Reacting to this morning’s news of weak job growth and an uptick in the unemployment rate, President Obama just said that the report “confirms what most Americans already know — we still have a long way to go and a lot of work to do to give people the security they deserve.”

He said that the 2007-2009 recession wiped away about 8 million jobs, and that even though 2 million positions have been created since then, “we still have a big hole to fill.”

“The economic challenges that we face weren’t created over night and they’re not going to be solved over night,” Obama added, as he also made pitches for action on raising the federal government’s debt ceiling, making the government “live within its means,” and investing in infrastructure and other key sectors that will hopefully boost job growth.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

MICHEL MARTIN, host: I’m Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News.

Now it’s time for our weekly visit to the Barbershop where the guys talk about what’s in the news and what’s on their minds. Sitting in their chairs for a shapeup this week are author Jimi Izrael, civil rights attorney and editor Arsalan Iftikhar, syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrettte, and Johns Hopkins political science professor and author and blogger, Lester Spence. Take it away, Jimi.

JIMI IZRAEL: Thanks, Michel. Hey, fellas. Welcome to the shop, how we doin’?

ARSALAN IFTIKHAR: Hey, hey, hey.

RUBEN NAVARRETTE: Good, man. Great.

LESTER SPENCE: Chillin’.

IZRAEL: All right, well, let’s get things started with the now infamous trial against Casey Anthony. Now, a jury found the 25-year-old Florida woman not guilty of murdering her two-year-old daughter, Caylee. Now, the case garnered headlines for months. It played out like a soap opera, from accusations of incest, fake nannies, Internet searches, a poison. Now, while many media and legal analysts declared her guilty, in the end, juries said the evidence was not enough, Michel.

MARTIN: You know, honestly, for the most part we’ve been a Casey Anthony-free zone here.

IZRAEL: Thank god.

MARTIN: But this is one of those things that it just – I don’t know, it’s just riveting this week because there were just so much around it. And from a certain point it became kind of unavoidable. What the jury found her guilty of was lying to police investigators. She was sentenced to four years but because she’s been in prison for all this time awaiting trial because of time served, she’s expected to be released next week.

And what’s been so interesting about this is that, for example, the judge has refused to release the names of the jurors because he feels that he had to protect them from public ire about the verdict. But one of them has spoken, Jennifer Ford, who was known as Juror #3, just spoke to ABC News’ “Nightline” about how they reached their verdict. I’ll just play a short clip of what she had to say.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “NIGHTLINE”)

JENNIFER FORD: There wasn’t enough evidence. There wasn’t anything strong enough to say exactly – I don’t think anyone in America could tell us exactly how she died. If you put even just the 12 jurors in one room with a piece of paper, write down how Caylee died, nobody knows. We’d all be guessing.

IZRAEL: Wow. Thanks for that, Michel. A-Train.

IFTIKHAR: Yes, sir.

IZRAEL: You’re the legal eagle in the shop. Were you surprised by the verdict?

IFTIKHAR: I was shocked. I’m not going to lie to you. Now, granted, you know, there was reasonable doubt. You know, the defense of Casey Anthony was able to obviously provide reasonable doubt. What was most surprising to me, Jimi, and I think a lot of people will understand this, traditionally in a jury trial, when a jury goes to deliberate, if they come back in a day or two, it’s usually a guilty verdict.

Usually the not guilty verdicts are when they deliberate for 9, 11, 15 days, when they’re sort of, you know, deadlocked. And so, you know, when we heard that the jury was going to make a decision, you know, after just a day and a half, I was almost certain that it was going to be a guilty verdict. And so, you know, to have a not guilty verdict be issued only a day or two after they went into deliberations was quite shocking to me.

IZRAEL: Wow. All right. Well, Ruben…

NAVARRETTE: Yo.

IZRAEL: You’re in California where the infamous O.J. Simpson thing played out, man.

NAVARRETTE: Yeah. Yes it did.

IZRAEL: Many analysts are drawing comparisons. Now, even Marcia Clark, the Los Angeles prosecutor in the Simpson case has weighed in. In an op-ed for The Daily Beast, she said this verdict could have been different – it would’ve been different if she was the jury member, as if. Do you see comparisons?

NAVARRETTE: I see comparisons in the sense that people who are not on the jury sitting through the evidence every day see different things and see different conclusions. I also see differences because people on both sides of the issue, either those who thought she should – that the decision is right or wrong, both make the mistake of thinking this is kind of a whodunit. Like the tape we just heard, the woman’s like, well, we couldn’t tell you exactly what happened to this beautiful young girl, this little girl.

Well, that’s not really the point of a trial. The point of a trial is that the prosecution comes forward, tries to meet its burden. You know, famously it’s been said many times, the defense can sit there with their arms crossed and not say a word. If the defense – if the prosecution doesn’t meet its burden, you have to find it for the defendant. So it’s really not a question of a whodunit. People watch too much television. They think that, you know, just because “Law and Order” wraps it up in an hour, that all of a sudden we’re going to know definitively who did it. A lot of people go to prison in this country without the story of whodunit actually been told. The question is, did the prosecution meet its burden? I’m with Arsalan on this – they didn’t. They didn’t meet its burden, and so it’s a really hard thing to swallow and I don’t like the outcome any more than anybody else, but them’s the rules and that’s how it went – that’s how it went down and we’ve got to live with it. And I think it’s good.

MARTIN: Yeah. I don’t understand why people who didn’t sit through the trial every day feel – I mean obviously speech is a free market, as I’m continually reminded so anybody can say whatever they want about anything and that’s also the rules. But, well, for the most part. But if you didn’t sit there every day, if you didn’t hear what the jury heard, pay attention the way they are required to pay attention, I don’t know how people feel that they can second-guess them. Do you know what I mean?

IZRAEL: Well, I don’t – I don’t…

MARTIN: Sitting in your armchair getting a sandwich whenever you want is not the same as being a juror.

IZRAEL: I don’t think it’s about second-guessing, Michel. I think this is a very emotional thing when you have a little girl turn up missing and then dead. I think people’s emotions got caught up.

NAVARRETTE: Right.

IZRAEL: Because and then we…

NAVARRETTE: And, Jimi, and Jimi, don’t forget and the mother, Jimi, don’t forget, the mother doesn’t report the child missing for 30 days.

IFTIKHAR: For a month. For a month.

NAVARRETTE: For 30 days.

IZRAEL: She was not sympathetic.

NAVARRETTE: Hadn’t noticed she was gone.

MARTIN: And lies about all manner of things. Yeah, but thank God we don’t have a system where you can just bust down the doors of the jail and hang somebody like has been the history in this country when people had, people, you know, who they didn’t like or who were unsympathetic. You know, thank God, you know, we live in a country where the rule of law does prevail…

IZRAEL: Right.

MARTIN: And that you’re not allowed to just…

SPENCE: Most of the time.

MARTIN: Most of the time.

IZRAEL: Go ahead, doctor.

MARTIN: Lester?

IZRAEL: Chime in. Go ahead.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SPENCE: Well, I mean just for, for me this is just a Twitter case. I didn’t realize what had happened until I saw that most of the people I follow were like, oh my god. Oh my god. What? What? And then at that point I realized that something had happened. But as soon as I Googled and got caught up on the case I knew it was just a lack of evidence. And it’s just unfortunate that I think it’s really understandable given the victim was a young child, but it’s, but I mean that really is the rule of the game. I mean your job is to prove someone guilty.

MARTIN: And it’s also the other thing is perhaps they overcharged the case. I mean how often are these cases that we’ve seen in the media in recent days like the Dominique Strauss Kahn case have in part to do with the fact that prosecutors go overboard…

IFTIKHAR: Right.

MARTIN: And then they overplay their hand. In this case she was charged with first-degree murder, which means premeditation.

IFTIKHAR: Right.

MARTIN: And where is the evidence of a plot and a plan? And so perhaps if they had not been so…

SPENCE: So right.

MARTIN: …quick to – had not overcharged this case that they might have had a different, you know, result.

IFTIKHAR: Yeah, Michel.

MARTIN: Arsalan?

IFTIKHAR: No, it’s a good point that you bring. You know, and this is where prosecutorial discretion comes into play. You know, a lot of times prosecutors will think if we throw the, you know, if we throw the kitchen sink and the fridge and dishwasher at them, something…

NAVARRETTE: Right. Right.

IFTIKHAR: Something is going to stick. And, you know, at the end of the day, you know, you end up, you know, end up having one minor charge, you know, that sticks that results in time served. And so, you know, prosecutors, you know, are tend to be a little more, they’re a little loose these days.

MARTIN: Jimi, you want to weigh in before we move on?

IZRAEL: I’m with you on your point, Michel. I’m glad to live in a country where, you know, we can at least stand up in front of a majority of our peers and have the facts weighed. That’s where I am on it.

MARTIN: And we should talk about the examples where that isn’t the case but, you know, here’s a situation where it is what it is.

IZRAEL: Right

MARTIN: If you’re just joining us you’re listening to our weekly Barbershop segment. We’re joined by author Jimi Izrael, civil rights attorney Arsalan Iftikhar, syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrette, and political science professor and blogger Lester Spence. Back to you, Jimi.

IZRAEL: Thanks, Michel. Okay, moving on to last week’s news that continues to play out somehow this week with Time magazine’s editor-at-large, MSNBC political analyst Mark Halperin. Now he called President Obama a four letter word, something to the effect…

MARTIN: A euphemism.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

IZRAEL: Yeah, yeah.

MARTIN: Euphemism.

IZRAEL: It had something to do with a man’s body part and it offended a lot of people. Now despite making a public apology, it cost him rightly, an indefinite job suspension. Now but African-American media personality Tom Joyner jumps in the fray. And he’s blaming fellow media personality Tavis Smiley and scholar Cornel West for the incident.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

NAVARRETTE: Right.

IZRAEL: I don’t know. I can’t get with him on that.

MARTIN: Talk about Twitter going crazy, though. ‘Cause this is how I heard about it. People like blowing up my spot talking about whoa, did you hear what Tom Joyner said? Did you hear what Tom Joyner said? And he was very tough. He wrote a very tough column on Black America Web saying that he feels that Tavis Smiley, of course, who’s been on this program many times, a former host at NPR, now at American Public Media, also on PBS, and that Cornel West, who is kind of a co-host and well-known scholar and so forth, that their continued criticism of President Obama has created a context that encourages others to be disrespectful of the president by make – and he says created an environment where those kinds of vulgar comments can be made. So I was, people were like, whoa on…

NAVARRETTE: Yeah. Right.

IZRAEL: Yeah.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: Ruben. Ruben, you know everybody.

IZRAEL: You know these cats.

MARTIN: I’ve met a lot of these gentlemen but you’re actually…

NAVARRETTE: Right.

MARTIN: …you know, friends with so…

NAVARRETTE: A few of them. Yeah.

MARTIN: …what do you make of it? Yeah.

NAVARRETTE: Well, first of all, as a light note, let me say it says something that you have a white guy like Mark Halperin out there say comment and then the guys who catch the blame are two black guys.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: A very valid point.

NAVARRETTE: Let me just put that out, okay, for starters. But this is really has to be seen in the context of what happened when President Obama was elected. Michel and I had the – I’ll tell the story quickly. We had the privilege of sitting in and participating in the Howard debate, the Democratic candidates running for president. And at the end of that debate I remember seeing in a very natural moment that Barack Obama go over and giving Tavis Smiley a hug, you know, and it was just no big deal. They had a good relationship at that point. In the green room Michel and I saw Michael Eric Dyson, Tavis obviously, Cornel West and Tom Joyner, you know, sort of all locked in a group hug. You have a lot of, a love there. A lot of…

MARTIN: A lot of brotherly love.

NAVARRETTE: That is gone. Okay, that stuff is gone and I can’t get that image out of my mind because the fact that they were so close once and no longer are I think has a lot to do with what happens when you elect a black president. Because when you elect a black president you have a split develop between folks who think in the black intelligentsia that they should criticize the black president when appropriate, and those who say no, you ought not. And so we have seen these eruptions of Al Sharpton versus Tavis Smiley, Al Sharpton versus Cornel West, you know, back and forth and I think everybody means well.

I don’t think this is just about a bunch of egos, really. I think I may be a dissenting view here but I don’t think this is about egos. I think this is about people saying okay, as Tavis has put it, do we give this black president a pass on black issues and say okay, we’re not happy with what you’ve done for the unemployment rate for black youths; the unemployment rate in the black community period; the distribution of funds, you’re bailing out Wall Street but not, you know, Main Street neighborhoods? Do we just sort of keep quiet about all that and wait until his presidency is done and then bring those issues up again?

Tavis’ point is if we’re going to have any kind of moral legitimacy? Is anybody going to listen to us the next time around when we go raise heck when there’s a white president there? And I think it’s a very valid point. So it is not just so am I about ego, it’s about what happens, you know, if we had a Latino president we’d have the same split in the Latino community. I’d be out there beating on the Latino president and there would be Latinos beating on me. It’s just the way it goes.

MARTIN: Arsalan wanted to say something.

IFTIKHAR: No, no. I’m interested to hear what Lester has to say.

SPENCE: So here’s another cut at it. Tom Joyner is worth approximately somewhere around $70, $80 million.

IFTIKHAR: Nice.

SPENCE: And he controls a large segment of that black morning media audience. What we have is an instance of kind of a black media mogul stifling black speech, right. The black unemployment rate for youths like 16 to 19, I think it’s around 40 percent. The black unemployment rate in general is probably around 18 to 20 percent. So there’s aspects of Tavis’ and Dr. West’s criticisms that are personal. But we should be erring on the side of giving more speech rather than erring on the side of stifling,

IZRAEL: Right. Right.

MARTIN: I credit your point but I don’t understand how he’s stifling speech and Tavis has two, not one but two media outlets in which to express himself. Not to mention the public events…

SPENCE: No, but Tom…

MARTIN: …that he, you know, puts on…

SPENCE: Well, I think that…

MARTIN: …that Dr. West certainly doesn’t…

IZRAEL: Okay, hold on.

