today. you are an american hero and it is an honor, honor, to share this weekend with you, sir. >> thank you, chris. you did well in inheriting your father's capabilities and roger should be proud. >> thank you. thank you very much. coming up, our sunday panel discusses a tough week for the president's plan when we come right back. if we don't act, medical bills will wipe out their savings. if we don't act, she'll be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition. and he won't get the chemotherapy he needs. if we don't act, health care costs will rise 70%. and he'll have to cut benefits for his employees. but we can act. the president and congress have a plan to lower your costs and stop denials for pre-existing conditions. it's time to act. 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because the more americans know about it, the more they oppose it. >> president obama and republican senator john kyl at odds. it's time now for our sunday group, fox news contributors bill kristol of "the weekly standard," mara liasson of national public radio, syndicated columnist charles krauthammer, and juan williams, also from national public radio. so, bill, let's talk about where we are right now. the cbo this week basically, and i think they scored a direct hit on the president's reform plan, said basically it is not going to cut spending and it is going to increase, not be revenue neutral on the deficit. peter orszag disputed both. where are we in this debate? >> i think the obama administration's plan or democrats' plan is in trouble. you saw the clip, it will happen this year. i guess he means legislation will be passed this year. none of this health care legislation goes into effect until 2013. the tax increases go into effect 2011. the health care reforms don't go into effect for four years. the president says it has to be passed by both houses by the end of this session july, august, and by the end of this year. it's unbelievable to me for him to say that. the stimulus package, that was an emergency injection of stimulus into the economy. it was reasonable to say do it now. what is the case for doing it this year? what is the case apart from pure political momentum because he thinks he's a popular new president for doing it this year? >> mara, let's go back to where we are in this debate between the cbo that said this week, republicans and moderate democrats took note, this is not going to bend the curve of health care spending publicly or privately and saying it's not deficit neutral, it adds a quarter of a trillion dollars to the deficit. >> i think this is a big problem, because it means that the white house is in danger of losing the narrative on health care reform. every day over the past couple of months the president's been out there saying we're not just going to expand coverage. we're going to have something that's deficit neutral. it's exactly playing into the criticisms from republicans. the ways to do that are politically painful ways. either you cap the tax deductiblity of employer provided health care benets. you asked peter orszag about that earlier. >> he indicated the president doesn't want to go that way. >> that is one way to address the escalating costs of health care because you won't have people subsidizing the overuse of health care, or this idea that somebody has to say no. now the president has come out with this -- he wants this commission that's going to be made up of doctors, sure, there'll be doctors on the commission. they're the ones who will tell the 88-year-old woman with cancer, , we're not going to pay for your hip replacement. >> peter orszag said that's not rationing. >> maybe it's a more rational form of rationing. maybe now somebody says no. maybe it's your insurer. there's this hope, the president will have, that we'll be able to do these comparative effectiveness studies and provide better health care and lower costs, but that will take many, many years to put in place. >> crles, where are we? >> what happened this week, we had our emperor's new clothes moment. obama said that the rationale for health care reform, it was a necessity because our spending on health care is excessive, $2.5 trillion a year, it's going to destroy our economy and he's right about there. then he said i'm introducing reform which the cbo has told us is going to increase costs rather than crease costs. it totally undercuts and contradicts the central rationale of his plan. and, of course, it was always out there. it was obvious if you're going to increase health care provisions with a huge universal new entitlement of universal care, of course it's going to increase costs. but now you could hide that in the rhetoric, but he can't hide it any more after what we heard from the congressional budget office. and he -- revenue neutrality is a red herring. even if you achieve that, it leaves us on the course that we were on originally that obama had said originally is ruining our economy. and to achieve revenue neutrality, the house is insisting on huge taxes on investments in small business, which means that you cannot g to the well on that and you have used up a source of renue that would otherwise help cure our deficit. so it's going to -- i think it's exploded the entire fiscal rationale of the plan. >> it's a terrible week for president obama on the central feature of his domestic policy plan, health care. and i say that because what strikes me in terms of reporting is talking to conservative democrats on the hill who want something to happen, the american people want something to happen, the republicans are guilty of absolutely being, you know, absent without permission on the central -- one of the central issues of our time, so forget the republicans, because they're not playing. so here come the democrats, conservative democrats are saying the cost is so prohibitive, we think we're going to have a tough time selling this