house gop

bjbjlulu judy woodruff: we turn now to theongoing gridlock in congress, where house republicans today rolled out their budgetplan, and democrats immediately objected. a new election year battle took shape at theu.s. capitol today, this one over the budget. house republicans laid out their counterproposalto the blueprint that president obama put forward last month. budget committee chairmanpaul ryan. rep. paul ryan, r-wis.: this is a path that we believe reignites and renewsthe american idea. it reclaims the opportunity society with a safety net, which we do believemust exist for people who cannot help themselves, for people who are down on their luck so theycan get back on their feet. but we don't want to turn the safety net into a hammock thatlulls able-bodied people into lives of dependency

and complacency. judy woodruff: the gop proposalwould slash the deficit by $3.3 trillion over the next decade. that would be on top of the$4 trillion in savings in the obama budget. among other things, the republicans make substantialreductions in medicaid spending and repeal the president's health care law. they alsoseek cost savings in medicare, imposing changes for future recipients, those now under age55. the full house is expected to vote on the plan next week, but that's as far as itwill go. in the senate, the democratic majority leader, harry reid, made clear today thatthe house plan faces certain defeat in his chamber. sen. harry reid, d-nev.: we all recognizeall that does is make the rich richer and have bigger hits to the middle class. andit ruins medicare as we know it. judy woodruff:

the obama administration also objected tothe republican proposal, saying it lacked fairness. white house press secretary jaycarney. jay carney, white house press secretary: what the ryan plan fails to do is in any waymeet the test of balance that every credible person in this debate has said must be metif we're going to deal with our fiscal challenges in the future. judy woodruff: congressmanryan argued that if the republican plan turns out to be an exercise in futility, it's onlybecause democrats refuse to engage. rep. paul ryan: this budget process stops and ends ifthe senate continues to do nothing. judy woodruff: the two sides have also deadlocked over transportationfunding for roads, bridges and rail lines now due to expire at the end of this month.last week, the senate passed a two-year bill

costing $109 billion with broad bipartisansupport. on the house side, speaker john boehner has been unable to line up republican backingfor a larger five-year bill. with no agreement in sight, house republican leaders today saidthey would offer another short-term extension of transportation funding. for more on what'sbehind this standoff over the budget and the fight over the transportation bill, we arejoined by norman ornstein of the american enterprise institute. he's co-author of theforthcoming book "it's even worse than it looks." that's a grim title. (laughter) normanornstein, american enterprise institute: and we're getting more evidence every day, judy.judy woodruff: so, norm ornstein, thank you for being with us again. what is behind -- peelthe layers back for us. what's behind what

has led congress yet again to be at this state?norman ornstein: well, we're facing as close to real gridlock as we have seen in a verylong period of time. and a good part of it is, in an overall sense, we have parties actinglike parliamentary parties. what paul ryan's budget put out was a partisan attempt to puta marker out there. we don't have a parliamentary system. and when you ve got divided government,it means that you come to a stop. at the same time, if we look at the transportation issue,we ve got some of the old verities that we have seen, which is the house and senate differoften as much as the two parties do. so, here we have a different vision of what to do withtransportation, a broad bipartisan majority, 74 votes in the senate, passing the bill todo highways and mass transit. and the house

republicans disagree with their own senaterepublican counterparts as much as they do with the democrats. judy woodruff: but, so,is this any different from what we have seen over the last few years where they haven'tbeen able to agree on much of anything? norman ornstein: well, what we had in the first twoyears of the obama administration was a parliamentary system working in a sense, where democrats,without republican votes, passed a major share of legislative accomplishments. judy woodruff:when the democrats were in charge of the house. norman ornstein: democrats were in chargeof everything. but, in a parliamentary culture, everybody accepts the legitimacy that themajority can do that and the minority will oppose. in ours, if it's not done in a broadbipartisan way, half the country believes