MARTIN: Go ahead, Jimi.

IZRAEL: To Michelle’s point, go ahead Doc.

MARTIN: Go ahead, Jimi.

SPENCE: Well, you’re right. Tavis and Cornel are going to get theirs, right. But what does this say for others who actually want to actually step up to the mic and critique the president? What about somebody who’s interested in being on the Tom Joyner show, right? What about somebody who is interested in being on a host of other shows in which comments like that have been made, either in public or in private? Just the message itself is wrong.

IZRAEL: You know what this is? Tom Joyner wants to control the narrative, period. He imagines himself as kind of the king of all blacks, you know, and…

MARTIN: How do you know what he imagines himself? Are you in his head? What?

IZRAEL: Well, no. But you and I both sat on a panel with him…

NAVARRETTE: Are you in that basic…

MARTIN: Hold on a second. Hold on a second, Doc. excuse me.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

IZRAEL: I mean Michel, you and I both sat on the panel with him and it was clear that he really imagines himself as the conscience of all black people everywhere. And it’s like it’s like man, guess what? It’s like look, you know, you’re out their airing your personal beef and it’s one thing. You know, because there is a fine tradition of beef between black intellectuals. You had the boys of Washington, you had Malcolm X. and MLK.

NAVARRETTE: Right.

IFTIKHAR: Right.

SPENCE: Right.

IZRAEL: You had Richard Wright, Jake Baldwin. But this is more like NeNe Leakes and Sheree Whitfield. I mean this…

MARTIN: Oh, snap.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

IZRAEL: I mean this is really very catty, very sad, and everybody involved needs to man up. You know, I mean Tom Joyner is no writer. He can’t make an argument. And there’s no there there.

NAVARRETTE: Tom Joyner…

IZRAEL: There’s no there there.

NAVARRETTE: Tom Joyner, this is Ruben.

IZRAEL: Go ahead, Ruben.

NAVARRETTE: Tom Joyner has said, and he said if you read his comments on the Web, what he says basically these two are done in my book. They are dead to me. Tavis Smiley and Cornel West he said, no longer welcome on my show or on my air. Now it’s his prerogative. It’s his show and his air. I get that. But we can’t come back now and say that Dr. Spence doesn’t have a point. He’s right. This is an attempt by Tom Joyner to censor those folks, to squelch that speech by saying flat out you are not welcome on my show anymore. Because I think that it is an attempt to sort of control the narrative and control the power here, but I don’t think that does black folks any good. I mean because of these people don’t bring up these issues…

IZRAEL: I don’t think it does anybody any good.

MARTIN: Well, you’re all welcome to my show. Go ahead, Arsalan.

IFTIKHAR: Well, I think, you know, from the…

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: You aren’t dead to me, Ruben.

IFTIKHAR: From the 30…

NAVARRETTE: Okay. Not yet. Not yet.

IFTIKHAR: From the 30,000 foot altitude, you know, I just think that Joyner missed the mark. You know, I think what he was saying that, you know, Tavis and Cornel have somehow enabled people like Mark Halperin and others to make these disparaging comments about President Obama. I would actually say that that happened long before. I mean, you know, you had the whispers of him being a crypto Muslim Manchurian candidate, the whole terrorist fist jab thing, you know, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, you know, they didn’t…

NAVARRETTE: Right. Right.

IFTIKHAR: You know, the haters out there didn’t need any, you know, any enabling. And so I think that Joyner really missed the mark here and…

MARTIN: But Joyner’s point though, was that and, you know, we’ll link to the column so you people can read it for themselves and understand what…

IFTIKHAR: Sure.

MARTIN: …we’re talking about if they didn’t see it. But he’s saying that they created a context in which they validated this kind of behavior by other people who are hostile.

IFTIKHAR: But what I’m saying…

NAVARRETTE: It’s not that. It’s not that.

MARTIN: Okay. Okay, Ruben. We heard from you. Go ahead.

IFTIKHAR: What I’m saying is that the context already existed. And so, you know, I think that, you know, Joyner’s looking at it from a very myopic nearsighted standpoint as opposed to looking at, you know, the historical timeline from which, you know, all this hateration started.

MARTIN: I feel you but I’m wondering though but part of the critique is substance, as in Tavis’ point was that the president’s policies are not targeted to the people who most need the help.

IFTIKHAR: Sure. Of course.

MARTIN: And that he feels as Ruben just said.

IFTIKHAR: Right.

MARTIN: But some of it is just personal. Like Cornel West complaining that he didn’t get tickets to the inauguration that he wanted or…

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: I mean come on.

IZRAEL: Not a whole lot to say about that.

MARTIN: I mean and so people are like what’s up with that? He wrote a whole essay about that. And why can’t Joyner say, Ruben, I’ll direct that to you since…

NAVARRETTE: Yeah.

MARTIN: …you know were, say why can’t he say that’s crazy and just, you know, stop it?

NAVARRETTE: Yeah, but he didn’t say that.

MARTIN: Grow up.

NAVARRETTE: Yeah. And there’s a lot of growing up that needs to be happening. But Joyner didn’t say that. Joyner, if you listen, if you read what he wrote he said he wrote this criticism about Tavis Smiley and Cornel West months ago and he sat on it. He didn’t publish it until, you know, this other thing, Halperin made him mad enough to do it. What this is about is Tom Joyner using the Halperin story as an opportunist would at a club to beat up these two other guys…

SPENCE: To do something that he wanted to do already.

NAVARRETTE: …that he wanted to do already. He’s been wanting to beat on these other two, Halperin gave them the excuse, he tried to shoehorn that in…

SPENCE: Right.

NAVARRETTE: …and make it seem like somehow that these guys empowered Halperin. But Arsalan’s right. These people don’t need empowerment and they certainly don’t need empowerment from these two gentlemen over here.

MARTIN: All right.

NAVARRETTE: And you know what? Tom Joyner is jealous. I’m going to say right now. Tom Joyner is jealous of Tavis Smiley because he says in this letter…

MARTIN: Okay. Well, you all take it out to the alley, okay?

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

NAVARRETTE: He says in this letter that Tavis is out there selling books. Nobody is buying Tom Joyner’s books.

MARTIN: Oh, yeah. Well you all take it outside. So…

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: Jimi Izrael is a freelance journalist and author of the book, “The Denzel Principle.” He joined us from member station WCPN in Cleveland. Ruben Navarrette is a syndicated columnist who writes for the Washington Post Writers Group, Latino magazine and Pajamas Media. He really needs to come out of his shell, don’t you think?

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: He was with us from San Diego. Lester Spence is a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University, author of the new book “Stare in the Darkness: The Limits of Hip-hop and Black Politics.” And Arsalan Iftikhar is a civil rights attorney, founder of the muslimguy.com and the Crescent Post, and Arsalan was here in Washington, D.C. Thanks everybody.

IFTIKHAR: Peace.

NAVARRETTE: Thank you.

SPENCE: Peace.

IZRAEL: Yup-yup.

MARTIN: That’s our program for today. I’m Michel Martin. This is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Let’s talk more on Monday.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR’s prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

MICHEL MARTIN, host: I’m Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Coming up we will tell you about Africa’s newest country starting tomorrow, South Sudan. The celebrations there are getting underway but the elation is tempered by some sobering challenges that the new country faces. We’ll hear from NPR’s (unintelligible) who is there and from special correspondent Rebecca Hamilton who just spent most of the last year there. That conversation is coming up but first we want to talk about some very pressing issues here at home.

Like many people we’ve been following the negotiations over how to reduce federal spending and most important the budget deficit. Congressional Republicans have tied those conversations to a vote on whether to increase the nation’s debt ceiling. President Obama will meet again on Sunday with Congressional leaders trying to come up with a compromise. The administration says that without a deal by August 2nd the U.S. could start defaulting on this debt and that could have a terrible effect on the economy.

Meanwhile, in Minnesota there’s a similar situation on a smaller scale. There’s still no deal between the Democratic governor and the Republican legislature eight days past a constitutional deadline that has forced much of the state government to shut down. 22,000 employees have been told to stay home as the two sides rustle over how to resolve a five billion dollar deficit. We wanted to talk more about this situation and how it’s affecting people in Minnesota so, we’re joined by Catherine Richert.

She’s a political reporter for Minnesota public radio who’s been writing for MPR’s shutdown 2011 blog. Also with us, Trixie Ann Golberg president of Life Track Resource. That’s a nonprofit that provides services for immigrants, refugees, and people with disabilities and they’ve been affected by the shutdown. Thank you both so much for joining us.

CATHARINE RICHERT: Thank you.

TRIXIE ANN GOLDBERG: Thank you.

MARTIN: Catharine I’m going To start with you. How did it get to this point?

RICHERT: Well, the big issue here is that governor Dayton would like to increase taxes on Minnesota’s wealthiest. At this point he’s proposing an income tax increase on those making more than a million dollars. Republicans on the other hand are interested in cutting spending and so, that’s really the rub here increase in taxes or cutting spending and that’s where we left things at midnight on June 30th when our fiscal year ended.

MARTIN: Were people surprised that it got to this point? Has this ever happened before in this state?

RICHERT: Well, we had a partial government shutdown back in 2005 but, you know, I would say that the rub between the Democrats and Republicans in our capital has been going on really since the beginning of the year when Governor Dayton took office. So, I think we’ve been hearing a lot of the same arguments happening over the last, you know, six months.

MARTIN: So, what aspects of government service have been most affected or, I mean, I’m assuming that law enforcement is still on the job. What are some of the things that are affected?

RICHERT: Sure so, yeah, you’re right, you know, anything that sort of affects life and property and protection are still in place so, that means cops, 911 dispatchers, they’re still on the job but it’s a lot of other things that you might not think of immediately. For instance, all of our state parks are closed and I can tell you that Minnesotan’s love to spend time outside in the summer. They hunt, they fish, they get out on their boat on our lakes and when you shut the state parks down especially over the 4th of July weekends, you know, people get frustrated.

We’re also not doing any road construction. We have a lot of potholes in Minnesota that are not being filled right now. A lot of highways that aren’t being widened so, the scope is pretty broad I would say.

MARTIN: So, Trixie and your organization is a nonprofit. You’re not a government agency per say but you’ve still been tremendously affected by this shutdown. Tell us how?

GOLDBERG: Yes, that’s correct, 28 percent of our revenue actually comes through the state in one form or another. Either a direct allocation or it’s federal dollars that have to go through some kind of authorization process or it’s county dollars that are caught up in a state approval process so, we’re impacted both by the lack of funding and the lack of authorization to carry out our work.

MARTIN: Well, can you give us an example of some of the programs that have been affected?

GOLDBERG: Certainly our services that we provide to federally designated refugees and legal immigrants has been shut down for the last eight days. We provide support to individuals with significant disabilities including a serious mental illness. We provide support to families who have children who are diagnosed with hearing loss.

MARTIN: So, meaning what that people can’t get if you’re a social worker who is set to visit these families to offer support they can’t go? Can you give us some specific examples of some of the things that might happen?

GOLDBERG: Absolutely, it is the human resources that are no longer available to them as well as the financial support and training support and job supports that these programs provide. For instance, in our services supporting refugees and immigrants we provide support for job search, job placement, relocation, many of our refugee’s have extremely limited English language skills and are in need of translation services. They are in need of support and for meeting their basic needs such as transportation, housing, enrolling their children in school.

All those supports that go along with helping them to create a firm and solid foundation.

MARTIN: So, for example, someone who is an illegal immigrant or perhaps a political asylum seeker.

GOLDBERG: Um-hum.

MARTIN: But someone who’s just here from let’s say Iraq, okay and you’re helping this family resettle, enroll in school. None of that can proceed right now because none of the people who do those services are being paid and so, you have to what? So, they’re all laid off?

GOLDBERG: Correct, we had to lay off approximately a third of our employees and so, on June 30th we were contacting each of our 700 some open cases letting them know that their support person their job counselor would not be available during this shutdown. We tried to reassure them as much as possible and again doing things translating to a different language as challenging as you can imagine and for many of our refugees and legal immigrants their own experiences of what a government shutdown is and entails is quite confusing to understand the political nature of Minnesota’s government shutdown.

MARTIN: If you’re just joining us you’re listening to TELL ME MORE from NPR News. We’re talking about the shutdown of the Minnesota state government and we’re talking about how it’s affecting different people. With us are Trixie Ann Goldberg. That’s who was speaking just now. She’s President of Life Track Resource. That’s a nonprofit human services organization. Also with us, Catharine Richert. She’s a political reporter and blogger for Minnesota public radio. Catharine we’ve been hearing that the shutdown is actually costing the state money.

How is that?

RICHERT: Sure, so, you know, I go back to the Department of Natural Resources by shutting down the state parks. We’re estimating about one million dollars lost in revenue every week from camping fees, hunting, you know, licensing fees, that sort of thing and we’re also looking at the state lottery being shutdown and that’s costing the state about 2.3 million every week. So, the list goes on and on. There’s lost money due to loss of productivity.

You know, organizations that have been sort of spending weeks prepping for this and not doing their actual, you know, regular jobs so, you know, I think we probably won’t get that final number until after this is all over but certainly it’s a lot of money.

MARTIN: How was it determined which services would be offered and which ones would not? I mean, because and there have been a couple of occasions when the federal government has shut down and there are people who are considered essential and they stay on the job and the people who are considered…

RICHERT: Sure.

MARTIN: …non essential which I’m sure doesn’t feel very good but is the term that’s used don’t how was it determined in Minnesota for example? What was essential and what was not? I’m thinking about something like child care subsidies, I mean, without child care…

RICHERT: Sure, so…

MARTIN: …subsidies people can’t work so, even if they could go to work they can’t go to work. How is that determined, do?

