South Korea Starting New Round of Artillery Exercises Today; Deep Freeze Kicking off the Week; Closer to Compromise on Capitol Hill
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. Thanks so much for being with us. It's Monday, December 6th. I'm Kiran Chetry.</s>T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: And hi there, everybody. I'm T.J. Holmes, sitting in this morning for John Roberts. This is what we're keeping off eye on this morning. It was a busy weekend on those Bush-era tax cuts. Senate actually was in session. They were working, didn't get much done, but the word now out of Washington is that possibly something could get done on your taxes sometime in the middle of this week. But this could mean the president would have to make a break of his campaign promise. We'll explain all this coming up.</s>CHETRY: Also, warning shots. South Korea starting a new round of nationwide artillery exercises this morning. They've been seen as a response to North Korea's deadly shelling of a South Korean island nearly two weeks ago. The South Korea's defense minister is now saying that military forces can immediately retaliate if North Korea launches another attack.</s>HOLMES: And don't tell these folks who are seeing six inches of snow that winter is not officially here yet. We've got a deep freeze that is kicking off the week. Temperatures in some places in single digits, teens in other places, even in the south might not get out of the 30s.</s>CHETRY: Wow. Well, first, trying to cut a deal with your paycheck on the line. They're getting closer to cutting a compromise on Capitol Hill this morning on extending the Bush tax cuts. And the clock is ticking before all Americans would see a major tax hike. Ed Henry is live for us at the White House this morning. So as we've been saying, they worked through the weekend. What did they accomplish?</s>ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Really not very much, in fact. Good morning, Kiran. And this was once a line in the sand for this president that he would only support extending tax cuts for those making $250,000 or less, which he defines as middle class, and that he would not extend tax cuts for the rich. Now, the line in the sand not so much. It appears that they're getting closer and closer here to a deal cut as early as this week, in which all of the Bush tax rates for the middle class as well as for the rich will be extended maybe for a year, two years, maybe even more. And that's music to the ears of Republican leaders like Mitch McConnell. Take a listen.</s>SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, (R) SENATE MINORITY LEADER: I think it's pretty clear now taxes are not going up on anybody in the middle of this recession. We're discussing how long we should maintain current tax rates. And there are other issues that many people feel are important to address. Obviously the president won't sign a permanent extension of the current tax rates, so we're going to have some kind of an extension. I'd like one as long as possible.</s>HENRY: Now, the president will be making remarks on the economy and this tax cut fight just after noon eastern time today in North Carolina. He's going to be at a community college talking about education, but also, the economy. I spoke to a White House aide who told me, quote "The president will also renew his opposition to even a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts if it does not include an extension of benefits for the unemployed and extensions of the other tax cuts that benefit middle class families. Without them, taxes would still rise for 95 percent of Americans. An important point to make, the White House is still saying that in these negotiations they'll only support an extension of the Bush tax rates if they also get an extension of unemployment benefits. There are millions, as you know, seeing their benefits run out here right before the holidays. Nevertheless, that may just be a small consolation for the White House and Democrats on the Hill who are expecting a lot more out of this tax cut deal. It's looking like the Republicans are going to get more than the Democrats expected. Kiran, T.J.?</s>CHETRY: In some ways, could this be viewed as a reluctant compromise? I know the extension of the unemployment benefits was something that was important, as well, the Republicans, some were balking at.</s>HENRY: Well, Republicans were balking at the notion that they would be extended without them being paid for. They wanted to make sure there was some sort of spending cut, offset, if you will. You're right, it looks like the Democrats may get that without an offset, so you can call that a victory. But when you take a step back, both sides talking about fiscal discipline lately, meanwhile, they're about to extend the tax rates for everyone, which means hundreds of billions of dollars lost to the federal treasury if those unemployment benefits are extended, also not likely to be paid for. Both talk big game about reducing spending, but not really doing it right now.</s>CHETRY: Absolutely. Ed Henry for us this morning, thanks.</s>HOLMES: Let's bring in Christine Romans now. Christine, we've been talking about the back and forth going on in Washington. People have had these in place for a while now. If they go up, you're going to notice it.</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You're going to notice it. They were temporary tax cuts. The Bush tax cuts were always meant to be temporary, but you get to really feel how you make your family budget around them. And this would be putting you back to what you were paying for taxes in the 1990s if an agreement isn't reached. So this is what it would look like. Imagine you were a single person making $47,000 a year. You would pay an extra $819 in taxes. A family of four earning, say, $75,000 a year, your tax increase would be about $2,600. Two adults 65 years and older earning $121,000 -- $6,908. So you can see, it's money at this particular time in the economy that would clearly hurt an awful lot of families. But again, it's back to what you were paying back in the 1990s. And sometimes we talk about tax increases. It's returning to you the tax levels from the pre-Bush era levels. But it looks as though most people will not have to face this. Looks as though what Ed is reporting, they're making progress on this.