Captioning sponsored by Macneil Lehrer productions brown a new congress with old problems. 94 freshmen house and Senate Members were sworn in today as the most diverse legislature in American History opened for business. Good evening, im jeffrey brown. Woodruff and im judy woodruff. On the newshour tonight, we profile this new congress with its Record Number of women and minorities and look at the hurdles ahead. Brown then, the cliffhanger and the cliffs to come. Maya macguineas, robert reich, and douglas holtzeakin debate the deal struck by congress and the white house. Woodruff Margaret Warner has the latest from india where the suspects in a new delhi gang rape were officially charged with murder, rape, and kidnapping today. Brown the crisis beneath the streets. Miles obrien reports on a growing threat to the countrys infrastructure aging sewer systems. In detroit, there are 3,500 miles of sewer lines, some of them dating back to the mid 19th century, the crumbling pipes offer a glimpse at a Huge National engineering challenge that is largely unseen and unappreciated. Woodruff and ray suarez examines the changing face of Cable Television as al jezeera, the pan arab news giant, buys current tv, a Television Channel founded by al gore. Brown thats all ahead on tonights newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by moving our economy for 160 years. Bnsf, the engine that connects us. And by the alfred p. Sloan foundation. Supporting science, technology, and improved Economic Performance and Financial Literacy in the 21st century. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Woodruff on this third day of the new year, the u. S. Congress officially reconvened for the 113th time. Bringing a new set of faces, to join those already in place; and a familiar set of issues. With the prospect of more battles over taxes, spending and deficits. If the senators to be sworn will now present themselves at the desk. Woodruff high noon was swearingin time in the senate today. Vice president joe biden, who serves as Senate President , administered the oath of office to the freshmen and reelected members. Do you so solemnly swear that you will support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. Woodruff the ceremony came just hours after the old Congress Worked down to the wire, passing the fiscal cliff legislation. And, president obama, on vacation in hawaii, signed the bill into law on wednesday. On the senate floor today, republican minority leader mitch mcconnell, tookote of the weeks events. Id like to welcome everybody back after what i realize was a somewhat abbreviated recess. Woodruff mcconnells minority will be smaller still in the new senate. Democrats now have 53 seats to 45 republicans and two independents will caucus with the democrats. In all, there are 12 newly elected senators eight democrats, three republicans and one independent, angus king of maine. And five women won seats, bringing the total to 20 th mo ever. Some other notables Tammy Baldwin of wisconsin, the first openly gay person elected to the senate. And mazie hirono of hawaii, the first Asian American woman. Both are democrats. On the republican side, ted cruz of texas becomes just the third senator of hispanic heritage. And tim scott of South Carolina appointed to fill the seat vacated by jim demint is the senates only black member, and the first black republican senator since 1979. Freshmen on both sides will now join, in earnest, the fight over spending and taxes, as majority leader reid made clear today. As we advance the debate over the best way to strengthen our economy and reduce our deficit during the 113th congress, democrats will continue to stand strong for the principle of balance. Woodruff on the house side, republicans are still in control, albeit with fewer members 233 to the democrats 200. There will be 82 freshmen 47 democrats and 35 republicans. As in the senate, the house now has a Record Number of women, 81 in all. Minority leader nancy pelosi held a photo op today with the women of her Democratic Caucus this morning. But the spotlight today was primarily on House Speaker john boehner. Hes coming off bruising battles over the fiscal cliff bill, within his own caucus, and criticism for delaying a vote on Hurricane Sandy funding. Boehner grew emotional as he dressed the chamber today. If you ve come he humbled by the opportunity to serve; if you have come here to be the determined voice of the people; if you have come here to carry the standard of leadership demanded not just by our constituents but by the times, then you have come to the right place. Woodruff today, he won another twoyear term as speaker with 220 votes. A dozen republicans either voted against him, voted present, or abstained. With the voting over, the speaker swore in the new house. Congratulations, you are now members of the 113th congress woodruff one of the first orders of business will come tomorrow, a vote on the first installment of sandy aid. Then, theres a full plate of challenges left by the last congress. Within the next two months, the lawmakers will again face the prospect of automatic spending cuts and the need to raise the nations debt ceiling. Brown still to come on the newshour tonight weighing the fiscal cliff deal; charges in the india gang rape case; the countrys crumbling sewage system and an expanding american reach for al jazeera. But first, the other news of the day. Heres hari sreenivasan. Sreenivasan for another member of congress, today marked an especially momentous return to work. Republican senator mark kirk of illinois suffered a stroke 10 months ago, and had to learn how to walk again. Today, he climbed the 45 steps of the capitol, with Vice President biden and West Virginia senator joe manchin on hand for support. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton will return to work at the state department sometime next week. Clinton was discharged yesterday from a new york hospital, where she had been treated for a blood clot in her head. A state Department Spokeswoman said clinton is now resting at her home in new york, but wants to get back to washington. Some of the senior staff who spoke to her half an hour ago said that shes sounding some of the senior staff who spoke to her half an hour ago said that shes sounding terrific, upbeat, raring to go. Shes looking forward to getting back to the office. She is very much planning to do so next week and well have further precise details about that as she continues tmake progress. Sreenivasan clinton is stepping down soon. Senator john kerry has been nominated to be the next secretary of state. Classes resumed today for the connecticut children whose school was the scene of a december massacre. 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in newtown, nearly three weeks ago. Scene, so today, more than 400 students were welcomed back to a freshly refurbished school in the nearby town of monroe. They arrived amid heightened security, as Police Lieutenant keith white looked on. Watching them get off the bus, most of the kids were excited. They had seen friends they hadnt seen in awhile. They were anxious to get into the hallways and meet up with you could see the teachers had the same response. They were quite excited to see the students all together. Eenivasan in a bid to ease any tensions, classrooms were made to resemble the ones at sandy hook. And, parents were allowed to visit their children throughout the day. Fighting raged in syria today around key areas that have seen repeated attacks and counter attacks. In the northwest, rebels made a new attempt to storm a Strategic Air base in idlib province. Staterun media said Government Troops forced them to retreat. And in damascus, opposition activists reported new Government Air strikes and shelling in the southern suburbs. The military has been trying to recapture the neighborhoods for weeks. The federal trade commission has decided theres not enough evidence to charge google with antitrust violations. Todays announcement capped a 19month investigation. Competitors charged google unfairly highlights its own services in Online Search results and buries links to competing sites. Google defended its practices, but it did agree to charge lower licensing fees for its Android Phone system patents. U. S. Auto sales ended 2012 on a strong note. Chrysler had the best year among detroits car makers, with sales jumping 21 . G. M rose 3. 7 , and ford edged up 5 . Toyotas 2012 sales rose a whopping 27 , and volkswagen dominated the european carmakers with a gain of 35 . Wall streets new year rally didnt last long. The Dow Jones Industrial average lost 21 points to close at 13,391. The nasdaq fell 11 points to close at 3100. Those are some of the days major stories. Now, back to jeff. Brown from one cliff to the next where do we go from here . To look at the economic consquences of the deal reached this week, were joined by Maya Macguineas, president of the committee for a responsible federal budget at the new america foundation. She serves on the campaign to fix the debt, a Group Pushing congresso reac a boad deicit deal. Doug holtzeakin served on the council of economic advisers under george w. Bush and as adviser to john mccains president ial campaign. Hes now president of the American Action forum, a policy think tank. And robert reich served as bill clintons secretary of labor. Hes now professor of Public Policy at the university of california, berkeley. Maya, i saw that the fix the debt web site blog today said the good, the bad and the ugly of the deal. Explain what you saw. Well, the good news is th we didnt go over the fiscal cliff. I truly believe that would have been so damaging for the country and the economy and likely put us back in recession. What we also didnt do is fix the problem of the deficits and debt in this country. Brown the problem. That were borrowing much too much and our debt is growing faster than our economy. We didnt take this opportunity to replace the cliff with a big comprehensive plan that would deal with all the broken parts of the budget and gradually, not abruptly, but graduately put the debt on a downward path. And in this deal that we had, the revenues probably not enough to fix the problems and notably absent were any changes to the nations Entitlement Programs and once again we waited until the 11th hour to do this deal and the result was partisanship and toxic nature in washington has grown worse. We have problems to deal with and im worried ant how well move forward and get the changes done. Brown thats a lot on the table. Robert reich, let me turn to you. Give us a brief overview of what you saw was and was not accomplished. Well, i share manyf mayas concerns president net revenues coming in from this deal are relatively small certainly in proportion to the very, very large looming budget deficits we see in the out years. That means most americans will either have to in the future bear higher taxes, middleclass americans or most people will see their services. Safety nets, public investments and everything from sewers and infrastructure over all the education all of that will be cut and may be cut quite dramatically. The oer thing that worries me, jeffrey, is that there was no agreement on the debt kreiling which means that were