CNN news 2011-07-31
In Washington, the only movement seems to be another step closer to the August 2nd deadline. In less than six days the federal government could run out of money and default on its bills.
Next hour on Capitol Hill, the doom's day scenario is laid out. Executives from credit rating agencies will warn lawmakers of the far- reaching impact of a U.S. downgrade. One debt plan, backed by House Speaker John Boehner, is yanked from a scheduled vote.
The Congressional Budget Office says that savings were overstated and the numbers need to be crunched again.
And Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell says it's time for his fellow Republicans to accept something less than perfect.
Joe Johns is in our Washington bureau, Dan Lothian at the White House.
Joe, let's go ahead and start with you. So how costly is today's delay on the Boehner plan and does he even have the support to get it passed in his own House?
Well, Kyra, you know, these are both very good questions. On the one hand, he loses a day and there are only six days to go. So that's a big deal. The other thing is that what's more important is the loss perhaps in credibility.
The speaker said his plan was going to, you know, save something like over $1 trillion. But it only saves about $850 billion. So that's a big difference, too. A question of credibility.
On the other hand, he buys some time because there are a number of people in the House of Representatives, some of whom actually spoke out last night, and said this thing is not going to pass. I'm not going to vote for it. So he gets a little bit more time to try to drum up the support he needs, because once he puts something on the floor, he's got to get a yea vote.
All right.
And, Dan, you know, there is some talk of a band-aid-slash-patch approach. You know? What would that do?
Well, look. This is a message that you've heard from the White House over the last week or so, that the president does not embrace a short-term deal, but if in fact it does appear that there is some compromise happening, that both sides have agreed to some kind of a framework of a plan and they need time to work it through the legislative process then the president would support that, quote, "band-aid approach" of maybe a couple of days to cross all the T's and dot the I's.
That's as far as the administration will go. But beyond that saying that the president still wants a longer term deal because he believes that if you divide it up as John Boehner's plan looks to do, extending the debt ceiling through this year and then next year as well, that it only sets you up for another battle during the middle of the big election cycle and may not calm the fears of the markets.
All right. We're going to be talking about it every single minute of the next couple of hours.
Joe Johns, Dan Lothian, thanks so much.
And near the bottom of the hour, 9:25 Eastern, Ali Velshi is going to join us once again. He's going to actually look ahead to next hour's congressional hearing on downgrading the U.S. credit score. The impact as it will be told to lawmakers pretty sobering.
All right. This story is trending really high on CNN.com. Zain Verjee talking to us about a 14-year-old hit man and the killings are pretty gruesome. He's actually known on the streets as the cloak.
Tell us more about this kid, Zain.
Kyra, he's 14 years old. That's really what's gripping people, both in the U.S. as well as around the world. And he was found guilty in a Mexican court for torturing and beheading at least four people and kidnapping at least three people.
He was asked how did you execute them? Just listen to what he says.
Kyra, what's outraging a lot of people, too, about this is that because he is only 14 years old, his maximum sentence under Mexican law is that he gets three years in a correctional facility and he also has to pay a $400,000 fine.
So it's really a gruesome story and what a lot of people are saying is that this is all part of the drug wars and you've got the drug gangs in Mexico beginning to recruit young kids like this 14-year-old boy to do their dirty work for them Kyra.
Yes. And you're seeing a lot of kids as young as 14 being recruited by the cartels. It's heart-wrenching.
Let's check stories cross country now.
Storms ripping through parts of Connecticut and Massachusetts last night, winds up to 60 miles an hour, along with quarter-sized hail had residents on edge. And this is the same area, by the way, that was hit by a tornado last month.
We've seen plenty of homecomings by soldier. Well, this one in Nebraska has a bit of a twist. That's Army Specialist Robert Leonard. He's part of the 134th Cavalry that just returned home yesterday from Afghanistan.
You see him on the knee there. He convinced his girlfriend to come up on stage and he popped the question. You can probably tell she said yes!
And now that the final shuttle mission is done, NASA workers looking for their next job. Well, they held a job fair at the Kennedy Space Center. Some 60 government agencies and private companies showed up to offer jobs.