good evening. i'm tom foreman filling in for erin burnett. "outfront" tonight, fiddling in washington while bankruptcy burns across the nation. san bernardino, california, is the latest american town unable to pay its bills. the math is $46 million in debt. they've made drastic cuts in employees and services. and the city has only $150,000 in the bank. that's it. residents are coming unhinged saying, why wasn't this calamity headed off at the pass? >> what about two years ago when they took $10 million from the employees? what were they doing then? now the city is forced basically to file bankruptcy because they have this tremendous amount of debt over their head. >> in the last 14 days, two other towns near los angeles have gone into bankruptcy. other places across the country have done the same or tried to in idaho, alabama, pennsylvania, rhode island, dozens of other local and state governments have made dramatic cuts just to try to stay solvent while they wait for the economic recovery to help with terrible budget shortfalls. and yet while this is happening congress spent today arguing once again about health care reform, holding a symbolic vote to repeal obamacare which no one, no one thought would pass, even the republicans who pushed to it the floor. and by that, i mean pass in terms of making any real difference. just to put in it perspective, this was the 33rd time congress has voted to repeal or defund the health care law. >> instead of focusing on jobs, which they claimed in the last election was their focus, republicans are creating a sense of deja vu all over again on the floor by staging a repeat of the health care reform. >> we on this side of the aisle care about the health care of the american people. that's why we're here. that's why i brought this bill forward, along with and on behalf of my colleagues. >> welcome to groundhog day in the house of representatives. >> as a physician, one of the tenets of medicine is first, do no harm. sadly, the president's law does real harm. >> we are joined now by one of the republicans who backed that vote today, congressman, thank you for being here. i have all the respect in the world for your party having the right to oppose this law, overturn this law or take whatever steps you want to on that front. but everyone today knew this was a show vote. why do you take part in such a thing? >> in the aftermath of the supreme court ruling where it's very clear this is a massive tax hike that's going to hit every part of the american economy, 21 new taxes little every one of our economy in light of the fact that we have 41 straight months of high unemployment at 8% or higher and very sluggish economic growth, businesses are telling us that they're having a hard time hiring because of the specter of this tax hike. >> i get that, a legitimate argument. but why not hold a press conference on the steps of the kopg and say all that instead of taking time in congress doing something which your party has been equally critical of democrats doing? why not be done with the showboating? things in this country are too dire for a bunch of dog and pony shows. >> clearly, we need to do a lot of things to help this economy to help tackle the debt. in the house, we've passed a number of votes to promote energy production, promote job growth. yet these votes are not taken up by the senate. we have a senate that's doing nothing right now. that's the key point. we're going to keep doing what we have to do in the house to try to move this economy forward, to give some certainty to the american people who are struggling right now with high unemployment, a very sluggish economic growth situation. they want to see action. we're trying in the house and we're going to keep putting pressure on the senate. >> this was an action. it was a vote that was meant to be a p.r. stunt just like the democrats have done. and i talk to voters all over this country, democrat, republican and independent, and every time either party does this, their view of congress drops lower and lower and lower. don't you want to fix that? >> well, i do. and i'm intent on providing good solutions to the many problems that families are facing. i can tell you on the health care law in particular, i'm deeply concerned as a physician with over 30 years clinical experience as to what's going to happen with this in terms of cost to family, dealing with ever-rising premiums. we're dealing with higher cost to the taxpayer. the congressional budget office has come up with revised figures showing a much higher cost to the taxpayer on this bill. we've got many, many problems with this, including significant interference with the doctor/patient relationship. so i'm very happy to point out as often as i possibly can in every possible venue the flaws in this health care law. >> let me ask you about one other thing. you introduced some legislation today to try to penalize financially congress member who is don't show up for votes. do you think that's going to pass? >> well, i'm going to push to bring to it the forefront and ask the leadership to consider it. the bottom line here is that we have an obligation to our constituents. and when congress is in session and votes are being held, roll call vote, meaning we're being recorded as having voted yes or no, i think it's important to be there to vote. and unless you have some extenuating circumstances, such as an illness or a family illness where it's a legitimate excuse, if you're not showing up to vote and you're going off to political functions and fund-raising, i don't think that's serving our constituents well. and i think there are members of congress who are doing that and i want to put a stop to it. >> i think there are plenty of voter who is might agree with you on that. congressman boustany, thanks so much for being here. we appreciate it. joiping joining me now is john avlon. you've been taking congress to task on this over and over again. i appreciate the congressman talking about this. but in the end, these are, as i said, dog and pony shows. both sides do it all the time. what ought congress to be doing right now? what could they be doing to help the people in california and idaho and alabama and pennsylvania? >> let's lay out three things that congress could be doing instead of this dog and pony kabuki. one study estimates it could lead to as much as 1 million new jobs. >> and both parties are saying, we want to help small business. >> both parties will pray at that altar because it makes good sense. but in this case, this bill should be a no-brainer, it's getting caught up in the bush tax cut debate. >> give me two more. >> second, u.s. post office, people know it's losing billions of dollars a year. the senate passed a bill to reform and restructure the post office. it's sitting in the house. they're doing the health care vote. instead of trying to save the post office. that would make a real difference in people's lives. final thing, let's look at cyber security. 