it's illegitimate. so we have gone from aspate of accomplishments viewed by half as illegitimate to no accomplishments at all.judy woodruff: well, talk about what's going on underneath, and in reverse order, the transportationbill, which we mentioned then. as i understand it, there has not been a transportation billpassed by congress that's been funded, except in a temporary manner, for the last five years.norman ornstein: yes. judy woodruff: what's going on there? norman ornstein: and, youknow, we simply have different party visions of what to do with transportation. and thatmeans infrastructure more broadly. how are we going to fund it? we fund it through ahighway trust fund that is gasoline taxes. an unwillingness to raise those taxes, evento take into account inflation, has put that

into jeopardy. we have questions about whetherwe're going to fund mass transit in that fashion and an attempt to cut back dramatically overall.but with the party differences, we have not been able to get anything done. remember,the federal aviation administration deadlock that resulted in a partial shutdown was asimilar phenomenon. and what this means is that any attempt to do long-term planningout in the local areas is foiled. and now we're going to get yet another short-termextension and very little likelihood that we will come to an agreement next month. judywoodruff: what's happening in the house, though? as we mentioned, speaker boehner trying toget some agreement here, he's having difficulty even with his own republicans, who have a50-seat majority there. norman ornstein: the

house republicans have put out a transportationbill that basically cuts mass transit funding off from a steady stream of revenue from thehighway trust fund. even conservatives from urban areas are not terribly happy with that.at the same time, even though the house has about a third less funding for these highwaymeasures than the senate bill does, many conservatives think it's still too much money being outthere. so he can't keep his own party together on this one. and he's unwilling to do a bill.that includes the senate bill that, if it came to the floor, might get 218 votes, butwould probably have more democrats supporting it than republicans. judy woodruff: is therea similar dynamic at work with the paul ryan proposal, which the democrats have alreadysaid, no, we're not going to go along with

this? norman ornstein: there's one littleelement of the ryan budget that reflects some of this dysfunction that we haven't talkedabout. at the insistence of conservatives, freshmen, well as some of the more conservativesenior members, they ve cut spending in the discretionary areas, the non-entitlement programsbelow the deal that was reached on the debt limit last year. and that's going to causeanother potential shutdown in the government. it's breaking a bargain that all the leadersagreed to. house republicans are saying, we only set a ceiling. we didn't set a floor.but even mitch mcconnell has said that that was the deal. so, to mollify his own base,boehner and paul ryan have had to go along with something that will probably get the218 votes in the house, but is not going to

get anywhere. judy woodruff: what's at thebottom of this? is one party more at fault here than the other one? norman ornstein:you know, we have both parties that have acted in this fashion, but the fact is, it's asymmetricpolarization, judy. right now, what we have seen is an unwillingness by a minority party,defined as a party that doesn't hold the white house, the republicans, to provide any votesfor anything that president obama would support and an attempt to repeal what was done inthe first couple of years of the administration. so, at this point, the balance has clearlytilted more in one direction than the other. judy woodruff: and -- and you were sayingearlier today, yes, this always happens in an election year. but you're saying, thisyear, it's even worse. norman ornstein: we

always get an attenuated process. in a presidentialelect year, there's a natural inclination to tread water and wait. but there are must-thingsthat have to be done. that includes things like transportation. with a weak economy,you want to do something in infrastructure and you want to make sure we can keep thingsgoing. so real gridlock in this case shouldn't be the rule of the day. but it is right now.and the unwillingness of the parties to try and figure out how you can reach any commonground, even to lay out markers that are so far apart, is a sign of a different times.judy woodruff: and the prospects for anything changing this? norman ornstein: well, in december-- at the end of december, after the election, but before a president is inaugurated, wehave a perfect storm. we have all the bush

tax cuts expiring, the deal that we reachedon the payroll tax cut and the doc fix expiring. we have these sequesters taking effect andpossibly another debt limit vote. all hell could break loose in december, and maybe thatresults in a jar and people do something, or maybe it gets even worse than you -- thanit looks. judy woodruff: a lot to look forward to. norman ornstein, thank you very much.norman ornstein: thank you, judy. udy woodruff: we turn now to the ongoing gridlock in congress,where house republicans today rolled out their budget plan, and democrats immediately objectednormal microsoft office word udy woodruff: budget plan, and democrats immediately objectedtitle microsoft office word document msworddoc word.document.8