Joe the Plumber to D.C.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Just crossing the top of the hour, it's 7:00 Eastern and here are this morning's top stories. Administration officials say New Hampshire Republican Senator Judd Gregg has accepted President Obama's offer to be secretary of commerce. The announcement is expected later on this morning. Source say New Hampshire's democratic governor will name a Republican to take Gregg's place, therefore not affecting the balance of power in the Senate. Eric Holder will be sworn in as the nation's first black attorney general today. He was confirmed yesterday by the Senate, 75-21. Holder served as the number two at the justice department during the Clinton administration. Iran state radio is reporting the country set its first domestically made satellite into orbit. It's yet another development in Tehran's ambitious space program, and it is worrying to international observers. State television showed video that it claimed was the satellite launch. The tug of war over the president's stimulus package gets under way in just a short while. The Senate is expected to start voting on amendments to the bill. Many Republican senators are signaling that the full bill needs more debate. The president met with Democratic lawmakers at the White House yesterday, working to win bipartisan support for the bill. And that could be an uphill battle.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What we can't do is let very modest differences get in the way of the overall package moving forward swiftly.</s>SEN. THAD COCHRAN (R), APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: The Senate is being asked by the administration to take a big leap of faith that the massive spending proposed in this bill will, in fact, stimulate growth of the economy.</s>ROBERTS: And with hundreds of billions of dollars on the line, it's hard to know what the stimulus would really do for you, so we're breaking it down for you this morning. Looking for GOP support, Senate Democrats have agreed to drop two controversial programs, $75 million for antismoking campaigns and $400 million slated for STD and HIV prevention. Turning to the proposed tax cuts, $500 for individuals, $1,000 for working couples for the first half of this year. That's about $20 a week back in your pocket. The plan would also spare around $24 million taxpayers from the alternative minimum tax. The total cost, $70 billion on average saving the family of four about $2,300. Our Christine Romans is digging deeper this hour, looking at what the stimulus could do for the nation's infrastructure. You heard Governor Pawlenty say that a lot of what's in the bill doesn't seem to count to him at least as infrastructure. Then there's also the controversy that the Congressional Budget Office found that a lot of the economic boost from this won't be felt for years.</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Some of the answers to these questions we're not really going to know. And I talked to economists and I say when will the boom getting big? How many from the infrastructure spending? We really just don't know. It depends on the mechanics. It depends on a lot. It depends on what the projects are and how quickly they can be unrolled or unfolded, rather, and rolled out. Two-thirds of this whole bill is directed to states and infrastructure spending. Some $90 billion for construction projects, $142 billion for education. They want to fix up a whole lot of schools, some 10,000 schools President Obama says. $20 billion to modernize health care records and use technology there. The critics here or the support for infrastructure spending is it could create some three to four million new jobs, strengthen infrastructure and be of future benefit to the economy but the critics say it's unfocused. There's not enough shovel-ready projects but you talk to governors and they'll tell you that they've got a lot of shovel-ready projects ready to go and that it will add to the deficit. So here's the sort of debate over this unfocused nature, all of these different plans, you know. Does it help or does it hurt? This is what Mark Zandi said. You know, unfocused can be -- well, it can cut both ways.</s>MARK ZANDI, CHIEF ECONOMIST, MOODY'S ECONOMY.COM: None of us really knows which of these projects are going to reap big benefit, both the stimulus and this long-term plus for the economy. So I think we need to diversify the kinds of things that we invest in just because of the uncertainty involved in those investments.</s>ROMANS: Unfocused or diversification? It depends on how you look at it. But a lot of projects and there are a lot of very different kinds of projects that it's a whole lot of money. We talked a little bit earlier about the distraction of the tens of millions here and there. This is a lot of money.</s>SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And Christine, you bring up a really good point because obviously, you know, how quickly can they turn this around and actually create these jobs? You know, I mean, that's the big debate is whether or not they'll be able to spend this money really, really fast and actually have those millions of jobs that they say they're going to be able to save or create. And then the other side of it, of course, is really chipping away at that $900 billion economic stimulus package. There are so many Republicans and Democrats included who are just very upset about the price tag of all this. They have no idea whether or not this is even going to work. So they're talking about cutting out programs in the millions, not in the billions, but in the millions. And so they have a really long way to go here.</s>ROMANS: Back in 1993, Bill Clinton was trying to get $30 billion for an economic stimulus package and Republicans were screaming. $30 billion, can you believe he wants $30 billion to stimulate the economy and create jobs?</s>ROBERTS: Right place, wrong time.</s>ROMANS: Yes, $30 billion. Now, we're talking about $900 billion.</s>CHETRY: You're right.</s>ROMANS: Things have really changed.