2,000% increase in attempted cyber attacks against our critical infrastructure. there's a bipartisan bill ready to go in the senate. let's move it forward. this is an economic and a national security issue. these are some of the comm commonsense reforms that could go through congress. people are sick to death of congress right now. >> i know people don't -- they talk about false equivalence. this kind of gridlock we're talking about now, no matter who may be more at fault, can't be happening without both parties taking part in it. >> that's right. we've had divided government in the medication past. this is dysfunctional government. get it together, folks. keep your eye on the ball. >> and the economy just keeps burning the whole time. john avlon, thanks so much. "outfront" next, one of our guests thinks mitt romney knew he was going to be booed at the naacp conference and he thinks it was part of a plan. why would a statesman want to build nursing homes for our veterans only to have them unused? and the world's longest funeral may be finally coming to a close. stay with us. [ male announcer ] it isn't just your mammogram. it's your teenager's first varsity game. it isn't just your annual exam. it's your daughter's wedding. did you know with your health insurance you may now have some preventive benefits with no co-pays or out-of-pocket costs? it isn't just your cholesterol screening. it's all the tomorrows you're looking forward to. learn more at healthcare.gov. delivering mail, medicine and packages. yet the house is considering a bill to close thousands of offices, slash service and layoff over 100,000 workers. the postal service is recording financial losses, but not for reasons you might think. the problem ? a burden no other agency or company bears. a 2006 law that drains $5 billion a year from post office revenue while the postal service is forced to overpay billions more into federal accounts. house bill 2309 is not the answer. you see us, at the start of the day. on the company phone list that's a few names longer. you see us bank on busier highways. on once empty fields. everyday you see all the ways all of us at us bank are helping grow our economy. lending more so companies and communities can expand, grow stronger and get back to work. everyday you see all of us serving you, around the country, around the corner. us bank. do you really think brushing is enough to keep it clean? while brushing misses germs in 75% of your mouth, listerine® cleans virtually your entire mouth. so take your oral health to a whole new level. listerine®... power to your mouth™. i'm going to eliminate every nonessential expensive program i can find. that includes obamacare and i'm going to work to reform and save -- [ audience booing ] >> there you hear it. our second story "outfront," boos for mitt romney when he tells the naacp he wants to repeal obamacare. but if you think that pit putts him on the defense, think again. >> [ speaking foreign languag ] language ]. >> romney is rolling out a new ad with his son, craig, who speaks spanish asking hispanics to give his dad a chance. american crossroads is slamming romney. and women are slamming him for jobs that have gone overseas. this is clearly a broad attack on president obama's base trying to make him defend his advantage among those voters. "outfront" tonight, mark hill, david fromm and reuben navarrete. the chances of mitt romney winning any of these groups would be slim? >> slim to none. >> slim to none. but he doesn't have to win. >> he doesn't. >> all he has to do is make some of these people in these various groups start thinking twice about whether or not barack obama has really helped them and made them feel like not going to vote this fall. >> right. he wants to help defrnlgize the base. he also needs to show independent voters he's not a radical wingnut who wants to alienate blake voters. >> do you think he made any headway? >> getting booed is not a good sign. >> that was part of it. he got applauded in other parts of it. for example, when he talked about chartered school, when he said this is a way of helping people, talking about taking on unions when they stand in the way of schools getting better -- >> the charter school thing are things that president obama has been ambivalent on. i don't think that will be a deciding factor. the stuff he did draw boos from were health care and the personal tax on the president. made him look unstatesmanly and alienated black voters. >> let's go to david fromm. you said, if i were a political cynic, i'd wonder if the romney campaign wanted to be booed at the naacp. explain yourself. >> mitt romney was on fox business channel this afternoon and said he expected to be body. so they put things in there they knew were likely to draw a negative response and said a lot of things to elicit a positive response. black america has been hit hard by the grinding recession. to really go into what this recession has meant for black america, not only in terms of the catastrophe in the private economy, but public sector growth -- that visual you showed of mitt romney being booed is not a very nice visual. but there are also a lot of people in the republican base, people who are the people who like mitt romney least, who may be energized in their turn by that -- >> all right, all right. maybe. let's look at the unemployment. let's look at the unemployment for june. i want to look at this graphic here. white unemployment, 7.4%. black unemployment, 14.4%. hispanic unemployment, 11%. reuben, jump in here. same question i was asking to mark here. do you think in any way that the message from mitt romney if he attacks all these groups and says, what has this president done for you, he can dampen their enthusiasm? >> absolutely. he can dampen their enthusiasm. he's not going to be able to turn them against barack obama but he can prevent them from turning out. that's a great sense of ambivalence in many communities and a touch of it in the african-american community. while they personally like this president and support him, they wish he had been more in their corner on a variety of issues. not just black unemployment but specifically black unemployment