RICHERT: Right so, I’ll try to keep it as simple as possible but the long story short is that the governor and his administration, as well as our attorney general, went to a judge and said, this is what we think should stay open. And they gave this judge their list. Ultimately those decisions rest with our courts in Minnesota. So a woman named Judge Kathleen Gearin has been the person making these decisions. She’s also appointed someone called a special master. And this is someone who hears testimony, I guess, from organizations like Trixie’s, who say, hey, you know, we’re not state employees, but we provide critical services and we think we should still get state funding throughout the government shutdown.

So that’s the process we’ve been in right now. We’re hearing new rulings every day about things that were deemed not essential and suddenly are. And one of those things is child care support from the state. Now, initially child care support had been deemed non-critical, and that happened last Wednesday on the 29th. However, since then Governor Dayton has gone back to the courts and said, hey, we really think this money should be considered a core government function. These are essentially state subsidies that help parents send their kids to child care so they can keep a job, you know?

MARTIN: I understand. We only have a couple minutes left. I wanted ask one more thing of each of you. Catharine, we’ve seen, over the course of the year, some very intense battles over the budget along philosophical, ideological and partisan lines. We’ve seen this in Wisconsin, for example, over the question of revoking collective bargaining rights where, you know, the Democrats in the legislature runs one side, and that’s – the governor and Republicans on the legislature are on a different side.

And of course in Washington there’s a partisan and philosophical divide over reducing the budget deficit. So that’s the substance of it. How are the politics playing out? And there’s a Democratic governor – he was elected, obviously, feels that he has a mandate for his point of view. You’ve got a Republican legislature. They were elected. They feel they have a mandate for their point of view. How are the politics shaking out right now? Can you sense where the public is on this, and who they think is right?

RICHERT: Yeah, you know, I mean, I would say that the last election was really close. I mean, we had another recount when Governor Dayton was elected. I think that speaks to the fact that Minnesotans are divided over these issues. And what we’ve been hearing are lots of finger pointing. You know, some people think it’s the Republicans that are to blame for this. Some people think it’s Governor Dayton to blame. But I would say the thing that unites Minnesotans over this is that they are frustrated about this. No one is happy about it.

We’ve had a lot of people write in and say, hey, we’re voting for independence candidates in the next time around. You know, so I would say that this will certainly be part of our 2012 elections.

MARTIN: And Trixie Ann, and, finally, before we let you go, you mentioned that many of the people that you and your agency works with are new to this country and don’t understand what’s going on. How do you explain it to them?

TRIXIE ANN GOLBERG: Well, we’ve tried to translate it as best as we can. There was actually serious concern that electricity would be turned off, water would be turned off and, again, in their life experience, those were realities. So working with them through our trained staff, through our translators as we had them available to provide information with them directly, to translate, and we can continue to provide kind of a support service at our office, in a community center, where individuals and displaced clients can work with individuals to help them navigate. Our United Way has come together to support our 211 information resource. So we’re attempting to connect people with good information and resources as best we can.

MARTIN: Trixie Ann Golberg is president of Lifetrack Resource. That’s a nonprofit which provides services for immigrants, refugees and people with significant disabilities. She came to us thanks to American Public Media’s Public Insight Network. She was with us from Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul, along with Catharine Richert. She’s a political reporter from Minnesota Public Radio. She’s been writing about the events for MPR Shutdown 2011 blog. Ladies, thank you both so much for joining us.

RICHERT: Thanks for having us.

GOLBERG: Thank you.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR’s prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

The House has voted to slow the new policy allowing gays to serve openly in the military, backing a measure to prohibit chaplains from performing same-sex marriages on military bases regardless of a state’s law.

The amendment to the defense spending bill passed on a 236-184 vote on Friday. Republican Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas said military bases shouldn’t be used “to advance a narrow social agenda.”

The vote’s practical effect is unclear. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is likely to certify that the repeal can be implemented before Congress completes the defense spending bill for the budget year beginning Oct. 1.

The amendment would block funds to implement the curriculum of the Chaplain Corps on the new policy. The House later passed the overall defense bill.

Enlarge David Schaper/NPR

This cabin was trashed by vandals who took advantage of the park’s closure this week. More than a dozen people have been arrested and charged in the incident.

David Schaper/NPR

This cabin was trashed by vandals who took advantage of the park’s closure this week. More than a dozen people have been arrested and charged in the incident.

In Minnesota, the state government shutdown is in its second week, with no end in sight.

The state’s Democratic governor, Mark Dayton, and Republican legislative leaders remain divided over how to balance the budget. The two sides did not meet today and no new budget negotiations are scheduled.

Among the many state facilities that are closed are state parks, in the midst of peak season for camping, fishing and swimming. Outdoor enthusiasts in Minnesota aren’t happy about it.

Afton State Park is a half-hour drive from the state’s capital, St. Paul. In the park, it’s a beautiful summer afternoon with sunny skies and temperatures in the 80s — a picture-perfect day to take a hike or ride a bike through this hilly natural treasure along the St. Croix River. But the gates here are locked, and the park is closed.

Hiker Kevin Schulz just finished his trek through the nearly empty park.

“I got back to the back edge where the St. Croix tributaries go past, and kind of thought about it — the fact that like, within miles, there isn’t probably nobody else,” Schulz says.

But Schulz did see some signs of destruction in the park’s natural areas and cabins.

“There were a few spots off the main road where it looked like somebody had been having fires and stuff like that. There was trash on some of the trails. They had a broken window that had been boarded up on plywood,” he says.

Washington County Sheriff Bill Hutton says his deputies arrested more than a dozen people in their late teens and early 20s for burglary and criminal destruction of property.

Enlarge David Schaper/NPR

Afton State Park is one of the victims of Minnesota’s government shutdown.

David Schaper/NPR

Afton State Park is one of the victims of Minnesota’s government shutdown.

He says a group ransacked the state park’s office and a couple of cabins. They trashed trails and burned electronics and other stolen items.

“There was alcohol involved,” Hutton says. “Some of the individuals that were involved were also cited or charged with underage consumption. There’s just a lot of stupidity, if you will.”

Hutton says the damage will cost the state thousands of dollars. The crime would not have occurred, he says, if the state was in operation.

This incident, and vandalism at several other closed state parks this week, only add to the soaring costs the Minnesota government is facing for the shutdown.

In July, usually the busiest month of the year, Minnesota state parks are losing $1 million a week in camping permits, trail fees, fishing licenses and concession sales.

The closures are raising the ire of would-be park visitors. Tracy Larsen, from nearby Lake Minnetonka, planned to visit the park.

“I have a business that’s not far from here, and with the St. Croix being as beautiful as it is, we thought we’d come down today and try to catch some fish,” Larsen says. “But the state park is closed, and we don’t know where the landing is from here, or where we should go.”

Standing next to his SUV with a trailer pulling his bass boat, Larsen says he’ll be able to find another boat landing on the river. But, he says, the state parks have the best-maintained landings.

Larsen calls the political gridlock that led to the shutdown a “fiasco.”

“We all have to keep our business in order; our businesses run on budgets. It’s just not very impressive. People have a certain amount of time to get this figured out, they should get it figured out without having to furlough the employees and shut down the parks,” he says.

Larsen’s fishing buddy, J.P. Lerner, blames both Republicans and Democrats.

“It’s awfully silly that a bunch of [grown-ups] — who were elected by the state to do that — can’t get it done. I mean, that’s their job. They’re professionals,” Lerner says.

Donna Baisden of St. Paul had planned time off this week with her husband, Don, specifically to hike through several of Minnesota’s beautiful state parks. “We are absolutely so lucky to have this in this state, which is why we’re both outraged that this has happened and people can’t camp here and they can’t bike … it just seems a waste, a total waste,” she says.

This will be the second consecutive summer weekend that the state parks will be closed for business. If there’s a winner in the shutdown, it’s private campgrounds and lake resorts, which are getting a small boost in business as state campsites and cabins sit empty.

Michele Norris speaks with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI, about the debt ceiling talks. He has said that the White House may not have the Democrats, depending on what is being proposed.

The unemployment rate notched up again in June, and the number of new jobs created was far less than what was expected. Payrolls increased by just 18,000 — less than the prior month and way below the level of job creation earlier in the year.

After a terrible unemployment report in May, people hoped for a change of direction in the latest numbers. But the jobs report that came out Friday morning shows that the situation is even worse today. The economy created only 18,000 jobs in June. Unemployment rose for the second month in a row, hitting 9.2 percent. The Obama White House tried to put the best face on a dismal situation as the stalling recovery provided an opportunity for Republicans to continue hammering the president’s economic policies.

Enlarge Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images

Obama discusses the new monthly jobs report in a cloudy Rose Garden on July 8.

Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images

Obama discusses the new monthly jobs report in a cloudy Rose Garden on July 8.

In the White House Rose Garden, clouds rushed in and the wind whipped ominously.

It was an apt setting for President Obama’s late-morning announcement.

“Today’s job report confirms what most Americans already know,” Obama said. “We still have a long way to go and a lot of work to do to give people the security and opportunity that they deserve.”

The president tried to lay some blame at Congress’ feet. He said lawmakers could pass a handful of policies today to create jobs. His list included an infrastructure bank, free trade deals and patent reform.

“There are bills and trade agreements before Congress right now that could get all these ideas moving,” he said. “All of them have bipartisan support, all of them could pass immediately, and I encourage Congress not to wait.”

But as the country’s chief executive, a big heap of responsibility falls in the president’s lap. Republicans were quick to point that out at a press conference on Capitol Hill.

“The president always tells us he inherited a bad situation. I concede the point,” said Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas. “But he has made it worse. And after 2 1/2 years it is time for him to take responsibility, and to answer the question ‘Where are the jobs?’ “

It is a question people inside the White House are trying to answer too.

“The first thing you do as a member of the economics team is to try to understand why the numbers are so much worse than you expected,” says economist Jared Bernstein, who used to advise Vice President Biden. “But then you pretty quickly go into a messaging mode and try to figure out how you’re going to explain what’s going on to the American people.”

Bernstein, who is now with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says the messaging was easier when the economy was slowly bumping along, creating a couple of hundred thousand jobs per month.

“You could go out there and say things are getting better, they’re just not getting better at a quick enough pace. But when you’re really stuck in neutral like this, when the job market is in a stall, you can’t really try to push that message.”

Last month the White House called the bad numbers a bump in the road, and officials warned against reading too much into any one report. Two months in a row starts to look like a trend, though.

At a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor Friday morning, Republican pollster Ed Gillespie warned the White House against trying to minimize the problem.

“When [voters] hear people like the president of the United States say it’s just a bump in the road or things aren’t that bad, it’s like nails on the chalkboard to them. So today is just reinforcing last month, which I thought was a seminal moment in the arc of the re-election campaign.”

Washington faces a much more immediate problem than the presidential campaign.

The U.S. could default on its financial obligations unless Congress raises the debt ceiling by Aug. 2. Republicans and Democrats are negotiating on an ambitious budget deal to trim the national debt and avoid default. Each used today’s unemployment report to bolster their party’s argument.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the weak job market is all the more reason to cut a deal now. “One thing we can do something about immediately is to move these negotiations forward and reach an agreement,” he said.

House Speaker John Boehner used the stagnant economy to argue that the deal should not include any tax increases, saying, “Tax hikes on families and job creators will only make things worse.”

The two sides will hash it out in person when they meet at the White House for another round of talks on Sunday.

Enlarge AP

First lady Betty Ford and President Gerald Ford share a laugh together.

AP

First lady Betty Ford and President Gerald Ford share a laugh together.

Former first lady Betty Ford has died at the age of 93.

During her life she helped change the way Americans think and talk about breast cancer, women’s rights and substance abuse.

But, before she became a first lady, an advocate for women’s rights and an inspiration to people struggling with addiction, Betty Ford was a dancer.

The former Elizabeth Anne Bloomer studied and taught dance in Grand Rapids, Mich., where she grew up. She pursued her passion in New York City, where she trained with the legendary Martha Graham, but soon returned home at the bidding of her mother.

Following a brief first marriage, she met a young lawyer named Gerald Ford. They married in October 1948. The next month, he was elected to Congress. A quarter-century later Gerald Ford became vice president and then later replaced the disgraced Richard Nixon as president.

In a 1987 interview Betty Ford told NPR that the move to the White House made her feel empowered too.

Enlarge AP

Ford said that after she made the move to the White house she felt like she wasn’t “just the suburban housewife” anymore.

AP

Ford said that after she made the move to the White house she felt like she wasn’t “just the suburban housewife” anymore.

“I suddenly was somebody,” she said. “I wasn’t just the suburban housewife taking care of the children and being the backup to this man who was out front.”

What she did and thought and said became part of the national dialogue, and Ford didn’t hold much back. Just weeks after moving into the White House she announced she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and undergone a mastectomy. Such things weren’t discussed publicly then. Her candor was revolutionary for such a prominent figure, but she believed that in the post-Watergate era, Americans wanted more openness and honesty in Washington.

And, as she said in a 1975 interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes, she also wanted to raise awareness of breast cancer: “I thought there are women all over the country like me. And if I don’t make this public, then their lives will be gone or in jeopardy. And I think it did a great deal for women as far as the cancer problem is concerned.”

Reportedly thousands of women did get tested as a result of Betty Ford’s frankness. As first lady she was also outspoken about her support for abortion rights. During and after her time in the White House she campaigned for the ill-fated Equal Rights Amendment.

At a 1981 rally in Washington, D.C., she told cheering crowds that she intended “to be on the front lines until the success is ours.”

Ford’s candor never seemed to hurt her: A 1976 poll showed she was more popular than Gerald Ford. There were buttons during the campaign that said “Betty’s husband for president.”

But decades of holding down the home front while her husband pursued his career, as well as coping with a painful pinched nerve in her neck, took a toll on Ford.

In a 2002 NPR interview she said that after leaving the White House she realized — or rather, her family confronted her and told her — that she had a problem with alcohol and pills.