</s>CHETRY: Right. When $125 million here or there is considered small --</s>MALVEAUX: It's like peanuts.</s>CHETRY: Exactly. You know what we're dealing with. All right. Well, another big thing that happened yesterday. Michelle Obama, she started to sort of define her role more as first lady. The first lady giving her first public speech and she did it at the Department of Education, telling America's teachers, roll up your sleeves. CNN's Suzanne Malveaux is back again with us with more on this. So this is her first big, you know, speech that she gave. And she wanted to say, look, I'm a product of public schools, so is Barack Obama.</s>MALVEAUX: Yes, and you know, she's really stepping out now because she says, you know, she's going to have a public role. Obviously, she's going to be mom in chief and she's talked about that before, but education is really important to her. Community service is really important. Military families. And so you're going to see her really define her role and step out. This is just the first step. I want you to take a listen to what she said yesterday.</s>MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: I am a product of your work. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for the public schools that nurtured me and helped me along. And I am committed as well as my husband to ensuring that more kids like us and kids around this country, regardless of their race, their income, their status, the property values in their neighborhoods get an access to an outstanding education. The children of this country are counting on all of us. They're looking to us for direction. They're looking to us for that ray of hope. They're looking to us to help them figure out how to make it through. And we have everything we need right here and now to make that happen.</s>MALVEAUX: Another one of her roles is she's becoming kind of this neighborhood mom, if you will. They've really -- the first couple have embraced Washington, D.C. as part of their home and really a part of their community. I heard an anecdote and I didn't even believe it. Somebody told me there was no crime in D.C. for two whole days, no crime. And this was around the inauguration. I got on the phone this morning. I talked with the mayor of D.C., as well as the police chief, and they said yes, it's absolutely true. For two days, there was no crime. There was a sense people are trying to clean up their areas, their neighborhood.</s>ROMANS: Really?</s>MALVEAUX: You know, it is incredible though that you have that sense of community that people are like, well, perhaps Michelle Obama will visit our neighborhood next week by surprise and so you see these, you know, folks who are cleaning up their backyards and shoveling their snow and doing things to empower themselves because they believe that, you know, maybe Michelle Obama, the first lady, will stop by and you never know.</s>ROBERTS: Pretty extraordinary.</s>CHETRY: Thanks, Suzanne. Well, President Obama is expected to announce Republican Judd Gregg as his choice for commerce secretary. It's today at 11:00 Eastern. We're going to watch it live on CNN or online at CNN.com. Also, CNN's Anderson Cooper sits down for a one-on-one interview with President Obama today at the White House. And you can see it on "AC 360." It's tonight right here on</s>CNN, 10: 00.</s>ROBERTS: It's coming up now on eight minutes after the hour, and here's what's new this morning. A soldier in South Carolina, listen to this story, was in the middle of his first-ever skydive when the instructor who was strapped to him -- it was a tandem jump -- died from an apparent heart attack. Daniel Pharr said that he went into survival mode and used his army training to stir the parachute which thankfully was already open and land safely.</s>PVT. DANIEL PHARR, SURVIVED SKYDIVING SCARE: I was asking him what his longest glide was before, you know, just general skydiving questions and he was unresponsive. I just grabbed the right toggle, tried for the left toggle, and in doing so lost the right one. So I regained the right one and just held on to it. And my path was such that I was going toward a house, so I just pulled on the toggle and turned right.</s>ROBERTS: On the ground, Pharr attempted CPR on the instructor but it was too late. And here's a little tale of responsibility that's sure to inspire you. Hero pilot "Sully" Sullenberger lost a library book in the flight that he landed in the Hudson River last month, the US Airways Flight 1549. But his late fees are being forgiven and the library is dedicating the replacement book on professional ethics to "Sully." Talking recently to ESPN, "Sully" was asked how he felt when he realized both his plane's engines were out. His response, "Shocking. It was very quiet as we worked, my co-pilot and I. We were a team. But to have zero thrust coming out of those engines was shocking, just the silence of it." Now here's why it's a lesson in responsibility, OK. Because he lost the book, but he contacted the library to say, I'm sorry, I lost the book. I'm trying to retrieve it. Can I get a temporary waiver on my late fees because maybe I will be able to retrieve this book at some point? The library said forget about it. We'll replace it.</s>CHETRY: And they're going to dedicate the new replacement book to him. They say they were really struck by his diligence, but with all of that going on, he remembered his library book was overdue.</s>ROMANS: That's amazing. Boy, he really follows the rules, doesn't he?</s>MALVEAUX: Yes.</s>ROBERTS: You'd think you'd have a few other things on your mind.</s>ROMANS: I know.</s>MALVEAUX: Just a little bit.</s>CHETRY: I love how the book was "professional ethics." What a good guy. All right. Well, the mother of 14, she took fertility treatments before she had octuplets, is now thinking payday. Why her priorities might not be in the right place right now.</s>ROBERTS: Forget about the referees in this year's Super Bowl. One bank sponsorship deal has got Washington watchdogs crying penalty.</s>CHETRY: Also, actor Christian Bale going ballistic. All of it caught on tape. We're going to hear what set him off at ten minutes after the hour.