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Saturday Morning News

Reporter's Notebook: Cheney's Health, Bush's Tax Cut

Aired March 10, 2001 - 9:37 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: We've be asking you for your e-mail questions. Miles here is working on the computer. He's gathering up all your comments on the Bush tax cut proposals. You know the drill. He's working on the computer and trying to run...

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Always at the last minute here...

PHILLIPS: ... this broadcast.

O'BRIEN: ... trying to keep the computer from crashing.

Two of our correspondents are here to hopefully not crash as they answer your questions.

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Looks like you were hitting the reboot button to me.

O'BRIEN: Yes, you know how that goes.

CNN White House correspondent Major Garrett, he's out there near the ranch at Crawford, Texas, where President Bush is spending the weekend. He's always careful when he's out there as to where he steps, of course. And our national correspondent Bob Franken, joining us from Washington, D.C., he's...

FRANKEN: Well, you have to do the same thing, of course...

O'BRIEN: ... always taking my lines, geez.

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: There's no question about that.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's get right to the e-mail, shall we, gentlemen? There are a lot of tax questions. But before we get to the tax questions, I wanted to -- I have no idea what camera -- one, OK.

PHILLIPS: Right over here.

O'BRIEN: I want to get to this one, because there were quite a few on this subject. "If for some reason the vice president was unable to continue in office, how would the position be filled? What is the procedure? And in Cheney's case, who would be likely to take his place?" Major, you want to take that?

GARRETT: Well, the process goes like this. Let's say, for example, the vice president were to become very, very ill and could not continue and so informed the president, and the president had a vacancy at the vice presidency.

He would then nominate a new vice president, and that vice presidential nominee must be approved in a majority vote by the House and the Senate. Once that happens, the new vice president takes over.

Now, who would the likely candidates be? Well, that's been quite a parlor game in Washington this week. Some people have mentioned -- Walter Shapiro, for example, a columnist in "USA Today" wrote a column yesterday suggesting Colin Powell for all sorts of symbolic and substantive reasons. Clearly Secretary Powell would come in with all the requisite international policy experience and military experience, and he would also be a tremendous symbolic boost to the Bush White House, becoming the first African-American to become vice president. That's just an idea.

Of course, there are a lot of senators who think that they might not be a bad idea to replace Dick Cheney. It's one of those conversations that happen in Washington at sort of a subterranean level. No one really wants to talk about it publicly, because it is rather crass.

But the fact is, Vice President Cheney's health is a big concern on Capitol Hill and within the White House, not that he's any sicker today than he was on Tuesday. Matter of fact, all indications he's feeling much better, and he's back to work, carrying out that very rigorous schedule on behalf of the president.

But this heart ailment and this chronic artery ailment has come up again, happened in November, happened just this week. It's obviously going to be something the White House is going to have to deal with in the future.

PHILLIPS: All right, here comes another e-mail...

FRANKEN: And if I could, if I could interpose right here, I covered the trip to the hospital this week by Vice President Cheney, talked to his doctors. All of them said that they had every reason to believe that he in fact would be able to conduct a rigorous vice presidency for the whole time.

So the question is purely a speculative question.

PHILLIPS: All right, we're also going to talk more about that tomorrow too, Bob, we've got an interview lined up talking about stress on the heart.

But here's a e-mail question from Steve. Bob, why don't you take this one? Unless, of course, Major, you've got some inside scoop. "Is it true there will be a nondenominational chapel in the White House? Should there be? There's a library, a bowling alley, et cetera. I heard Clinton even wanted a McDonald's. Is that true?"

FRANKEN: Why did he need that? He could just walk down the street, there's a McDonald's about a block...

PHILLIPS: We've talked about tunnels, but I don't know if we've talked about this stuff.

FRANKEN: But the important thing is to ask, is there a nondenominational McDonald's?

GARRETT: Oh, God. Or a nondenominational bowling alley.

PHILLIPS: Yes, the -- all right, maybe we'll just move on to the next e-mail. Go ahead, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, this one comes from Dick Ochs in La Grange, Kentucky. "If... " we're moving now into the tax subject, by the way, gentlemen -- "If passed unchanged, how would President Bush's proposed tax plan affect a typical wage-earner lucky enough to bring home a million dollars from Regis?"

FRANKEN: Well, it would lower his taxes. As a matter of fact, the Democrats say it would lower it too much, that the millionaire or otherwise would be the major beneficiary of the tax plan. Of course, the Bush supporters say that the real beneficiary is the middle class family.