“I was very upset, I was very hurt, I was very cross about it because I felt that here I’d spent my whole married life looking after my children and my husband and how can they say these things and how can they confront me this way,” she said.

Enlarge AP

Members of the Ford family pose on the White House grounds in this undated photo. From left, standing: Son Steve; daughter Susan; son Jack; son Michael’s wife, Gayle; and Michael. Seated in front: President Gerald and first lady Betty Ford.

AP

Members of the Ford family pose on the White House grounds in this undated photo. From left, standing: Son Steve; daughter Susan; son Jack; son Michael’s wife, Gayle; and Michael. Seated in front: President Gerald and first lady Betty Ford.

In that interview Betty and Gerald Ford described how her struggle and recovery led to the founding of the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif., near Palm Springs. It became as famous as some of the celebrities who sought treatment there, though they’ve made up only a tiny percentage of the center’s tens of thousands of patients. At first Betty Ford didn’t want the center named after her. But Gerald Ford said, lucky thing it was.

“It had a certain attractiveness to people who needed help, that they could go to a place where a former first lady was chairman,” the former president said.

Betty added that “it was very helpful for women too, because women had in many ways been underserved. And if my name was on there it was a safe place for women to come and be treated.”

In the first of her two autobiographies, Betty Ford wrote:

I was an ordinary woman who was called on stage at an extraordinary time. … But through an accident of history, I had become interesting to people.

She was more than merely interesting, however. Betty Ford made a genuine impact on the nation, just by being herself and speaking her mind.

Jimi Izrael is the author of The Denzel Principle: Why Black Women Can’t Find Good Black Men and a regular contributor to Tell Me More.

The Casey Anthony verdict caused a lot of Americans to ask whether the justice system needs a serious rewrite. And many of us think we know what justice is supposed to look like because we’ve seen the movie. The issue of crime and punishment frequently gets the Hollywood treatment, and here are just a few of the best silver screen stories of justice going right…and wrong.

12 Angry Men (1957) – In perhaps the Gold Standard of court room cinema, Henry Fonda is Juror #8 in a nameless crew of testosterone-driven malcontents. They wrestle with the evidence, their own demons, and each other as they decide the fate of an 18-year-old murder suspect.

Norma Rae – Not every movie about justice happens in a court room. Sally Field won an Oscar for her role as Norma Rae, a textile worker fighting to unionize her shop in the face of opposition in the community and pressure at home. Featuring one of the the most memorable scenes in any film about workers rights, “Norma Rae” allowed Field to soar in this fictionalized tale of activistCrystal Lee Sutton’s rage against the machine.

A Time to Kill – When the system fails, some movie heroes take the law into their own hands. In this adaptation of a John Grisham novel, Samuel L. Jackson plays a vengeful father who kills the men who raped his daughter. Matthew McConaughey co-stars as the lawyer trying to save him from the electric chair

To Kill a Mockingbird — I obviously love Gregory Peck, right? But beyond Peck in his legendary role as Atticus Finch, viewers should appreciate the appeal of the ridiculously underrated Brock Peters as rape suspect Tom Robinson. This adaptation of Harper Lee’s classic novel is a textbook study on class and race, and the death of innocence.

A Few Good Men – YOU can’t handle the truth, but Tom Cruise can in his turn as military lawyer Daniel Kaffee who defends two Marines against murder charges. Adapted from the stage, this 1992 movie has a tiny part for future Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Junior, and a larger role for Demi Moore. But Jack Nicholson really earns his stripes as the patriotic and lethal Colonel Nathan Jessep, who tries to evade responsibility for ordering a beating that leaves one of his men dead.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

Forget the machinations in Congress. There’s a constitutional argument brewing, which claims the president has sole authority over the nation’s debt.

In a public interview with Politico’s Mike Allen in May, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner reached into his jacket pocket and brandished a copy of the Constitution.

Secretary TIMOTHY GEITHNER (U.S. Department of Treasury): Can I read you the 14th Amendment?

Mr. MIKE ALLEN (Chief White House Correspondent, Politico): We’ll stipulate to the 14th Amendment.

Sec. GEITHNER: No. I want to read this one thing.

Mr. ALLEN: It’s paper-clipped and is…

Sec. GEITHNER: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for the payments of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion – this is the important thing – shall not be questioned.

BLOCK: Some legal scholars have joined the fray, saying the 14th Amendment does indeed put the country’s debt obligations beyond the reach of Congress. One Republican Senate leader called that crazy talk.

And today, at his Twitter town hall meeting, President Obama swatted down the idea.

President BARACK OBAMA: I don’t think we should even get to the constitutional issue. Congress has a responsibility to make sure we pay our bills. We’ve always paid them in the past. The notion that the U.S. is going to default on its debt is just irresponsible.

BLOCK: We’re going to entertain that constitutional issue now with Jeffrey Rosen, a professor of law at The George Washington University.

Jeffrey, thanks for coming in.

Professor JEFFREY ROSEN (The George Washington University Law School): Good to be here.

BLOCK: We’re talking about Section Four of the 14th Amendment, the debt clause, adopted in 1868 – so the Reconstruction period after the Civil War. What was the intent? What was this clause designed to do?

Prof. ROSEN: So this is a time when Southern congressmen are coming back into the Union. Their majorities are augmented because of the freed slaves, and they are interested in forcing Congress to repudiate the Union debt and to pay off the Confederate debt. And they also want to give the nation a big bill for what they claimed was the value of the slaves that had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation in the 13th Amendment.

So the existing Republican majority was determined that they not be able to do this, and they passed Section Four in the 14th Amendment to prohibit a temporary political majority from repudiating the Union debt obligations and assuming other obligations.

BLOCK: So at the time that this was approved back in 1868, repudiation referred to what exactly?

Prof. ROSEN: After the Civil War, repudiation would’ve been a formal act by Congress saying: We are not going to pay the Union debt. That’s not what’s going on here. The big debate now is what a default or a threat to default be the equivalent of repudiation? Strict constructionist say: No. Unless Congress formally says we are ever going to pay the debt, then this constitutional provision is not triggered.

The Democrats who support this constitutional argument say in effect, if you threaten not to pay obligations, that’s the functional equivalent of a default, and therefore, the Constitution is implicated.

BLOCK: Has there been case law on this, Jeffrey, this question – this language in the 14th Amendment that the validity of the public debt of the United States shall not be questioned?

Prof. ROSEN: There’s just one Supreme Court case that seems to cast light on this question. It was called Perry versus United States. It was decided in 1935. And in that case, the Supreme Court seem to argue that this debt clause should be interpreted broadly rather than narrowly. And supporters are seizing on that language to say we should not construe the debt clause strictly, but instead, construe it expansively.

BLOCK: Now, that would support their argument that you could apply it in this case.

Prof. ROSEN: Exactly so.

BLOCK: All of this, do you think, just a lot of grist for constitutional scholars, 14th Amendment scholars in particular, and no real political reality?

Prof. ROSEN: It could have political consequences. We shouldn’t for a moment dismiss the possibility that serious constitutional arguments about clauses that haven’t thought of for a long time can transform political debates. In Bush v. Gore, in the healthcare argument, these are all cases where the constitutional arguments were made up on the fly. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not plausible.

The truth is that the situation today is similar, although not identical to the one that confronted the nation right after the Civil War. And the arguments on both sides are strong, plausible and deserved to be debated in the public arena.

BLOCK: Okay. Jeffrey Rosen, again, thanks for coming in.

Prof. ROSEN: Thanks so much for having me.

BLOCK: Jeffrey Rosen, professor of law at the George Washington University.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR’s prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

President Obama Wednesday held his first “town hall” meeting via Twitter — taking questions sent in the social media site’s 140-character format — but allowing himself a few more characters than that for his replies.

Enlarge P.K. Weis/AFP/Getty Images

Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, seen in May, is recovering from a gunshot wound to the head. Gun control advocates are demanding tighter policies following the January shooting in Tucson.

P.K. Weis/AFP/Getty Images

Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, seen in May, is recovering from a gunshot wound to the head. Gun control advocates are demanding tighter policies following the January shooting in Tucson.

Six months after Jared Loughner allegedly fired a fusillade of shots into a crowd of people in Tucson, Ariz., gun control advocates are asking why there has been no change to the policies that let him buy and carry a semi-automatic weapon without a permit.

Even the staunchest gun control activists suppressed their disappointment when President Obama skirted the issue during his speech in Tucson four days after the shooting, which left six people dead and more than a dozen wounded, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

After all, it was a memorial service, not a political event. But the State of the Union address came a few weeks later, and Paul Helmke of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence was frustrated.

“The president mentioned [Gifford's] empty chair, mentioned the families, mentioned the dreams of the little girl that wouldn’t come to fruition, and then five paragraphs later he’s talking about the stock market,” Helmke said. “And if someone had been on a desert island they would’ve thought, ‘Gee, did space aliens take the congresswoman away? Was there some weird disease that swept through Arizona?’ It was an opportunity that was missed.”

Immediate Steps

Pressure built on the White House to say something about guns.

In March, the president wrote an op-ed column in the Arizona Daily Star newspaper.

In a classic Obama turn-of-phrase, he called on Americans to “get beyond wedge issues and stale political debates to find a sensible, intelligent way to make the United States of America a safer, stronger place.”

Since then, there has been near silence from the White House on the issue.

A group of city mayors called Mayors Against Illegal Guns is sending a critical letter to the president Friday.

“We know that the White House is doing a serious policy review being conducted by serious people, and we have no reason not to take them at their word that they want to get to the right solution and make a difference,” Mark Glaze, the group’s director, said. “But the fact that we’re now six months out, there’s not been a single step from the White House, there’s not been a single congressional hearing on Tucson or the policy problems that made it possible, is not encouraging.”

Glaze says there are steps the president could take that would make a difference now, without waiting for Congress to act.

For example, military and federal agencies are required to report people with mental health and drug problems to the criminal background check system, but they often don’t. That’s something gun control advocates say the president could fix.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday that the administration has a working group looking at these issues.

“That process is well under way at the Department of Justice with stakeholders on all sides working through these complex issues, and we expect to have some more specific announcements in the near future,” he said.

Appeasing Voters

There could be another reason for the White House’s inaction: In this political season, President Obama needs every swing state voter he can get, including gun owners.

Enlarge Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York attends a news conference on gun control, in Washington on Jan. 18.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York attends a news conference on gun control, in Washington on Jan. 18.

“Bill Clinton himself said that the issue cost Democrats the House of Representatives in 1994 and cost them the presidency in 2000,” said Dave Kopel, research director at the libertarian think tank the Independence Institute.

“The appropriate lesson drawn by Democratic political strategists would be twice burned thrice careful,” he said.

The National Rifle Association echoes that warning.

Public Affairs Director Andrew Arulanandam says existing gun laws are sufficient, and his group is ready for a hard-fought campaign against those who feel otherwise.

“We will make sure that every voter, every gun owner, every hunter knows exactly where the president stands on guns and whoever the candidate is on the Republican side, too,” he said.

One of the staunchest gun control advocates in Congress is New York Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York. A gunman killed her husband and wounded her son on the Long Island Railroad almost 20 years ago.

“I have spoken to the president. He is with me on it, and it’s just going to be when that opportunity comes forward that we’re going to be able to go forward,” she said.

Since the Giffords shooting, McCarthy has introduced two major gun control bills that have gone nowhere, but she says she’s patient.

It’s not just guns, she says, an awful lot of things have not been getting done in Washington.

In less than four weeks, the U.S. government could go into default on some of its debts. President Obama has been spending a lot of time talking to lawmakers. On Thursday, he gathered Congress’s top brass in a White House conference room to lay the groundwork for what he hopes will be a final deal, which would get the federal budget under control, and raise the debt limit before that default-deadline.

This morning’s word that just 18,000 jobs were added to payrolls last month and that the unemployment rate ticked up to 9.2 percent from 9.1 percent in May has opened the door for more questions from Republicans about the effectiveness of Democratic President Obama’s attempts to boost the economy.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) leads the way with this string of messages on his official Twitter page:

— “The June unemployment report has Americans asking once again: where are the jobs?”

— “We need serious reforms that restrain future spending spending cuts that exceed any debt limit hike #4jobs – not tax hikes.”

— “Need to enact GOP plan #4jobs (see it at Jobs.GOP.gov). A Balanced Budget Amendment will help, too.”

The president is due to make a statement about the jobs report — which was much worse than economists expected — at 10:35 a.m. ET.

Enlarge Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) speaks to the media about budget talks with Democrats on Wednesday. With him are, from left: Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), John Barrasso (R-WY), John Cornyn (R-TX), John Thune (R-SD) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) speaks to the media about budget talks with Democrats on Wednesday. With him are, from left: Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), John Barrasso (R-WY), John Cornyn (R-TX), John Thune (R-SD) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

At the White House on Thursday, President Obama will sit down with the bipartisan leadership of Congress to discuss a deal to raise the debt ceiling and avoid a default on government-held debt.

If you listen to Republicans accuse the president of holding out for higher taxes, or Democrats accuse Republicans of slowing the recovery in order to win the next election, a deal seems out of reach. But on Wednesday, the president’s top political adviser, David Plouffe, said all the white-hot rhetoric is misleading.

“What we’re focused on is less sort of the external theatrics than the progress that’s getting made privately,” he said.

A Short-Term Deal?

Indeed, on Sunday night, Republican House Speaker John Boehner went to the White House — unannounced — to talk with the president.

The Republicans still insist that any deficit deal be completely free of tax increases, while the White House continues to insist on what it calls a balanced approach, with cuts in defense, domestic and entitlement spending, and some increases in revenues — which would involve at least some tax hikes.

“Our sense has been to make the numbers work, you’re going to have to have a revenue-positive situation,” Plouffe said.

What we’re focused on is less sort of the external theatrics than the progress that’s getting made privately.

- White House political adviser David Plouffe

But he’s talking about a long-term plan to cut the deficit over 10 or 20 years that the president hopes to negotiate with the Republicans.