to our voters in 2010. therefore, politically, mr. obama, we don't know that we can vote for this. mr. obama's response so far, president obama's response is to say, come out on friday after the cbo report from elmendorf and say don't bet against us on health care. we have a way to go and we need to do it now. response from what you're hearing from republicans saying wait a second, the time frame needn't be so attenuated, that, in fact, why don't we have this debate going forward, there's a tremendous urgency. it's a case that families in this country have seen health insurance premiums double since 1999. i think it's the case that the american economy -- you'll hear this directly from the white house, bill, the american economy is suffering. big corporations can't control the health care costs. we have major hospitals, rural hospitals on danger of collapse because of the high cost of health care. >> can this bill solve this problem? >> no, the point is -- >> no, it's not. it's not the point is at this point. the point is if you have to get the work done and they want to get the work done now, before the political season kicks in for 2010 -- >> you're saying that the bills don't solve the problem. >> no one's saying it solves it in its current form, chris. they're saying we have the opportunity to work on it now before politics becomes so large that it would block any potential solution. >> what i thought was significant on friday, the president did not repeat his call to have both houses pass bills by august. usually he does. he said hurry up. there are six senators who signed a letter that said we need more time, republicans and democratic senators. i think this does raise questions about the white house's legislative strategy. we'll lay down our principles and let congress write these bills. this was the un-clinton strategy. i think the president is going to have to step in earlier than he'd hoped to. >> it's getting late to be early. >> he wanted to come in in octor in the conference committee and fix things just like they did on the stimulus. i think he's going to have to come in earlier and rescue this and get this back on the track. >> bill kristol, you've said all along they're not going to get a health ce bill this year, correct? >> correct. good for the country, too. absolutely. >> and today you would say what? >> they're not going to get a health care bill. mr. orszag, when you pinned him on the cbo estimate that this will increase the deficit, he said that's just because of removing the planned reduction in medicare reimbursement for doctors, so that's not fair to count that. this was a way to get the ama to support this. ignore the provision that's in there that got the ama to support it. it's a cynical bill as well as a bad bill. >> panel, we have to take a break. when we come back, judge sotomayor's performance at her confirmation hearing. did she make the grade? and a broadcast legend. summer clearance is here, the dp and it's the best time to get some of the best deals. get in now and get the chrysler town & country with a generous cash allowance, or 0% financing for 60 months. the trail rated jeep grand cherokee also comes with a cash allowance or 0% financing for 60 months. or choose a hard working all new dodge ram truck with a cash allowance that's tough to beat. all with our best in the business lifetime powertrain warranty. so hurry come see the deals we've built for you at the dodge chrler and jeep summer clearance. an eleven sixteenths wrench over here? 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(announcer) from designing some of the world's cleanest and most fuel-efficient jet engines... to building more wind turbines than anyone in the country... the people of ge are working together... creating innovation today for america's tomorrow. thanks! no problem! >> on this day in 1972, the vietnam peace talks resumed between henry kissinger and north vietnamese diplomats. stay tuned for more from our panel. if we don't act, medical bills will wipe out their savings. if we don't act, she'll be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition. and he won't get the chemotherapy he needs. if we don't act, health care costs will rise 70%. and he'll have to cut benefits for his employees. but we can act. the president and congress have a plan to lower your costs and stop denials for pre-existing conditions. it's time to act. >> judges can't rely on what's in their heart. they don't determine the law. congress makes the laws. the job of a judge is to apply the law. >> i listen to you today, i think i'm listening to judge roberts. i mean, i'm listening to a strict constructionist here. >> senator lindsey graham expressing confusion over how to reconcile with what judge sotomayor said this week over what she said the past 15 years. mara, i think it's fair to say that during her testimony that sotomayor contradicted a lot of what she has said in speeches over more than a decade on the role of race and gender in judging, about impartiality. did we misunderstood her or did she engage in what one senator called a confirmation conversion? >> look, i think she did exactly what other supreme court nominees have done, say very little, be very cautious, repudiate out any of the rough edges. if you're conservative, sound more centrist. if you're liberal, sound more centrist. i think she did nothing that would hurt her. she's sailing easily to confirmation. the real question is if this was going to lay the groundwork for the next time, who's in better shape now, and i would have to say liberals were disappointed. she repudiated the obama standard for judging. you heard that in that clip. obama said the reason he voted against roberts and alito was because of what was in their heart, that last 5% that's not just about qualifications, she repudiated that. she repudiated empathy. sheeversed her marks about a wise latina, and i think that