that the nation has been on brink of this kind of crisis. let s go straight to capitol hill, our congressional current kate bolduan baldwin is standing by. the ability to finally fand a way out of this impasse and to avoid this looming government shut down and how this could all come out has to do with the big focus on the fema funding. the additional funding for federal disaster relief that democrats and republicans wanted to put in this short term spending bill. fema came out today to confirm that different from their prior predictions, that fema may be able to stretch their disaster relief funds that are much depleted and could run out, but they said they could stretch the funds through the end of this week. this is different than prior predictions which many had said would be depleted by the beginning of this week. in a statement, i will read you just in part, wolf, quote, estimates from over the weekend indicate the disaster relief fund could be fully exhausted by the
while hiking. texas governor rick perry failed to live up to his front-runner s status this weekend. mitt romney won michigan straw poll by a 3-1 margin over perry. now, romney s father served as michigan governor in the 60s making the son somewhat of a home state favorite. in florida, herman cain took top billing. he drew twice as many votes as perry, with romney in third place. cain says he won because voters are beginning to notice his 999 tax plan. here s how he explains it. my plan is bold because it throws out the tax code and imposes a business flat tax of 9%, personal flat tax of 9%, national sales tax of 9%. it replaces all of the taxes that people are now having to grapple with and it provides search engine to the business community which is what they re looking for in order to grow this economy. governor perry jumped into the race for the gop nomination. that was just six weeks ago. instantly topped the polls but critics say that perry s debate performances
of our viewers. they were able to do this after all of this discussion and all of this fight over specifically inclusion of fema funding. additional fema funding of in the short-term resolution. what is happening right now, john, is there is going to be a series of two votes, actually. and it s a clean or simple and this basically is the measure that everyone basically agreed to. funding fema as well as not shutting down the government and it strips away all of the obstacles that had really been holding up the agreement to this point. the second measure that they will be voting on is actually here s the confusing part. a one-week extension. one-week short-term spending extension. and the purpose of this is simply the house is out this week, as you well know. if they can t get members back in time, or they can t get an agreement to pass it very quickly. they will need that one-week of funding to avert the government shutdown and get the house back in time to vote on this mea
a distant second is rick perry, who spent a lot of time down there in florida, and pundits thought he would be the one to win that straw poll result. the other one that came out this weekend, michigan, and mitt romney is at the top. no surprise here. listen, romney was born in michigan. his father a former governor there. very popular. romney won the primary there back in 2008. he was expected to win. but perry did go up to michigan and campaign and he was a distant second. for perry, i think a lot of people are saying that those uneven debate performances, especially last week and the attacks on rick perry over his stance on illegal immigration, may be taking a toll. one other thing from the debates or from the straw polls, michele bachmann nowhere to be seen near the top. remember she won the straw poll in iowa in august. but she finished very low down in both of these straw polls. one thing about those, they are important. they are a gauge or a test or a barometer of a cam
rick santorum had to say when i asked him about the heated moments in thursday s debate between himself and texas governor rick perry rnlgt the white house shifts into election mode as the president heads out west for fundraisers. steve centanni live in washington with more on that. obama hits the campaign trail on the west coast. not going after votes so much as dollars to fill his campaign coffers. he left the white house this morning for a busy day of fundraisers from seattle to san diego. tomorrow he will talk jobs at a round table discussion in silicon valley. and here in d.c. he tried to rally an important part of his base, the black congressional caucus. put on your marching shoes. shake it! stop complaining. symptostop grumbling. stop crying. we going to press on. we have work to do, cbc!