In the short term, it’s possible the parties will reach a smaller deal — raising the debt ceiling and reducing the deficit by about $2 trillion.

For the Democrats, there would have to be some tax hikes in the form of closing loopholes; for oil and gas companies, for instance, or corporate jet owners.

And for Republicans — well, for their bottom line, we went to the GOP’s ultimate enforcer of tax orthodoxy, Grover Norquist, the nation’s most prominent anti-tax activist.

“As long as there’s no net tax increase, it’s not a violation of the pledge,” he says.

The Anti-Tax Pledge

The pledge, of course, is Norquist’s brainchild, an oath signed by the vast majority of Republican officeholders not to raise taxes — ever. But Norquist says there would there be no net tax increase if the debt ceiling deal also included tax cuts. And President Obama wants tax cuts in order to stimulate the economy. In particular, he wants to extend by one more year the Social Security payroll tax cut he negotiated with the Republicans in December.

“If the president is talking about faster depreciation schedules for corporate jets — if he wanted to eliminate those and cut the Social Security tax so that it was revenue neutral, that would not violate the pledge,” Norquist says. “It’s actually one of the easiest things to fix in the discussion going on now about the debt ceiling increase.”

Of course, without a net revenue increase, there would be less deficit reduction in the short term. But closing tax loopholes is something many Republicans are willing to consider, including Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso.

“I did vote to eliminate the ethanol subsidies, which I thought … was a waste of government money. And I also believe that this is not the time to raise taxes on anyone when we’re in an economic situation like this.”

So why raise taxes on ethanol producers?

“I did vote in favor of the ethanol ending of those subsidies,” he says. “I will also say that this is not a time to raise taxes.”

So there you have it. The trick in any deal is to allow Democrats to say they raised taxes on somebody, but for Republicans to say they didn’t raise tax revenues. It’s the kind of double talk that deals are made of under divided government.

That is, if there is a deal at all.

Who Will Get The Blame?

There is the possibility that the two sides won’t be able to come to an agreement, and then someone will get blamed if the government defaults and the markets react badly.

A recent Pew poll showed 42 percent would hold Republicans responsible; 33 percent said the president. Former Bush Treasury official Tony Fratto says that’s one reason Boehner has such a tough job.

“Because Republicans are driving the process right now, I don’t believe there’ll be much question as to who would take the brunt of the blame should that happen,” he says. “It would most likely be Republicans.”

Fratto says that’s because the deficit and spending cuts are Republican issues. But they could overplay their hand.

As for the president, Plouffe suggests, he has something to prove to the American people.

“And if their leaders can come together and bridge some of these tough divides,” he says,” it’s going to have some short-term and maybe long-term impact in people’s confidence.” In particular, people’s confidence in President Obama.

Enlarge Charles Dharapak/AP

President Obama meets with lawmakers today for talks on the debt ceiling. “I don’t think the American people sent us here to avoid tough problems,” he told reporters Tuesday.

Charles Dharapak/AP

President Obama meets with lawmakers today for talks on the debt ceiling. “I don’t think the American people sent us here to avoid tough problems,” he told reporters Tuesday.

On Thursday morning, President Obama will meet in the White House with top Democratic and Republican lawmakers — four from the House and four from the Senate — to continue work on a massive debt-reduction deal.

The goal is to complete a long-term, multitrillion-dollar budget reduction package by about July 22. That would give Congress enough time to write the deal into legislation, pass it and get it to Obama for his signature before the federal government reaches its $14.3 trillion debt limit on Aug. 2.

The U.S. Treasury says that on that date, it no longer would have the borrowing authority to continue paying all of the government’s bills. Republicans have balked at raising the debt ceiling unless Congress also slashes spending.

Economists say a government default on its debts would convulse financial markets.

Republican leaders have suggested that they would consider a short-term budget package to avoid default, but Obama has rejected that idea. “I don’t think the American people sent us here to avoid tough problems,” Obama told reporters at the White House.

Republicans repeatedly have said they would not increase tax revenues as part of a budget deal. But on Wednesday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) suggested that House Republicans may be willing to eliminate particular tax breaks under certain conditions.

If the president wants to talk loopholes, we’ll be glad to talk loopholes.

- House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA)

“If the president wants to talk loopholes, we’ll be glad to talk loopholes,” Cantor said, adding that closing any loopholes “should be coupled with offsetting tax cuts somewhere else.”

Obama and Democratic lawmakers have been floating ideas to raise revenues by roughly $400 billion over the coming decade.

On Wednesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said a compromise to reduce the national debt by more than $2 trillion over the next decade is possible but would involve both spending cuts and tax revenue increases.

“The president believes, we believe, that there are enough members of both parties in both houses who support the idea that a big deal has to be balanced,” Carey aid.

In his July 2 weekly address, Obama reiterated some of his ideas for changing the tax code to raise revenues enough to avoid some cuts. “If we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, or for hedge fund managers and corporate jet owners, or for oil and gas companies pulling in huge profits without our help — then we’ll have to make even deeper cuts somewhere else,” he said.

As high-level budget talks drag on in Washington, the Medicaid program for the poor remains a prime candidate for cuts. In recent months, Republicans have criticized Medicaid for badly serving its target population. But a new study — the first of its kind in nearly four decades — finds that Medicaid is making a bigger impact than even some of its supporters may have realized.

We report almost a one-third increase in the probability that you report yourself as being happy.

- Amy Finkelstein, one of the study’s principal investigators

The study, being published as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, has a distinctly bipartisan flavor. Among its authors are Katherine Baicker of Harvard, who was an economic adviser to President George W. Bush, and MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who has advised the Obama administration.

“What we found in a nutshell is that having Medicaid makes a big difference in people’s lives,” said Amy Finkelstein, another MIT economist and one of the study’s principal investigators.

Overall, researchers found that compared to people without insurance, those with Medicaid had better access to and used more health care; they were less likely to experience unpaid medical bills; they were more likely to report being in good health; and they were less likely to report feeling depressed.

In fact, says Finkelstein, among those with Medicaid, “We report almost a one-third increase in the probability that you report yourself as being happy.”

Participating Doctors

The findings are dramatically at odds with the storyline coming from critics of the program.

“Medicaid Is Worse Than No Coverage At All,” blared a headline on the opinion page of the Wall Street Journal back in March.

Scott Gottlieb, a physician and resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and author of that column, says now that it overstates his opinion. But he does say there’s a substantial body of academic work that shows people on Medicaid fare worse than those with private insurance.

“There’s a large number of studies now that show poorer outcomes with Medicaid recipients,” Gottlieb said in an interview. “What’s happening, I think, is [the health of Medicaid patients] is suffering because the quality of the insurance is being driven down over time.”

Both Gottlieb and John Goodman, president of the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis, say a big problem is that states pay doctors and other health care providers so little that patients have trouble finding someone to treat them.

“A Boston cabdriver told me the other day that she had to go through 20 doctors before she could find one who would see her,” said Goodman. “I said, ‘Are you going down the Yellow Pages?’ And she said, ‘No, I was going down the list that Medicaid gave me.’”

A Unique Opportunity

Yet Finkelstein and her colleagues failed to find evidence to back up some conservative claims that doctors were more likely to accept patients who were uninsured and willing to pay cash than those with Medicaid.

Related NPR Stories

“We see that the chance that you’ve gotten any outpatient care increases by 35 percent if you have Medicaid, relative to if you have none,” she said. “The chances that they report having a regular office or clinic for their primary care increases by 70 percent. And the likelihood that they report having a particular doctor that they usually see increases by 55 percent.”

And this is more than just dueling studies. The study by Finkelstein and colleagues from Harvard, the National Bureau of Economic Research and the state of Oregon is the first one of its type since the 1970s.

It came about because Oregon in 2008 decided it could expand its Medicaid program for nondisabled adults with incomes below the federal poverty line. But it could afford to add only 10,000 more people.

Knowing that far more people than that were eligible and likely to apply, officials decided to hold a lottery. Those who won got to apply for coverage; those who lost did not.

But the lottery also provided researchers a unique opportunity to compare a population that was nearly identical in every way except for health insurance status. Such a “randomized controlled trial” is considered the gold standard in medical and scientific research. It would have been unethical to design had Oregon not been doing it anyway, because researchers can’t give some people insurance and withhold it from others.

“It was literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Finkelstein said.

Once the randomly selected people got Medicaid, the researchers entered them into the study, along with thousands of adults who lost the lottery and remained uninsured.

A Snapshot And A Springboard

The importance of a study like this one, Finkelstein says, is that it can correct for things other studies can’t. Studies that are less rigorous, she says, can produce odd results, leading to claims like those being made by Republicans that having Medicaid can make you sicker.

“But that’s not because health insurance can make you sicker — it’s because if you’re sick, you’re much more likely to go the extra mile or incur the additional expense to try to get health insurance,” Finkelstein said.

The study out Thursday is only the first snapshot of the massive Oregon database. The researchers are calling it “The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment,” echoing the famous “RAND Health Insurance Experiment” of the 1970s.

Finkelstein says researchers now plan to do personal interviews with 12,000 of the people included in the study, including performing medical tests such as measuring blood pressure and cholesterol, to get an even more definitive picture of how having Medicaid compares with being uninsured.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I’m Renee Montagne.

The deficit debate between President Obama and congressional Republicans sometimes seems like an argument that boils down to semantics: When is a tax increase not a tax increase?

To make sense of the war of the words, we turn, as we often do, to David Wessel. He’s economics editor of The Wall Street Journal.

Good morning.

Mr. DAVID WESSEL (Wall Street Journal): Good morning, Renee.

MONTAGNE: And you know, I’ve got to ask: Does the fiscal fate of the nation really boil down to the meaning of the words tax increase?

Mr. WESSEL: It seems to. With this August 2nd deadline on the debt ceiling looming, the president and Republicans say they’ve agreed on a core set of spending cuts. But President Obama is insisting that any deal include some more tax revenues. And at least some of the Republicans are resisting, insisting that our budget problem is a spending problem and not a revenue one.

MONTAGNE: So increased revenues translate to tax increase?

Mr. WESSEL: Well, that’s where things get complicated. Republicans are dead set against raising tax rates; that’s the additional piece of each dollar of income you get that you have to turn over to the government in taxes. And the president has pretty much surrendered on that point.

But some Republicans – some of the senators, for instance, who are quite concerned about the deficit – certainly not all Republicans – say, okay, we don’t want to raise tax rates; but we are willing to eliminate some of the tax breaks, and deductions, and credits and loopholes – sometimes called spending through the tax code – and they say with a straight face that they wouldn’t consider these tax increases, even though they would bring in more tax money to the government.

MONTAGNE: Okay, some Republicans would call them tax increases, others wouldn’t – so they’re willing to compromise or negotiate. If Congress were to eliminate some deductions, credits and loopholes, then the government would collect more revenue. So isn’t that an ordinary person’s definition of a tax increase?

Mr. WESSEL: Well, you might think so. So just this week, Republicans kind of tweaked the argument a little bit. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said that I’m willing to do away with some of these loopholes and credits, these things that have been added to the tax code over the years, only if we agree that there’ll be some offsetting tax breaks. So on net the government wouldn’t collect any more tax revenue than the tax code does now.

But David Plouffe, the president’s adviser, said just the opposite, that any deal that the president subscribes to is going to have to include enough tax increases so that on net the government will bring in more money than the tax code. Because otherwise there’ll be too much burden on cutting spending and the president will have to sacrifice some of the spending programs that he thinks are really important for the future of the country.

MONTAGNE: Well, given all the controversy over spending cuts – health care, defense, infrastructure – have taxes turned into the final stumbling block in all of this?

Mr. WESSEL: You know, if you’d asked me that question yesterday at this time, I would have said yes. And the reason is that some Republicans want to push the president to the very last minute so they can prove to the rank-and-file that they didn’t give in on taxes until there was no other choice. And some Democrats, who desperately want to campaign next year on the case that they protected Social Security and Medicare, don’t want to surrender on that talking point unless they can get the Republicans implicated on taxes.

And the president, of course, wants taxes as long as they don’t apply to the middle-class.

And a lot of this is posturing because people know this is an argument that’s going to go on through the 2012 election. But in the last 12 hours or so, it seems that Speaker John Boehner and President Barack Obama are trying to, instead of narrowing the problem, widen it. And they seem to be talking about putting a whole lot of new things on the table, including some changes to the way Social Security benefits are indexed and stuff like that.

But I think that in the end, one big stumbling block to getting a deal that actually addresses the deficit problem, is going to be coming to terms on whether we raise taxes or not.

MONTAGNE: David, thanks very much.

Mr. WESSEL: You’re welcome.

MONTAGNE: David Wessel is the economics editor for The Wall Street Journal, and a frequent guest on this program.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR’s prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

MICHEL MARTIN, host: I’m Michel Martin, and this is TELL ME MORE, from NPR News.

Coming up, gay rights activists have scored some major political victories in recent years and polls show more people than ever are accepting of same sex relationships. So, why are as many as half of LGBT white collar employees still in the closet at work? We’ll talk about a new study that revealed that finding in a few minutes.

But first, we want to talk about another major concern of Americans, education. Even as the nations political leaders work to resolve their differences over the nations budget deficit and debt, education is still very much on the minds of many if not most Americans.

At President Obama’s Twitter Town Hall meeting yesterday, for example, moderator and twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey estimated that 10 percent of the questions touched on the needs of America’s schools and how they’re coping with strained budgets. This is just part of the president’s response. Here it is.

(SOUNDBITE OF TOWN HALL MEETING)

President BARACK OBAMA: We do have to pay for good teachers. Young talented people aren’t going to go into teaching if they’re getting paid a poverty wage. We do have to make sure that buildings aren’t crumbling. It’s pretty hard for kids to concentrate if there are leaks and it’s cold and there are rats running around in their schools. And that’s true in a lot of schools around the country.