</s>CHETRY: And you also said Friday, if your unemployment benefits are set to run out, still file, still call, still go online. And it looks like that's going to happen, as well. Looks like they are going to possibly tack on this --</s>ROMANS: People are so nervous about that. They're really nervous.</s>CHETRY: Understandable.</s>ROMANS: Even Ben Bernanke this weekend on "60 Minutes" pointed out we need to be looking at structural problems and structural deficits and the like. But right now we shouldn't do anything to hurt the economy. He didn't specifically say -- he didn't specifically say unemployment benefits, but that's something that's very stimulative to the economy. And he was also asked, you know, when will this jobs nightmare be over?</s>BEN BERNANKE, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN: The peak and the end of last year, we lost 8.5 million jobs. We've only gotten about a million back so far, and that doesn't even account for the new people coming into the labor force. At the rate we're going, it can be four or five years before we're back to a normal unemployment rate, somewhere in the vicinity of, say, five percent or six percent.</s>ROMANS: You've heard us say that many, many times on this program. When you do the calculations, you'd have to have 300,000 jobs every month for a period of 50 to 60 months just to get back to normal. When you hear the fed chief say it, it was a little sobering. He was also asked about the tax cut debate, and he smartly, as he always does, declined to talk about the politics of it. But he did say we need a more are streamlined tax code with lower corporate and personal tax rates in general. So he did weigh in on that front but he would not talk about the tax cuts debate.</s>HOLMES: He kind of was giving an indication there saying we shouldn't do anything right now to hurt -- maybe he was --</s>ROMANS: Right. A lot of economists say that, you've got to be very careful about -- what is that robbing Peter to pay Paul? You're talking about the longer term structural deficits to the United States. But right now the economy is right on the border of being self-sustaining. That's not where you want to be. You want more than 2.5 percent growth in the economy and we're not there yet.</s>CHETRY: Christine Romans for us this morning, thanks so much. Well, a pilot was badly hurt, but alive miraculously after he crashed his single-engine plane into two homes in Utah. It went down in the town of Roy as it was preparing to land at a nearby airport. People inside were able to get out of the homes without being hurt. The plane, though, then crashed into a power pole, that was torn apart. Power was knocked out to 1,700 homes. Neighbors were the first to find the pilot.</s>GARY COX, WITNESS: He was pretty banged up, burns on his hands and face. But he was actually coherent and remembered what his name was and what he was doing.</s>RICK POTOKAR, WITNESS: There was debris all over the road from, I think, it was probably a transformer exploded. The one here in front of this home we're sitting at, the transformer there blew up, as well. It kind of acted like a chain reaction afterwards because the crash site is a good half block from here.</s>CHETRY: Investigators are trying to figure out what led to that crash.</s>HOLMES: Another internet blackout for Comcast customers, this time in the Midwest. Internet outages impacted Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana, Michigan. Comcast said last night everyone should be back on by now. A similar outage hit Boston and the D.C. beltway just hours before cyber Monday shopping.</s>CHETRY: Not good. Well, the federal government wants automakers to install backup cameras on all vehicles by the end of 2014. This has saved my life on so many locations, being able to see what you're backing into. It's helped many a fellow driver, I'll tell you that. Well, some models have them now, like my wonderful minivan, but usually an expensive option. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wants the rule phased in over the next four years.</s>HOLMES: Are you that bad?</s>CHETRY: You can parallel park so quickly and precisely because you can get so close, you can practically feel the car.</s>HOLMES: You said it save your life --</s>CHETRY: No, I don't reverse down the highway very often, but I'm saying it saved my life figuratively in that I don't have to file an insurance claim.</s>HOLMES: That's my mistake. Well, the football stadium at TCU, it's a pile of rubble. It stood since 1956, imploded to make way for major renovations.</s>CHETRY: I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you one other thing.</s>HOLMES: Not back to the camera.</s>CHETRY: I got in so much trouble because I wasn't looking once and backed into my husband's car in our driveway. He says "You have a camera! How can you not see my car?"</s>HOLMES: But you had a family accident. So you couldn't file a claim against the other guy. Oh, Kiran.</s>CHETRY: He wasn't happy. That's why I don't drive very often. And 1,000 cold-blooded people took part in the annual polar plunge. Next year we can add T.J. and Reynolds over here. They're going to jump in Lake Erie over the weekend. And it was all to raise money for the Special Olympics. They brought in $130,000. By the way, the temperatures outside temperatures only 20s, so the water probably felt warmer, actually.</s>HOLMES: You sure you don't want to go back to the cameras one more time?</s>CHETRY: No.</s>CHETRY: Still ahead, Jeff Gordon driving for much more than just the Sprint Cup now. He's teaming up with the new charity, one that the number 24 car will be proudly displaying next year, the new design right under that cover. And we're going to be lifting it coming up in just a minute. Jeff Gordon will be here late this hour to show us the new paint job and talk all about his drive to end hunger.</s>HOLMES: Also still to come this morning, WikiLeaks is now exposing vulnerable security secrets to terrorists. Should the U.S. use cyber warfare to try to knock this site off? We'll the tell you. It's 12 minutes past the hour. Stick around.