among teenagers, among young african-americans and how bad that's been, north of 30%. i think a lot of people are supportive of the individual, but they don't much like his policies and when you get down to it, a lot of those liberals on the left and the coalition you mentioned earlier think he's been far too conservative, to inclined to cave into republicans in congress. they wish he had handled things differently. >> mark, what do you think? >> i disagree. i'm not convinced that black people are disappointed in president obama's policies. i don't think that's true. there's no study to suggest that. are some people disappointed that he wasn't radical enough? absolutely. but they're going to vote for the lesser of two evils. >> david frum, what does president obama need to say right now if he wants to somehow block this message from mitt romney who's trying to upset his base? >> it's past the point of saying anything. there's been an economic debacle and a terrible economic pain. words are not going to convince anybody, especially after this summer's repeated bad news. we seem to get bad news every summer. and this summer, we've had more bad news. the people who the president needs, they know what's going on without a word spoken by any politician. >> we all have to sacrifice in this time of need. we're out of time. ruben, you lost your last comment. i owe you for that one. thank you for being here. up next, california spends more than $100 million on a new facility for our veterans. so why is no one moving in? and new information about the much-anticipated report on penn state's handling of jerry sandusky's child abuse scandal. that's coming up. ♪ how are things on the west coast? ♪ ♪ i hear you... ♪ rocky mountain high ♪ rocky, rocky mountain high ♪ ♪ all my exes live in texas ♪ ♪ born on the bayou [ female announcer ] the perfect song for everywhere can be downloaded almost anywhere. ♪ i'm back, back in the new york groove ♪ [ male announcer ] the nation's largest 4g network. covering 2,000 more 4g cities and towns than verizon. rethink possible. ♪ i want to go ♪ i want to win [ breathes deeply ] ♪ this is where the dream begins ♪ ♪ i want to grow ♪ i want to try ♪ i can almost touch the sky [ male announcer ] even the planet has an olympic dream. dow is proud to support that dream by helping provide greener, more sustainable solutions from the olympic village to the stadium. solutionism. the new optimism.™ ♪ this dream our third story "outfront," we started this evening with the latest town going bankrupt out in california b. but another victim of the economy directly affects our nation's veterans. california has a budget shortfall of $15.7 billion yet spent a quarter billion in state and federal funds to build two new state-of-the-art nursing homes for veterans. good plan. problem is, the state can't come up with enough money to run the places. so now no one can move in and the state is spending a fortune maintaining empty buildings. casey wian went for a look in westwood, california. >> we were hit by an aircraft in this left number one engine and we were shot down. >> reporter: 89-year-old world war ii veteran rudy was shot down over germany. he spent 11 brutal months as a prisoner of war. now he wants a safe place to spend his remaining days near family in fresno, california, where a brand-new 300-bedroom veterans home was completed in april. but it sits empty because of california's budget crisis, it will stay that way until at least october 2013. in the meantime, hundreds of veterans wait to get in. >> there are veterans out there that are in a lot worse shape than i'm in that should be going into that home right now. >> reporter: the home cost $159 million to build, split roughly 60/40 between the federal government and california. $159 million will buy you a very nice facility. here, there's a general store but there's nothing on the shelves. next door is a barbershop where no one's cutting hair. and just like with the state of california, there's no money in the bank and no residents. this year, the state only budgeted enough money for a skeleton maintenance crew and a handful of staff at fresno. >> understand that what the legislature and the governor were dealing with was a $16 billion deficit. >> reporter: state officials say regulatory hurdles are part of the problem. this veterans home in west l.a. was completed two years ago. 84 veterans including steve and millie have moved in, but 300 rooms remain empty. >> i think it's too bad because there's got to be -- there's a lot of waste in the government. >> these are not like hotels. you don't open the door and fill them with the residents. these are long-term care health care facilities that require specific equipment, specifically trained and specially trained professionals. >> you have to hire people, you have to train people. that story gets old after a while. >> reporter: this korean war veteran has been pushing for a home for 12 years. >> they don't give a damn. if they did, they'd take care of their people. >> these facilities will open. they are opening. the commitment is being kept. >> reporter: the plan is to move eight veterans a month into the fresno home starting next october. the question is, will that be too late for vets like rudy? >> casey, this just seems outrageous. i've heard part of the explanation there. but ultimately, how do state officials defend having fallen into this trap, building such a place and not being able to pay for it? >> reporter: tom, what they're saying is this is actually a victory for the veterans because as we mentioned, california has a serious budget deficit. they had to cut $8 billion in discretionary spending out of the budget this year. according to the california department of veterans affairs, money to maintain facilities like this and to prepare them to begin to accept residents is one of the only areas of the state budget that was actually spared from cuts. the veterans say they're tired of waiting, though. >> casey wian, such a story. thanks so much for joining us. a new pentagon report says iran's missiles are getting more powerful and deadly. is that a real threat or is it just saber-rattling? an investigation will release a report tomorrow on the jerry sandusky sandal at penn state. tonight, our susan candiotti has a few details as to what might be in it and there are indications that officials knew more than they admitted. take a right. do you have any idea where you're going ? wherever the wind takes me. this is so off course. nature can surprise you sometimes... next time, you drive. next time, si