MARTIN: The man tasked with helping to keep American schools on the right track is Education Secretary Arne Duncan. He has presided over the Obama administration’s signature education program Race to the Top and he’s sought to address complaints about the Bush administration’s key education law, No Child Left Behind.

Secretary Duncan has spent nearly 20 years working on education reform, and he’s on the line now from his office in Washington, D.C. Welcome back, thanks for joining us once again.

Secretary ARNE DUNCAN: Thanks for having me, Michel. Thanks for the opportunity.

MARTIN: I’d like to ask you about one of those questions that the president was addressing at the town hall meeting on Twitter yesterday, which is what about the fact that the country is in tough economic times and many state and local budgets are squeezed and the schools are taking a hit. We find that, you know, summer schools being curtailed. In many places, we find that teachers are being laid off in some places. How are your strategies for education reform being affected or are they being affected by these budget realities?

DUNCAN: Yeah. Well, there’s no upside to when state and local governments are cutting back and these are tough economic times, as you know, Michel, at every level state and local and federal. And what the president is trying to do is lead by example and walk the walk. And in these very tough economic times, when he basically flat-lined the rest of domestic spending, he asked for a $4 billion increase in our budget, in education’s budget.

What he fundamentally sees is that education is an investment not an expense. And that where folks cut back, that’s penny-wise and pound-foolish. This is the best investment we can make. So, I’ve challenged all 50 governors. I’ve challenged local political leaders that, you know, when you cut back in early childhood education and when you go from five-day weeks to four-day weeks, when you eliminate extra curriculars and art and P.E. and music, you absolutely hurt your children and ultimately you hurt your state.

And so, budget, Michel, reflect our priorities. They reflect our values. And we either care about children and we’re going to continue to invest in them or we’re not.

MARTIN: I wanted to talk about an education story that’s making headlines now. A Georgia state investigation revealed on Tuesday that 178 teachers and principals in the Atlanta public school system cheated on standardized tests. And they’re saying that part of it is that there’s just too much writing on test scores now and it creates an environment where people are desperate, and desperate people cheat. Well, what do you make of that?

DUNCAN: Yeah. Well, you always want a balance. But the other day, Michel, was so disturbing. There – this was clearly part of the culture. This is endemic. And I think approximately 80 percent of schools had cheating in it. So, this isn’t – wasn’t an isolated incident.

Ultimately, Michel, it’s just real simple. When adults do these kinds of things, they just hurt children. They cheat to children. There are children here who didn’t get the help they needed, didn’t get the support they needed because they were lied to.

MARTIN: But why do you think this happened, though? I mean, are you saying that – why did this culture exists? Do you think these are just bad people or they’re lacking in morality or…

DUNCAN: I don’t think – no, I have no idea on the details there. But at the end of the day, what I care about is, you know, are we helping children fulfill their tremendous academic and social potential? Are they getting the support they need? And clearly, there was a culture here that at some levels was rotten.

MARTIN: And obviously there’s a lot of debate about the role that the No Child Left Behind standards play in that environment. There are people clearly on both sides of that conversation. But you testified before Congress in March that the vast majority of public schools would not meet some No Child Left Behind standards by 2014. And you called on Congress to reform the policy. What’s the status of that?

DUNCAN: Yeah. Well, the law is fundamentally broken. And the law is far too punitive, far to prescriptive, it’s led to a dumbing down of standards. It’s led to a narrowing of the curriculum. And what I’m so angry about, Michel, is if whatever the number, 75, 80 percent of schools are labeled as failures with the current law, that’s dishonest. It’s not true.

We absolutely have schools that are struggling. We absolutely have schools that we don’t challenge the status quo, but many, many schools are doing an amazing job. And as we talked at the start of the conversation doing a great, great job in very tough economic times.

And so to label schools that are getting better each year as failures, that’s demoralizing to hardworking teachers and principals. It’s confusing to parents. It’s confusing to the community. And so, we’ve challenged Congress to fix the law. And we want to fix it together in a bipartisan way, and we want to fix it with a real sense of urgency.

I absolutely hope that happens. But if it doesn’t happen, I’m prepared to use our waiver authority to provide some relief now to states and to districts that are doing this hard work.

MARTIN: If you’re just joining us, you’re listening to TELL ME MORE from NPR News. We’re talking to Education Secretary Arne Duncan about contemporary issues in the news that affect education.

Here’s an issue that you testified in Congress about recently. The DREAM Act, it’s a proposed law that would create a pathway to citizenship for many children who are brought to this country without proper authorization by their parents when they were children.

In Congressional testimony last week, you talked in support of the DREAM Act. How do you see this as an educational issue?

DUNCAN: I’m a passionate, passionate supporter of the DREAM Act. And quite frankly, Michel, I think as a country we have our priorities absolutely backwards on this. To deny young children who have, you know, come to this country, their parents brought them sometimes when they were infants. They’ve worked hard. They’ve gone to school. They’ve gotten good grades. They’ve been community leaders. To deny them the chance to go to college is absolutely crazy. And we need their talents. We need their expertise. We need their creativity. We need their ingenuity. We need them to create the jobs of the future.

And so, it’s two things. One, this is an issue of fairness to not give them a chance to go to college is simply un-American. It’s not fair. And secondly, as a country, we have, I think, a selfish interest that we need their talents and we don’t want them to be the next generation of teachers and entrepreneurs and engineers and innovators or they’re going to be stuck doing, you know, under-the-table, you know, small-time jobs the rest of their life, you know, for cash.

MARTIN: Well, it’s…

DUNCAN: It’s got to change.

MARTIN: It’s obviously a very emotional issue for many people on both sides of the question. What about people like Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn who argued that this creates a reward? It’s actually a reward for people who have broken the law. This is what he said. I’m just going to play a short clip from his response last week on Congress, just so that people have a sense of what some of the other side of the argument is. Here it is.

(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)

Senator JOHN CORNYN: What parent would not be tempted to immigrate illegally on the hope that if not they but maybe their children would be given the gift of American citizenship?

MARTIN: How do you respond to that (unintelligible)?

DUNCAN: Well, it’s simply not true. First of all, these young people haven’t broken the law. They’ve done nothing wrong. And in fact, many of them have been exemplary, you know, youngsters and teenagers and community leaders. It’s as if, you know, if I did something wrong, Michel, it’s as if my children would receive that penalty rather than me. That’s just not how we worked.

Secondly, in terms of, you know, creating a sense of, you know, longer term for folks to come here, the way the bill is written is that you would have to have been in this country for five years prior to the passage of the law to qualify to get this financial aid. You’d have to be in good standing. And there’s nothing on a foreign basis that would allow folks who come to this country tomorrow to participate.

So these, again, these are red herrings. It doesn’t reflect reality and it doesn’t reflect the urgent need we have. We have, in these tough economic times, Michel, we have about two million high-wage, high-skill jobs that are unfilled today because we don’t have the talent to fill those jobs.

And when we have all these smart, talented, young people, who has the potential to fill those jobs and then be productive citizens and to pay taxes and to contribute to society, to deny that opportunity doesn’t make sense.

The final point I’ll make on this is that the Congressional Budget Office, which is, you know, nonpartisan, has estimated that over the next 10 years, if we educate these young people, if we allow them to go to college, this will actually reduce the deficit by a billion dollars because of their increased productivity.

So at a time when we’re trying to, you know, reduce the deficit and to put everything on the table, where we have something that increases productivity, reduces the deficit by a billion dollars, to not look at that in these tough economic times, it’s, again, just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

MARTIN: Finally, before we let you go, we wanted to ask you about a program that you launched earlier this year with movie director Spike Lee. It’s an effort to recruit, train, place and develop 80,000 African-American male teachers by the year 2015. We just haven’t had a chance to talk to you about this initiative since you initiated it. Tell us what it’s about and why do you feel this is important and how is it going?

DUNCAN: Yeah, this is so important. I just worry a lot, Michel, that increasingly our teacher workforce doesn’t reflect the tremendous diversity of our nation’s young people. And if you look across the country today, less than 2 percent, less than one in 50 of teachers are African-American male. Less than 2 percent is a Latino male.

And then we wonder why young boys of color struggle. And I just want our teacher workforce to reflect the tremendous diversity of the country. So we anticipate over the next four, five, six years, we’re going to need as many as a million new teachers in this country is that baby boomers retire. And to bring in this great next generation of talent will change public education for the next 30 years.

So it’s been a lot of fun. I’ve been out many places around the country. I have another Teach event scheduled in August. We have a website, teach.gov that I encourage people to look at. But I just can’t think of anything more important. And if people want to contribute to the community, if they want to give back, if they want to help to transform lives, there’s nothing more rewarding, nothing more important they can do than to become a teacher. And we’re going to continue to push this very, very hard.

MARTIN: What’s the sell, though? These kids will be picking up the newspapers and reading about teacher layoffs in places that they may very well want to teach? What’s the sell?

DUNCAN: Yeah, well, again, we have to look over the horizons. As I just said, we’re going to need as many as a million new teachers over the next six years. So we’re going to be as a country, despite the tough economic times, we’re actually going to be hiring in between 100,000 and 200,000 teachers every single year.

And so these are tough times, no question. But the reality is, we’re going to have about a third of our teacher workforce retire. So there is actually tremendous need out there. And, again, I just can’t think of a better way to make a difference and to contribute to the community. And all of us are where we are today because we had great teachers in our lives. And there’s just not a – there’s no better role you can play, no greater impact you can have than in the classroom.

MARTIN: Arne Duncan is the U.S. secretary of Education. He was kind enough to join us on the phone from his office in Washington, D.C. Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for joining us.

DUNCAN: Thanks. Have a great day. Take care now.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR’s prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

It’s officially summer vacation time. But if you’re a candidate running for president, you’ll spend your summer shaking hands in early voting states. Here, a look at the required stops and must-see attractions in Nevada.

This graphic requires version 10 or higher of the Adobe Flash Player.Get the latest Flash Player.

Welcome to Nevada

Credit: Christina Baird, Alyson Hurt, Nelson Hsu, Allison Lenz, Claire O’Neill, Max Pfennighaus, Debra Rosenberg/NPR

Las Vegas may be in the middle of a desert, but once you’re on the Strip, you can pretend you’re anywhere. Just pick a hotel: Paris, New York, Monte Carlo. Republican candidates generally go Venetian.

For tourists, the Venetian Hotel means gondola rides on the indoor canal that runs through the shopping mall. But Republican candidates don’t come for the ride; they come for the money. The Venetian is owned by a big-time donor to Republican causes, so it has become the default location for glitzy GOP fundraisers.

Politics And Half-Price Drinks

But a candidate who wants to meet rank-and-file Republican voters might want to head down the road a few miles to Stoney’s Rockin’ Country.

Enlarge Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Stoney’s Rockin’ Country, home to a Tea Party Express rally last year, has become something of a Republican haven in a predominantly Democratic city.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Stoney’s Rockin’ Country, home to a Tea Party Express rally last year, has become something of a Republican haven in a predominantly Democratic city.

Stoney’s looks like a dance hall crossed with a sports bar — if the only sport in the world was rodeo. And in a city dominated by Democrats, it has become a Republican haven. Chuck Muth, head of the group Citizen Outreach, is the founder of a monthly gathering for conservatives at Stoney’s called First Fridays.

“It’s not really a political event,” he says. “It’s more just a fun event of people who like politics.”

Politics and half-price drinks.

Muth says 500 people showed up at a recent First Friday when presidential candidate and former Godfather’s Pizza chief Herman Cain was the guest. And Muth has invited all of the other GOP hopefuls to stop by.

“I think it is going to be a must stop for a lot of the candidates this time around,” Muth says.

Last time around, Nevada didn’t get a lot of love from most Republican presidential candidates. That was partly because the Republican caucuses were just a beauty contest. Also, most candidates rightly assumed the crown would go to Mitt Romney, in part because of his support from the state’s large Mormon population. But this time, Muth believes things could be different.

“They will award delegates to the winners on a proportional basis, so it won’t even be winner take all. So, there’s a reason even for some of what would be considered maybe not the top-tier candidates to come, because they can still pick up a couple of delegates,” he says.

The Candidates’ Guide To Campaigning

If You Build It …

Meanwhile, about 400 miles northwest of Stoney’s, there are real cowboys — and cows — and snowcapped mountains in Douglas County. Maggie Benz, the chairwoman of the county Republican Party, says that four years ago, Romney was the only candidate who came by the GOP office.

“When he came to our headquarters, it was like, wow,” she says.

It was almost too wow. “There must’ve been 150 or 200 people, and that’s big for us,” she says. “In fact, I was afraid the floor was going to cave in.”

So, on the theory that if you build it they will come, the Douglas County Republican Party just opened a new office in the town of Minden that’s more than twice the size of its old one. If a candidate shows up, there will be room for a crowd. And Benz says GOP candidates should campaign in rural counties like hers because in Nevada, that’s where the Republicans are.

“Our county, for instance, is almost 2-to-1 Republicans,” she says. “In one of our most recent elections we had … a 92 percent turnout.”

Face Time In Reno

About an hour’s drive from Douglas County is Nevada’s swing district — Washoe County and the city of Reno, where Republican Mayor Bob Cashell is serving his third term.

Enlarge Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

In September 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama disembarks from his campaign plane in Reno. Mayor Bob Cashell says presidential candidates should spend a little more face time in his town.

Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

In September 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama disembarks from his campaign plane in Reno. Mayor Bob Cashell says presidential candidates should spend a little more face time in his town.

Voters treat him like a neighbor as he strolls through a park beside the rushing Truckee River. When Barack Obama was running for the White House, he drew thousands of people to a rally right here. But Cashell says most Republican candidates have come to Reno just for fundraisers. Sometimes they don’t even leave the airport.

“They’ll be here for two or three hours, or maybe a half a day. But usually, they just touch and go,” he says.

But Cashell thinks they should spend a little more face time with Reno voters. One of the places he’d take them is a restaurant called Rapscallions.

