i m erin burnett. outfront, breaking news, federal failure. gridlock reigns in washington once again. now the payroll tax cut proposal passes the republican house. so why do we say failure? well, the republican bill, included a controversial oil pipeline that the president has said he would veto. so, pass, smash. we re at square one. congress again playing chicken with the clock. there are just 18 days left until the tax cut expires. if it does, the average american will pay about a thousand dollars more in taxes next year. now, this may not be economic armageddon. but because the tax cut is popular for everyone, both parties want to pass it. so why are they failing? the bottom line, in one afternoon we found a way to compromise and get this done with the help of robert and williams at the nonpartisan tax policy center. here goes, what we call a decent proposal. if you extended the payroll tax cut for only people making under $75,000 a year, the price tag would be about $48
also, a man who knows all about the rise and fall of a front-runner, rudy giuliani. his advice to romney and gingrich. and one of president obama s staunchest supporters, movie mogul harvey weinstein, on why he thinks it s plain sailing for the democrats. i think the republicans every time they talk, it just doesn t seem to go too well for them. this is piers morgan tonight. good evening. just three weeks to go until the iowa caucuses, the nation s first contest of the 2012 presidential campaign. and two new surveys put newt gingrich firmly in the lead in that state. american research group gives him 22%. while the university of iowa hawkeye poll gives him 30%. so is the gingrich surge for real? joining me now is gingrich senior adviser kellyanne conway and gingrich senior adviser jim talent. let s start with you, kelly, you re new to the gingrich machine. in fact, he didn t have a machine until recently. so can we take the mere fact that you are on board as a sign th
presidentialness of romney, you would have the perfect candidate. if only it worked that way, huh? much more on the iowa stakes and the states in play. first the news you need to know. we ll shift to new hampshire. newt gingrich just wrapped up a debate with jon huntsman. it seem the real sparring was between speaker gingrich and mitt romney. romney threw the first punch saying gingrich should return the nearly $2 million in fees paid to him by freddie mac. one of the things that i think people recognize in washington is that people go there to serve the people and then they stay there to serve themselves. do you believe he should give that money back? i sure do. from the form he speaker, this counter punch. if governor romney would like to give back all the money he s earned from bankrupting company and laying off employees, over his years, i would be glad to then listen to him and i ll bet you $10, not $10,000, that he won t take the offer. and responding to c
the big contract for a drug that s not been proven yet, why is it going to make an 85% profit on its government contract? coming up, we re going to talk with a member of the company s board of directors, a familiar face here at cnn. we first got wind of this story in the los angeles times but since then, have learned a lot more. investigative correspondent drew griffin is keeping them honest. reporter: it s just another good business deal for billionaire investor and big-time democratic political supporter, ron perlman. this major political contributor to both parties but particular friend of the obama white house, owns the controlling shares in a company called siga technologies, and siga this year won a sweet $432 million no-bid contract from the u.s. department of health and human services that even a democrat says is a little bit too sweet to ignore. how did this become a no-bid contract? was it justified as a no-bid contract? overall, i think we need to begin askin
let s talk about what he gets bailed out. we do know that just about half an hour ago his wife left his home which is located about 20 minutes from now. not sure if that s any sort of indication in terms of whether or not he might be released soon. currently being held on $250,000 bail. if he s able to post bail, don, he ll be unvery tight restrictions. he ll essentially be under house arrest. he ll have to wear an electronic monitoring device while he s under house arrest. in addition to that, he ll not be allowed to have my contact with victims or possible witnesses in the case and another condition of his bail would be he d not be able to have any unsupervised visits with minors. don? we re hearing, jason, that there s going to be a hearing next tuesday, what do you know about that? yes, of course, that s going to be the preliminary hearing, don, as you know, and i think what might be interested in that is that that would be the first time that jerry sandusky would com