What Issues Will New Congress Address First?
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: The new year ushers in a new Congress this week, and it will look a bit different with Republicans controlling both houses. Lawmakers are set to tackle some key issues, and CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider joins us live from Washington to talk about the 108th Congress. Good to see you. Happy new year.</s>WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Happy new year, Fredricka.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, a few things we want to tackle here that Congress is likely to tackle, as well. And they relate to abortion issues, jobs, the economic stimulus package, welfare, et cetera, all of that. What is the top priority among those issues?</s>SCHNEIDER: One that you didn't mention -- the extension of unemployment benefits for almost 800,000 Americans whose federal unemployment benefits ran out at the end of last year before Congress acted to extend them. The president now says he favors extending those. That's an urgent priority. Both the president and the Congress agreed something has to be done. There's got to be some negotiation on how long those benefits will be extended for, will it apply to the whole country or just certain targeted states, but that is the number one priority because it's immediate.</s>WHITFIELD: And in fact, that is being kind of coupled with the economic stimulus package in that President Bush says he also wants to address job creations, and that is part of the economic stimulus package as well as the extension of jobless benefits. So how might Congress be accepting the economic stimulus package? We may be hearing a little bit more about it later on in the month, as well.</s>SCHNEIDER: I'm sure we will. The president is going to give a major economic speech possibly before his State of the Union. What President Bush seems to be proposing is a very big economic plan that could cost as much as $600 billion over the next 10 years. It will include accelerating the tax cuts for all Americans, including the wealthiest Americans. It will include, this is its centerpiece, slashing the tax on dividends. The president is looking to that as a way to stimulate stock prices and raise them for everybody. Possibly some incentives for middle income Americans like a faster increase in the child care tax credit, doing something, faster relief on the marriage penalty, but basically it's a pretty ambitious package, plus a lot of aid to the states out there, almost all of which are facing very serious budget crises, and that's affecting a lot of Americans. The federal government is going to have a program to transfer money, particularly for Medicaid services, to the states.</s>WHITFIELD: In fact, the Democrats are jumping on that already saying it's bad timing for such a package like this, in particular Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle said, quote, "it's the wrong idea at the wrong time to help the wrong people."</s>SCHNEIDER: Well, the Democrats have two big complaints about what President Bush seems likely to propose, not certain yet. Number one, they say it's not targeted to the right people, as you just said. It should be targeted more to middle- and lower income Americans. Too many of the benefits that the president is prosing will go to wealthy Americans, like a cut in the tax on dividends. Well, most of the dividends are received by the top income and taxpayers. What about middle income Americans? What are they going to get out of all this? The president says it will raise stock prices and that will help everybody and will also create a much fairer tax cut.</s>WHITFIELD: And Bill, sorry to interrupt real quick, because we have to go back to a breaking story, but before we do real quick, I do want to ask you about the abortion issue because that's one that I kind of started off this conversation with, and that is because we have a Republican-controlled both houses, and so many abortion rights activists are afraid or feeling like abortion rights might be falling by the wayside. Explain.</s>SCHNEIDER: I think they should be concerned, given their position, because conservatives are saying this is finally our chance. The Republicans for the first time in almost 50 years control everything, Senate, House, the White House and they see this as their time to make a big push for curtailing abortion rights.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, Bill, sorry, got to go. Got to address this other breaking story that's taking place. But thanks very much for joining us from Washington. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com