“Usually there’s five or six guys over at that corner of the bar that can buy and sell you and I and your company probably twice,” he says.

And what politician wouldn’t want to meet guys like that? Developer Dale McKenzie tells the mayor that he wouldn’t mind at all having his lunch interrupted by a little campaigning.

“Especially a presidential candidate. That’d be fun,” McKenzie says.

In Iowa and New Hampshire, they have that kind of fun all the time. In Nevada, they’re still dreaming of it.

Melissa Block speaks with Georgia Republican Rep. Tom Price, a member of the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee. He is also chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee. Price offers his take on the debt ceiling negotiations.

What do we know about what President Obama is discussing with top leaders from both parties in Congress Thursday and through the weekend? What is their game plan for raising the debt ceiling and bending down the deficit curve? Mara Liasson discusses the debt ceiling talks with Melissa Block.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) keeps things simple in her first TV ad in Iowa, which her presidential campaign says starts airing there today.

— Remind folks you’re from the state. Check.

— Let them know a little about yourself. Check.

— Vow to fight “wasteful” spending. Check.

— Make clear you opposed the president’s economic stimulus plan. Check.

Here’s the script:

“As a descendant of generations of Iowans, I was born and raised in Waterloo.

“As a mom of five, a foster parent, and a former tax lawyer, and now a small business job creator, I know we can’t keep spending money that we don’t have.

“That’s why I fought against the wasteful bailout … against the stimulus.

“I will not vote to increase the debt ceiling.”

The scene has become strikingly familiar over the 2 1/2 years of the Obama administration: congressional leaders footslogging in front of cameras to the White House for another “bipartisan” meeting to resolve yet another stalemate.

Enlarge Pool/Getty Images

President Obama meets with congressional leaders in the Cabinet Room on July 7.

Pool/Getty Images

President Obama meets with congressional leaders in the Cabinet Room on July 7.

This time, however, the Thursday-morning debt-ceiling confab in the Cabinet Room opened with a slightly different feel.

The president’s hair was visibly grayer. The stakes — the possibility that the nation could default on its debt for the first time in its history — were higher. And there was a palpable sense that a panic point had arrived and that both sides were preparing to take a path to a budget and debt-ceiling deal that would put them at odds, gently speaking, with their bases — from Republican Tea Partiers to Democrats in the MoveOn.org crowd.

“There’s going to be pain involved politically on all sides,” Obama said when he emerged from the no-deal-yet meeting, only to announce another on Sunday.

The president is already getting excoriated by progressives alarmed at White House willingness to put entitlement program cutbacks on the table. And Republican House Speaker John Boehner, who has met privately with the president in recent days to lay groundwork for a deal, faces the seemingly insurmountable task of selling tax loophole eliminations that some in his caucus view as tantamount to tax increases.

Some congressional Republicans have also begun agitating to add a balanced-budget amendment to the mix.

But as the August deadline creeps closer, and the specter looms of having to choose between paying the military or sending out Social Security checks, the “Deal or No Deal” drama over the nation’s budget, deficit and debt ceiling appears headed for an end that will reverberate long into the 2012 election season.

“If the president and the speaker are going to hold hands and jump in together, the problem will be from the wings of the parties,” says GOP strategist John Feehery.

“It becomes, for both sides, a game of ‘Can I win my primary?’ ” he says.

There’s also the more immediate challenge of whether Boehner can get his leadership to support him, and whether the president can get House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi in his corner.

Third Rail No More?

One other consequence of the down-to-the-wire deal-making: Once-sacred entitlement programs could face changes.

A new Pew Research Center poll shows that there is broad public opposition to possible reductions in benefits provided by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, according to poll director Andrew Kohut.

But, says Democratic strategist Peter Fenn, “I think a lot of people are recognizing that they’re no longer the third rail of American politics.” And they shouldn’t be, he argues, as long as changes are done “fairly and equitably.”

If the president and the speaker are going to hold hands and jump in together, the problem will be from the wings of the parties.

- John Feehery, GOP strategist

He characterizes the president’s gambit of proposing to cut the deficit by $4 trillion over the next decade, and the reports that the White House is considering changes in annual Social Security cost of living adjustments — COLAs — as “leapfrogging the Republicans politically.”

“What he’s done is force them to deal with the revenue as well as the spending side of the budget,” Fenn says.

He asserts that the president’s effort will help him “a great deal with independent and moderate voters” key to his re-election effort next year.

But the president’s once-solid base, already disillusioned with matters including war and extending the Bush-era tax cuts, is furious.

After the White House meeting, Pelosi said she believes the president’s goal of cutting the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years is possible without touching entitlement programs. House Democrats, she says, won’t support a deal that cuts Medicare and Social Security benefits. She is scheduled to return to the White House Friday to meet with Obama.

“I’m not totally surprised that the COLA is under discussion — there have been inklings about this for some time now — but I’m completely disappointed,” says Max Richtman of the national Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. “I’m not sure what repercussions there will be from seniors and people counting on Social Security.”

The COLA is currently tied to the Consumer Price Index and is compounded annually.

MoveOn.org has urged its members to call the White House with a message: “No deal where seniors pay. No deal where the rich and corporations don’t.”

Political Fallout

The Republicans have already embraced the political fallout of tampering with the third rail. They did it when the House voted to adopt Wisconsin GOP Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget, which proposed dramatic changes to Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Democrats pounced on the public alarm over Ryan’s budget and appeared poised to ride the issue into the 2012 race.

“The Republicans have been surprisingly willing to talk about Medicare and Social Security,” says Paul Van de Water, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. “They are certainly not ignoring the political implications of this.”

Van de Water, however, notes that Social Security, which is seen as solvent through 2036, has not been a contributor to the current deficit problem.

Unsettled And Unsettling Times

With Americans feeling increasingly insecure about their financial futures, this is tough political terrain for a Democratic president already seen by many of his supporters as giving up too much in spending cuts without exacting revenue increases.

The president could always do a temporary debt ceiling increase, Feehery says, that would get the country through a couple of months without default and allow more time for a deal.

Feehery, along with a number of prominent Republicans, has argued that the president is offering a deal they shouldn’t refuse.

“The president has offered up $4 trillion in cuts, likely including some to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and closing some tax loopholes,” he says. ” And Republicans should vote for that.

“It would be a good down payment.”

Good, say many of Obama’s once-ardent supporters, but good for whom?

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

SUSAN STAMBERG, host:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I’m Susan Stamberg. Good morning.

The first Iowa poll of the 2012 election season has former governor Mitt Romney and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann in a near tie, leading the Republican presidential field. The Des Moines Register surveyed 400 likely Republican caucus-goers and released the poll results late last night. Iowa has the country’s first major electoral event. And winning in Iowa can help build the momentum a candidate needs to win the party’s nomination.

Coming up, the campaign fundraising frenzy. But first, Mara Liasson, NPR’s national political correspondent. Good morning.

MARA LIASSON: Good morning, Susan.

STAMBERG: In this Des Moines Register poll, Romney won 23 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers; Bachmann got 22 percent. What do you make of that?

LIASSON: Well, Romney is the national frontrunner and he’s been leading in all the polls so maybe there’s not too big a surprise there. But Michele Bachmann is the kind of social conservative candidate that does well in Iowa. She’s a member of the House of Representatives, she got her start as a conservative Christian activist, she was an advocate for homeschoolers. She turned in a very good performance – some people thought an electrifying performance, in the debate in New Hampshire last week.

She’s going to announce her campaign in Iowa tomorrow. She’s a native of Iowa. She was born in Waterloo. And this poll allows her to say that at least for now in Iowa she is the alternative to the frontrunner.

STAMBERG: And there there’s businessman Herman Cain. He had an OK showing. He came in third; got 10 percent. What is the story there?

LIASSON: Well, I think that Herman Cain is the new different non-politician candidate in that field that’s been capturing the imaginations of a lot of Republicans. Ten percent doesn’t vault him into the top tier, but it does give a rebuke to all of the other more serious candidates who are underneath him in that poll.

STAMBERG: Yeah. Former Governor Tim Pawlenty, for instance. He did not perform very well in this poll. He got just 6 percent, behind former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Congressman Ron Paul. What do you think is holding back Pawlenty’s campaign?

LIASSON: Well, that’s not clear. But I think that is the biggest news in this poll. Tim Pawlenty, who is the former governor of Minnesota, a neighboring state, he has been spending a tremendous amount of time in Iowa. He clearly isn’t catching on yet. He turned in what many Republicans thought was a disappointing performance in the debate in New Hampshire last week. We’ve also heard that he’s having trouble raising money.

But this is the biggest challenge for Pawlenty. He has to either win or come a very close second to a candidate like Michele Bachmann if he’s going to survive beyond Iowa.

STAMBERG: And then another former governor, Jon Huntsman of Utah, entered the race this past week and he only got 2 percent. This is a man who once served as U.S. ambassador to China under President Obama. And listen to what he said during his presidential announcement, referring to his former boss.

Former Governor JON HUNTSMAN (Republican, Utah, Former U.S. Ambassador to China): He and I have a difference of opinion on how to help a country we both love. But the question each of us wants the voters to answer is who will be the better president, not who’s the better American.

STAMBERG: So, Mara, do you think there’s space in this field of candidates for somebody like Jon Huntsman?

LIASSON: Well, he is the civility candidate. That’s the big question, as one of the headlines said in the speech he served tofu instead of red meat to the Republican base. He said he once served as the ambassador to China under President Obama. He actually just served as the ambassador to China. He just came home, and now he’s running against his former boss. A lot of Republicans think he’s not going to be able to bring the kind of attacks that Republican voters want against the president.

But he is banking on the fact that there are enough non-Tea Party voters who want a civil candidate in the party. I think that’s a big question mark. He has pretty moderate views – at least in the past – on civil unions and immigration and global warming. So, he has a long way to go to prove himself.

STAMBERG: Finally, there is still lots of speculation about Texas Governor Rick Perry. Does he seem any closer to announcing that he’s going to go for it?

LIASSON: Yes, he does, and he’s said that he’s going to do everything he can to see if it is possible to get into the race at this late date, to see if there’s enough money that’s not committed yet. He thinks there is room for a Southern conservative Tea Party-backed governor that would be an alternative to Romney. And I think if he does get in, I think he immediately vaults into the top tier, especially given all the candidates who have chosen not to run. There is a big space for a Southern governor who would be an alternative to Romney. And I think if he gets in, at least at the beginning he immediately becomes that candidate.

STAMBERG: Mara Liasson, NPR’s national political correspondent. Thank you so much.

LIASSON: Thank you, Susan.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR’s prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

Enlarge Mario Tama/Getty Images

Revelers celebrate during New York City’s Gay Pride Parade, two days after the state Legislature legalized same-sex marriage.

Mario Tama/Getty Images

Revelers celebrate during New York City’s Gay Pride Parade, two days after the state Legislature legalized same-sex marriage.

New York City’s annual Gay Pride Parade became a rolling victory party Sunday, two days after the state became the second largest in the country to legalize same-sex marriage.

One of those celebrating, Lindsey Katt, said she felt “a great sense of joy,” although she added with a laugh that “there is a resounding feeling of ‘we’ve won the battle and now need to keep working to win the war.’ “

In New York and around the country, activists on both sides are still fighting the war.

Advocate Richard Socarides says what happens in the state has national implications, and will encourage lawmakers elsewhere to support gay marriage.

He says each approval like this one “feeds off of and contributes substantially to the next one.”

Yale law professor William Eskridge agrees: “The more interactions Americans have with same-sex couples, the more Americans will accept same-sex marriage.”

Opponents counter that they don’t expect the trend to sweep the country because there are just a handful of states left without a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel says New York is “the last of the low-hanging fruit,” and he’s hoping this vote will mobilize opponents.

It’s not the end of the marriage debate. It’s not even the beginning of the end of the marriage debate.

- Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel

“It’s not the end of the marriage debate,” he says. “It’s not even the beginning of the end of the marriage debate.”

Even in New York, opponents are vowing to make good on their warnings that lawmakers who voted for gay marriage would not survive the next election. They’re also pushing for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in New York to be put on the ballot.

“This is the type of issue that the voters themselves should decide,” says Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage. “It shouldn’t be decided by legislators who can be bought or sold, and in every state this is put to a direct vote, marriage has won.”

Gay marriage cases are under way in the courts, and advocates hope the New York vote will reverberate there.

As one put it, the argument against gay marriage hinges on the idea that it’s just not the way things have been done, but with New York and other states accepting it, that argument carries much less weight.

After weeks of leaving deficit-reduction talks to Vice President Biden, President Obama will meet personally with Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate. They’re trying to work out a plan to stem the tide of red ink. But no matter what happens, the government will need to keep borrowing money. And that means lawmakers will need to raise the federal debt ceiling within the next five weeks.

Enlarge Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

President Obama with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell after making a tax deal, December 2010.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

President Obama with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell after making a tax deal, December 2010.

There’s apparently at least one congressional Republican leader willing to sit down with President Obama to talk about raising the debt ceiling. The White House on Friday issued the following statement:

Monday, the President and Vice President will hold meetings at the White House with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to discuss the status of the negotiations to find common ground on a balanced approach to deficit reduction. The meeting with the Majority Leader will take place in the morning and the meeting with the Minority Leader will take place in the early evening.

The announcement that the Kentucky Republican is headed to the White House for debt talks next week, follows Thursday’s boycott of the debt-ceiling negotiations by Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), the House majority leader.

Cantor didn’t attend a scheduled Thursday meeting led by Biden because, the Republican said, his party’s position was that there was nothing left to discuss if Democratic negotiators kept bringing up tax increases.

Cantor said he wanted Obama to “resolve” the tax impasse.

That “balanced approach” language in the White House statement means Obama intends to talk not just about spending cuts, the Republicans’ preferred method to reduce deficits, but what are euphemistically called “revenue enhancers” in Washington — taxes, basically.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has said he understands why Cantor left the talks and agreed that tax increases can’t pass in the House so that it’s not worth even talking about them.

