[Blitzer:] Republicans and Democrats here in Washington are agreeing at least on one thing when it comes to a so-called grand bargain budget deal. Don't hold your breath. Republican Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, say it won't happen, quashing expectations that some sort of large-scale deal will come out of the negotiations formally scheduled to start next week. Congressman Tom Cole joins from us Capitol Hill right now. He's a member of this HouseSenate Budget Committee. Congressman, thanks for coming in.
[Rep. Tom Cole, , Oklahoma:] Great to be with you, Wolf.
[Blitzer:] So can we forget about a so-called grand bargain? Are we going for a limited, small-scale deal?
[Cole:] Who am i to contradict the majority leader of the United States Senate and the chairman of the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives? Look, i think they're right to try to keep expectations in line with the achievable instead of the ideal. But what could be achieved could be pretty significant. We're about $90 billion apart in terms of the House budget and the Senate budget. If we could, you, know, find a compromise in the middle, we could pay for with either savings, or with what I'd call growth revenue, not raising taxes but finding ways that would generate international revenue. That would be a good thing. If we could do it for this year and posit a number for next year so that the budget and the appropriations process can begin in January for fiscal year 2015, we'd actually get the government functioning under real order. I think that would be a very good thing. It would be a lot calmer and peaceful than lurching from continuing resolution and debt ceiling crisis one after another.
[Blitzer:] Yeah, if you could avoid another government shutdown and a crisis over raising the debt ceiling in January and February, that would be really important. Congressman, what about this notion of coming up with a new deal on those forced budget cuts, the so-called sequestration? The next round goes into effect in a few weeks. A lot of people are deeply concerned this could have a negative impact whether on the military or other key areas of the federal government.
[Cole:] Look, i share that concern. I actually think both sides share that concern. Each side has said throughout the sequester is not the appropriate and best way to pare back government spending. Democrats have either wanted to wish it away. And this is a matter of law. We have to act pro actively to change. Or they've wanted to raise taxes to get the extra revenue. I don't think either one those are the appropriate solutions. The president's put enough entitlement reform on the table himself that we could find the savings on the nondiscretionary side and take care of a lot of those cuts. There are some revenue measures that the two sides might be able to agree on. So again, there's enough elements out there to avoid that, but if all else fails, what will happen is exactly what you outlined, we'll have government at sequester levels and that's going to be pretty painful for all concerned, Democrat and Republican alike.
[Blitzer:] Let's talk about the Obamacare health, the website. We learned today, Jeffrey Zients, who's been brought in to help deal with the problems of the website, he says now it should be almost fully functioning by the end of November. Is that good enough for you?
[Cole:] Well, no. Obviously, it's i have a lot of respect for Mr. Zients. I worked with him on the Budget Committee when he was acting director at OMB. A very capable guy. But I think the problems with Obamacare are much deeper than a website. We're going to have to see what the composition of the population that's enrolled is. I suspect it's very light on young healthy people and probably long on older people that are going to be very expensive to take care of. There's a lot of other problems with it. Some of the funding mechanisms, medical device tax are pretty unpopular. So believe me, i think the website is the beginning of the problems. It's not the end. It's a deeply flawed, you know, law. And we can do some things to try and mitigate that. We already have. And I look forward to working with my Democratic friends. But long-term, this is not going to be a program that works out well.
[Blitzer:] What are you hearing from folks in Oklahoma, who never really had health insurance, but can now purchase it? They've had pre- existing conditions or they were very poor, but now for the first time they're eligible to get themselves some sort of health insurance plan? What are you hearing from folks in Oklahoma? How is that working out?
[Cole:] Well, it's a mix of opinions. Obviously, there are some people, particularly people with pre-existing conditions, that we've heard positive things from. Overall, the reactions mostly negative. People are not convinced the program is going to be able to be self- supporting. They've had the website problems other people have, and lots of folks that already had insurance that they were happy with are seeing their policies canceled and or their rates go up. So there's a mix of opinion. But honestly, it's still pretty heavily against Obamacare, and people are pretty fearful what's coming. The state so far has refused to participate in either the building of the website or the expansion of Medicaid. So I'd say, on balance, there's not much question this is not a popular program in Oklahoma at this time.
[Blitzer:] All right, we'll see it that changes. Tom Cole, as usual, thanks for coming in.
[Cole:] Thank you. You bet.
[Blitzer:] All right. Appreciate it. Apparently, there's a major development off the coast of Japan. Chad Meyers is standing by. A large earthquake? Chad, what happened?
[Chad Myers, Ams Meteorologist:] 7.3 in the same relative area as the much larger earthquake that caused the big tsunami years ago. 300 miles from Tokyo right there. That's not the real concern. The concern is that there may be a small tsunami that comes off of this toward the coast where they had the much larger tsunami earlier. But what I'm worried is the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant. It is a triple nuclear reactor with water hanging up, with rods basically almost in thin air, just a little bit of water around them. We're still going to have to see these guys don't need shaking and certainly not a 7.3 earthquake. Technically, this would be still an aftershock. You would say, wait, that happened a couple years ago. Two years is a long time in people time. But it's certainly not a long time in earth time. So still a shock, still a quake, still a movement along the same fault that the large quake was. We'll keep watching it for you. Right now, so far, so good. No alerts for the U.S. or Hawaii.
[Blitzer:] No tsunami alerts or anything along those lines, right?
[Myers:] Correct.
[Blitzer:] Chad, thanks very much.
[Myers:] Thanks.
[Blitzer:] Chad Myers reporting. International outrage over NSA surveillance. Now allies are demanding answers. We'll talk about that and more with former Congresswoman Jane Harman, get her reaction, whether the anger out there among the allies is justified.