PHILLIPS: All right. We have Gwen from New Jersey on the line. Go ahead with your question, Gwen.

O'BRIEN: Gwen?

PHILLIPS: Are you still there?

CALLER: Hi, it's actually Glen.

O'BRIEN: Didn't sound like a Gwen.

CALLER: I think I got disconnected...

PHILLIPS: Is it Glen?

GARRETT: It sounds like a Glen to me.

O'BRIEN: Glen. How about Glen?

CALLER: ... I just watched...

GARRETT: Or a Gwen with a chip on her shoulder.

CALLER: Well, I just saw the report by Kate Snow there, and I was wondering if you could address the issue that the -- you're really not speaking apples and oranges between those two families, the single wage-earner mother, that the -- what was called a refund in the report is actually the earned income tax credit, isn't it? Which is, in fact, a welfare program, maybe deserving, but a welfare program hidden in the tax code, whereas the other family's actually getting a tax cut -- the single mother is actually getting more free money back from other workers. Right?

FRANKEN: I think people -- I think the people who advocate the EITC would argue that it's a welfare program, it is for earned income, and it's a tax credit for people who are low-income workers, as opposed to a welfare program. Wouldn't you agree with that, Major?

GARRETT: Yes, I mean, the earned income tax credit, believe it or not, was created by Ronald Reagan. He considered it one of the best tax policies to deal with the working poor, not the poor who are out of work, but the working poor who weren't earning enough to make ends meet, and nevertheless found themselves in income tax brackets.

But the central question really here is, income taxes versus payroll taxes. The democratic alternative tried to deal with the payroll tax issue, not directly, but through a more generous earned income tax credit back to the working poor.

The White House and President Bush believe that all income tax payers should receive a tax cut, and if you're wealthy, you obviously pay more income taxes, and if you have your taxes cut, in real dollar terms, you're going to pay -- you're going to pay less and get back more.

O'BRIEN: All right, another tax question is coming your way from Donald Odom, Jr. "Forgetting the crumbling infrastructure in America, overcrowded and dilapidated schools, roads, and bridges, how much would the current so-called surplus be if even the most basic health coverage were extended to 40 million or so Americans without any health coverage at all?"

And that's -- I know that's not directly a tax question. But it's part and parcel of the debate.

Mr. Franken, would you like to take that?

FRANKEN: Well, I obviously don't have figures, but it would be a lot less, because that is a major, major expense in the United States, and it's a major issue. The fact of the matter is, is that there are those many millions of people who are not insured, people who work, and there has to be some policy. Everybody agrees to see to it that they have adequate health care.

PHILLIPS: All right here...

GARRETT: And one thing the White House is trying to do to address that, if I could jump in, Kyra and Miles...

PHILLIPS: Sure.

GARRETT: ... is, in some of the tax proposals that the president has laid before the Congress, the idea of providing tax credits so low income Americans can actually buy health insurance in the private market, as opposed to having a government-run, government-organized system of health insurance, which the Clinton administration suggested, and didn't get very far with, you'll recall, in President Clinton's first term.

So the president is trying to address that, but in a completely different method, through tax credits to put money in the hands of people so they go out on the private market and buy their own insurance.

PHILLIPS: All right, gentlemen, we got time for one more e-mail. I'll let this be a free-for-all, you know, either one of you jump in. Craig Brown from St. Louis, Missouri, asks, "What is the chance that there will be a reform of the electoral college soon? The wisdom of the founding fathers' argument doesn't hold up in modern times. After all, they were slave owners."

FRANKEN: Well, what is the chance of that? I would put the chance of it between fat chance and obese chance, because it would require a constitutional amendment, and nobody expects that that's really going to happen. It's one of those issues that had a very brief period of controversy and probably has faded a little bit into the background. I'd be curious what Major has...

GARRETT: Electoral College reform is a completely dead issue. However, election reform and addressing some of the complaints that came through in the Florida recount process, still is a live issue, and along with that, campaign finance reform.

I think you will see not action quickly, but a lot of conversation arising out of the difficulties some voters, many of them African-Americans, encountered in Florida, and efforts undertaken at the federal, state, and local level to make sure that there's ample access not only to the ballot box but the people there to make sure that confused voters can actually fill out the ballots properly.

O'BRIEN: All right, gentlemen, our time has expired. Good job navigating through the minefield of e-mail pies, if you will. And did a good job, and we'll have you back soon, we hope.

PHILLIPS: Major Garrett...

GARRETT: Please, please, please.

PHILLIPS: ... Bob Franken, thanks, guys.

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