likely to see a continuation of this trench warfare weve had in washington at least since the summer of 2011 with almost no hesitation i think that the republicans in the 113th congress will use the threat of not going along with a rise in the debt ceiling as a way of extracting more concessions with regard to spending cuts. Some of the spending cuts, as i said, particularly with regard to infrastructure and safety net programs, programs for the poor, are very critical for the future. Brown doug holtzeakin, i guess theres consensus theres more to come, right . No question, we got a mixed bag. It got us past theliff and the biggest thing is addition by subtraction. We have a recession, thats the best news. For 98 of the taxpayers it gave them a permanent current tax law and took uncertainty out. But from another perspective it wasnt very brave. In the end we taxed rich people to spend on the current programs and we kicked down the road cutting any new ones so it really wasnt a solution to the debt and it was not a great solution to avoiding a recession. Pelley so you start us looking picking up on looking forward where robert reich started already and so did maya. But the debt issues, the debt limit issue, thats the next thing to come. The next thick to come isnt dealing with the debt. The debt limit is a symptom of that and we have to see both sides come forward with entitlement reforms. Thats the height of this problem. Its been noted for ten years by the c. B. O. Among others that we cant grow or tax our way out of this. Its an entitlement spending problem that has to be brought under control. And we will never solve debt limits unless we solve the debt so the way to get ahead of this is for the president to take some lead herbship and put on the table what he thinks are the right ways to deal with the Entitlement Program and then to have this go through congress, have the house deal it with, the senate deal with it, and stop the 11th hour approach to. This lets solve problems using the legislative process. Brown maya, have you seen any signs that that is likely or possible given what weve just been through . I think everybodys catching their breath and recovering for what was a very difficult negotiation. Weve started with talk about putting in place the bigger changes that have to get done both entitlement reform and tax reform and as we negotiate it down, the deal got smaller and things got more toxic, as i said. People need to sort of regroup and think about how well move forward. We did do one things which the sequester, the acrosstheboard spending cuts that were going to hit, were extended for only two months. That means theres another action in two months and we have to get real. We have to have a real conversation about what were going to do to deal with entitlements, spending and revenues, tax reform, all of these issues, we have too talk about them a less partisan way, a less finger pointing way because theyll be hard and if we continue to delay well have no economic stability which is what we lack right now. Well have real risk that were going to have an economic down turn because of concerns or some kind of fiscal crisis and that debt ceiling is sitting out about how were going to resolve this. Brown let me ask you about the tax issue, robert reich. The president said he wanted to raise more in revenues. The liberals are now suggesting he didnt get enough and im just wondering is there still the possibility of getting more or that a done deal and we turn to the spending issues . Well, hopefully there is the possibility of getting more, particularly from the wealthie members of our society. Those bush tax cuts are now pretty much permanent. They are now built into law, they are no longer temporary. It will be very difficult to revisit them but not impossible. I think the president could and should go back and see if its possible for the wealthy in this country, who have not been nearly this wealthy ever before, taking home a larger percentage of total income than they have in 60 years to contribute a little bit more to deficit reduction. The other point i want to make in response to both douglas and mias points about entitlement reform ishat the real longterm problem is not entitlements per se. The longterm problem is Health Care Costs that continue to go up for this nation coupled with baby boomers who were going to require more and more health care. Those Health Care Costs are now 18 of total gross domestic product, the total economy. And those are we what we have to deal with and we have to get control over them. Medicare is not the problem. Medicare costs are going up because Health Care Costs are going up. Brown doug, do you buy that . That thats where the emphasis should be instead of the as opposed to entitlements . Well, i think there are three important points here. First, Health Care Reform means medicare reform. Medicare drives the practice of medicine in america. Its a system that rewards quantity over qualiton its a system thats fragmented, we pay doctors one way, hospitals another, Insurance Companies another, Drug Companies a fourth way. It needs to be overhauled so that it rewards quality and provides coordination so medicare reform is Health Care Reform. The second is sort of how do we get there . I think its important to recognize that this country often has the situation we have mixed government thats more and more an exception and when we do debt ceiling ceiling increases it is the norm. 11 out of the 14 previous debt ceiling increases have legislation to affect the greater deficit with them. So we should recognize thats how its going to end up. The president s