she did sound a lot more like a strict constructionist and that doesn't necessarily give liberals a lot of baseline to go on for the next one. >> which, charles, raises the question to me, and i spend hours here with fox news watching the hearings and the same question i had during the alito hearings, the roberts hearings, have these become a waste of time, that these nominees are so tightly prepared, if anything controversial comes up, i can't talk about that because it will come before the court, they don't tell the public what kind of justice they'll be? >> it's a waste of time and not an entertaining show. ever since the truth was spoken and a seat was denied on the court, it's kabuki. this nominee pushed the envelope of disingenuousness. repudiated the standard of empathy. repudiated her statements about a wise latina, implying th whereas she had said a latina makes a superior judgement to a white guy, she actually meant equal and she said it apparently six times and she had it published once. and then when she said that she would be guided by the law, she's a person who says that the law is indistinct, it's a matter of experience and interpretation. who makes the law? she does on the court. her performance was absolutely incredible in the sense that it was not believable, but it will get her on the court. >> yet, for all the questions, and you and i were part of the fox news coverage, so we sat there for all those hours and hours and hours, juan, i think we both would agree republicans went pretty easy on her during the confirmation hearings which raises the question in my mind, in the end, did president obama box them in by picking the first hispanic justice for the court? >> i think he did. i think you'll see it in the final votes. i think republican senators from area states that have large hispanic populations are going to vote for her confirmation for just the reason you describe and she'll not only be the first hispanic, she'll only be the third woman to sit on the court, and i think it also speaks to the independent voters and the large percentage of women who are independents. but let me differ with you first and say i think republicans did a pretty good job, especially in the early going, of attacking judge sotomayor and making her into rac conscious and practicing race politics to the point that if a white man said what you had said about being a better judge on the basis of race, the white man will be disqualified and will white men get a fair shake. and i thought not only was president obama a subject of discussion and debate during these confirmation hearings, but the roberts court. strict constructionist? not really. senator feinstein said roberts said you're going do the law, but look at all the precedents you've overturned. >> we only have a few minutes left. i don't want to let this day go without talking about walter cronkite who passed away on friday night. almost 30 years after he left the anchor desk, bill, why do you think it still means so much to people? i've been shocked by the coverage and i've talked to members of the family and they're, quite frankly, astonished. >> i think for our generation, you know, huge viewership of the three major evening news shows, two for most of the '60s, cronkite and huntley and brinkley, i think we watched huntley and brinkley at home. >> we didn't. >> one forgets how rapid the decline of network news. 90% of households had on the news. cable has eclipsed the role of network news. >> what's happened to the news business since he retired is extraordinary. he was a giant. we all grew up with him. he was the last representative of when there was this voice of god, you know, somebody who was universally credible, who everybody believed, giving you the news. that just doesn't happen anymore for better and for worse and that's i think why his passing even 30 years after he left his anchor desk is so significant. >> i think the major impact was not so much evening news as it was on the great events, the national events, the kennedy assassination, the moon shot, in which in a sense a huge continental country becomes a village. everybody is in the same event at the same time feeling it together and led by a man like cronkite. i think those events are the ones that imprinted him in our consciousness and left that huge mark. >> trustworthy, he was very trustworthy, incredible, and he didn't pander to the audience, he didn't go for celebrity, he didn't make himself the story, he said this is about the news, and i think people now that we watch the way news programs go with all the personalities, hairdos and the like and all the razzle dazzle, we say, gosh, walter cronkite was about the news. he was a real newsman and we all honor that. >> as somebody who did have the great good fortune to know him growing up and through the later years, he was a great professional and he was a great man, and the country was very lucky to have him in that seat during those tumultuous years. thank you, panel. see you next week. don't forget to check out the latest edition of "panel plus" where the group continues the discussion on our website. foxnews.com/fns. welcome to the now network. population 49 million. right now, 1.5 million people are on a conference call. 750,000 wish they weren't. - ( phones chirping ) - construction workers are making 244,000 nextel direct connect calls. 1 million people are responding to an email. - 151 accidentally hit "reply all." - ( foghorn blows ) that's happening now. america's most dependable 3g network bringing you the first wireless 4g network. - sprint. the now network. - ( whoosh sound ) deaf, hard of hearing and people with speech disabilities access www.sprintrelay.com. ♪ i always feel like (announcer) it's right here, it's easy... ♪ somebody's watching me. ...it's the money you could be saving with geico. ♪ who's watching? 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