Meanwhile, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday that the talks are pretty much where the president and his aides expected them to be at this point. The most difficult issues that must be negotiated at the highest level, between Obama and Boehner, are the ones that remain, he said.

As John Dickerson astutely wrote in Slate, the debt-ceiling negotiations are following the usual Washington script.

Both sides talk, then negotiations break down, after which, a lot of angry words are said. Finally, the principals come together to get the best deal they can get in the end.

It allows leaders on each side to eventually make the case to their most ideological supporters that they really fought the good fight for their particular party’s principles before compromising.

The drama in this instance is assisted by the good cop-bad cop routine on both sides. Boehner is the good cop to Cantor’s bad. Obama is the good cop to the bad cop of House minority leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s.

Few people in Washington who’ve seen a number of these negotiations by now expect that policymakers will let the nation default on its debt. Only a minority of policymakers seem to want to run that dangerous experiment.

But since Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner set an Aug 2 deadline for when the debt-ceiling must be raised to avoid default, there’s relatively a lot of time left for the sides to play out their roles.

After days of contentious negotiations and last-minute reversals by two Republican senators, New York became the sixth and largest state in the country to legalize gay marriage, breathing life into the national gay rights movement that had stalled over a nearly identical bill here two years ago.

Pending any court challenges, legal gay marriages can begin in New York by late July after Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed his bill into law just before midnight Friday.

At New York City’s Stonewall Inn, the Greenwich Village pub that spawned the gay rights movement on a June night in 1969, Scott Redstone watched with his partner of 29 years, and popped the question.

“I said, ‘Will you marry me?’ And he said, ‘Of course!’” Redstone said he and Steven Knittweis walked home to pop open a bottle of champagne.

The Senate approved the bill 33-29, with four members of the Republican majority joining all but one Democrat in support.

People had varying reactions on the streets of Brooklyn. Julie Whitaker, who is straight, said she’s elated. “It’s not just about having a wedding or rings, but it gives gay people … rights that married people have.”

Agatha Joseph had a different take. “I know lots of gay people. I love them. They are human beings like myself. But I feel they should not be getting married.

Opponents have vowed to retaliate at election time.

The leading opponent, Democratic Sen. Ruben Diaz, was given only a few minutes to state his case during the Senate debate.

“God, not Albany, settled the issue of marriage a long time ago,” said Diaz, a Bronx minister. “I’m sorry you are trying to take away my right to speak,” he said. “Why are you ashamed of what I have to say?”

The Catholic Bishops of New York said the law alters “radically and forever humanity’s historic understanding of marriage.”

“We always treat our homosexual brothers and sisters with respect, dignity and love,” the bishops said Friday. “We worry that both marriage and the family will be undermined by this tragic presumption of government in passing this legislation that attempts to redefine these cornerstones of civilization.”

Legal challenges are expected. GOP senators endured several marathon sessions, combing through several standard but complex bills this week, before taking up the same-sex marriage bill Friday.

The bill came to the floor for a vote after an agreement was reached on more protections for religious groups that oppose gay marriage and feared discrimination lawsuits.

“State legislators should not decide society-shaping issues,” said the Rev. Jason McGuire of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms. He said his organization would work in next year’s elections to defeat lawmakers who voted for the measure.

The big win for gay rights advocates is expected to galvanize the movement around the country after an almost identical bill was defeated here in 2009 and similar measures failed in 2010 in New Jersey and this year in Maryland and Rhode Island.

Jerry Nathan of Albany, who married his partner in Massachusetts, called the vote “an incredible culmination of so much that’s been going on for so many years it doesn’t seem real yet.”

Ultimately, gay couples will be able to marry because of two previously undecided Republicans from upstate regions far more conservative than the New York City base of the gay rights movement.

Sen. Stephen Saland, 67, voted against a similar bill in 2009, helping kill the measure and dealing a blow to the national gay rights movement. On Friday night, gay marriage supporters wept in the Senate gallery as Saland explained how his strong, traditionally family upbringing led him to embrace legalizing gay marriage.

“While I understand that my vote will disappoint many, I also know my vote is a vote of conscience,” Saland, of Poughkeepsie, said in a statement to The Associated Press before the vote. “I am doing the right thing in voting to support marriage equality.”

Also voting for the bill was freshman Sen. Mark Grisanti, a Buffalo Republican who also had been undecided. Grisanti said he could not deny anyone what he called basic rights.

“I apologize to those I offend,” said Grisanti, a Roman Catholic. “But I believe you can be wiser today than yesterday. I believe this state needs to provide equal rights and protections for all its residents,” he said.

A huge street party erupted outside the Stonewall Inn Friday night, with celebrants waving rainbow flags and dancing after the historic vote.

Watching the festivities from across the street was Sarah Ellis, who has been in a six-year relationship with her partner, Kristen Henderson. Ellis said the measure would enable them to get married in the fall. They have twin toddlers and live in Sea Cliff on Long Island.

“We’ve been waiting. We considered it for a long time, crossing the borders and going to other states,” said Ellis, 39. “But until the state that we live in, that we pay taxes in, and we’re part of that community, has equal rights and marriage equality, we were not going to do it.”

The bill makes New York only the third state, after Vermont and New Hampshire, to legalize marriage through a legislative act and without being forced to do so by a court.

Reporter Kaomi Goetz contributed to this report, which includes material from The Associated Press.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

SCOTT SIMON, host:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I’m Scott Simon.

(Soundbite of people protesting)

SIMON: Same-sex marriage is now legal in New York. A large crowd gathered in the state capitol to celebrate after the legislature voted to allow gay and lesbian couples to wed. Five other states and the District of Columbia already allow same-sex weddings, but last night’s vote makes gay marriage legal in one of the nation’s populous and influential states.

The decision last night turned on the vote of a Republican Senator who had promised to oppose same-sex marriage in his last campaign, but he said his views had changed in the course of the contentious months-long debate on the issue.

Karen DeWitt of New York State Public Radio was at the Capitol last night and joins us now from Albany. Karen, thanks for being with us.

KAREN DEWITT: Sure thing.

SIMON: Tell us about scene – 10:30 last night.

DEWITT: It was quite a scene. There were hundreds of pro-same sex marriage supporters. They packed the Senate galleries, they spilled into the halls for the vote, and after the vote everything just erupted – cheering, chanting, hugging, crying, people considering wedding plans. One woman told me that now it’s menus and venues for her.

Opponents – some had been literally on their knees praying before the vote. Afterward, most of them had left, but some, including national traditional marriage groups, the Catholic Church, issued angry statements, saying it’s wrong to redefine marriage, they’re going against God’s will.

Governor Cuomo, really, he signed the bill with breathtaking speed. He had signed it by 11:55 on Friday night.

SIMON: The vote was reportedly knotted up at 31-31 for about 10 days. What broke the stalemate?

DEWITT: It was 10 days of intense pressure for the Senate Republicans because they couldn’t figure out would they lose their seats if they voted yes or would they lose their seats if they voted no.

What really broke the impasse was they came up with this amendment that would grant exemptions for religious organizations, essentially saying that a religious group doesn’t have to provide, say, a church hall or catering for any marriage if it’s against their beliefs and it also protects the religious groups from getting sued. And that amendment provided cover for the final two senators to change their votes, including Senator Mark Grisanti from the Buffalo area. And here’s what he had to say about that on the Senate floor.

State Senator MARK GRISANTI (Republican, New York): Who am I to say that someone does not have the same rights that I have with my wife who I love or to have the 1,300-plus rights that I share with her?

DEWITT: It was a pretty dramatic moment. At the end, though, most of the GOP senators did vote against it. They were helped by 29 Democrats who voted for it.

SIMON: And here’s what Governor Cuomo said last night in signing the bill:

Governor ANDREW CUOMO (Democrat, New York): What this state said today brings this discussion of marriage equality to a new plane.

SIMON: Help understand Governor Cuomo’s role and the possible political impact this has for him.

DEWITT: Well, it’s really a key political victory for him. He named legalizing gay marriage as one of his top priorities. And I think that he felt he really needed this to balance what so far had been a really fiscally conservative agenda. He cut the state budget by $10 billion, he cut schools and health care, he pushed a property tax cap, he demanded union concessions and he refused to renew a tax on millionaires. But winning gay marriage really helps him with his base in New York State and also I think he really wants to develop a national reputation as kind of a new Democrat, fiscally conservative but socially progressive. And so far he’s on that track.

SIMON: And what are some of the prominent thinkers in the gay rights movement who descended on Albany think of the national significance of this passing?

DEWITT: Well, I think it was a real boost to gay rights groups. They’ve had some setbacks in California – first gay marriage was legal then they had Proposition A, which was outlawed by a popular referendum and now there’s endless court action. So, I think they’re hoping maybe the tide has turned for gay marriage.

SIMON: Karen DeWitt of New York State Public Radio. Thanks so much.

DEWITT: Thank you, Scott.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR’s prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

SCOTT SIMON, host:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I’m Scott Simon.

It’s been 96 days since President Obama ordered U.S. forces to begin airstrikes in Libya against troops loyal to Colonel Moammar Gadhafi. That’s six days longer than a president is allowed to carry out a military campaign without congressional authorization with the 1973 War Powers Resolution.

Yesterday, two measures were brought before the House of Representatives that might have provided such authorization, although with strings attached. Both failed. NPR’s David Welna has our report.

DAVID WELNA: According to the White House, President Obama does not need the permission of Congress for the Libyan intervention. That’s because the president thinks the current U.S. role there in support of NATO forces does not rise to the level of hostilities. California Republican Tom McClintock dismissed that assertion yesterday on the House floor.

Representative TOM MCCLINTOCK (Republican, California): The president’s now on notice that he is in direct defiance of Congress. That is the message we need to send today.

WELNA: But as Minority Whip Steny Hoyer reminded colleagues, they’d already formally rebuked the president once and in doing so they had earned the gratitude of one embattled foreign leader.

Representative STENY HOYER (Democrat, Maryland): Gadhafi wrote us a letter in the last debate just some weeks and thanked the House of Representatives for its debate. Is that the message we want to send to Gadhafi? I think not.

WELNA: The conflict in Libya divides Republicans as well as Democrats. Adam Kinzinger is a freshman Republican and Air Force pilot from Illinois who served five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He urged colleagues to support a resolution before the House that authorized the Libyan intervention for up to one year.

Representative ADAM KINZINGER (Republican, Illinois): Don’t let a dispute between the legislative branch and the executive branch result in us pulling the rug out from standing up for freedom. America has a responsibility to finish this through, to stand with our allies. To leave now means Gadhafi wins.

WELNA: But most Republicans derided the one-year authorization, which mirrors one that’s pending in the Senate. Florida’s Ileana Ros-Lehtinen chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Representative ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN (Republican, Florida, Chair, Foreign Affairs Committee): While a complete withdrawal is unacceptable, the resolution before us is also unacceptable. Their solution effectively ratifies that all that the president has done and it would grant him the blessings of Congress to continue on his present course.

WELNA: California’s Howard Berman is the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs panel. He did endorse the yearlong authorization but question why it was even brought up.

Representative HOWARD BERMAN (Democrat, California): Let’s be honest about what’s happening here. The Republican leadership allowed this resolution to come to the floor for one reason and one reason only: they know it will fail and they think its defeat will be a political defeat for the White House.

WELNA: And fail it did – only eight Republicans voted for it, while 70 anti-war Democrats joined the rest of the Republicans in voted against it. A second GOP-sponsored resolution as then considered. It would allow U.S. forces to continue operations in Libya indefinitely but also bar any funds from being used for a combat action, such as ongoing drone strikes. It had the blessing of House Speaker John Boehner.

Representative JOHN BOEHNER (Republican, Ohio, Speaker of the House): This bill represents, I believe, a reasonable approach. By allowing our forces to continue playing a limited support role, it would not undermine our NATO partners. It would, however, prevent the president from carrying out any further hostilities without Congress’s approval.

WELNA: But the measures split the difference approach failed to win over quite a few other Republicans, including Oklahoma’s Tom Cole.

Representative TOM COLE (Republican, Oklahoma): Congress should reassert its constitutional authority, Mr. Speaker, by either authorizing the use of military force or ending it. This resolution avoids either course.

WELNA: In a blow to the speaker, 89 fellow Republicans opposed the measure, sealing its defeat.

David Welna, NPR News, the Capitol.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR’s prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

SCOTT SIMON, host:

This is weekend Edition from NPR News. I’m Scott Simon.

President Obama says if America’s going to have a robust, growing economy, it needs robust, growing factories. And in Pittsburgh yesterday, Mr. Obama launched a new partnership with businesses and universities.

It’s designed to give a boost to the manufacturing sector in hopes that factories will then offer more good-paying jobs. The announcement capped a week in which the president also began winding down the war in Afghanistan, and tiptoed close the debate over same-sex marriage.

NPR’s Scott Horsley reports.

SCOTT HORSLEY: Mr. Obama went to Pittsburgh to stress the importance of making U.S. factories more competitive. But churning out more products at lower costs wasn’t the only thing on the president’s mind as he toured the National Robotics Engineering Center.

President BARACK OBAMA: One of my responsibilities as Commander-in-Chief, is to keep an eye on robots.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Pres. BARACK OBAMA: And I’m pleased to report that the robots you manufacture here seem peaceful.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Pres. BARACK OBAMA: At least for now.

HORSLEY: Industrial robots are one way for American factories to become more productive. Drew Greenblatt(ph) runs a factory in Baltimore that makes metal baskets used in industry.

Far from displacing workers, Greenblatt says, the robots in his factory have made those workers more valuable, so he’s been able to hire more of them.

Mr. DREW GREENBLATT (President, Marlin Steel Wire Products, Baltimore, Maryland): You can’t compete with your employees having equipment equal to the Chinese or the Mexicans, you have to have equipment that’s far superior. And the way to make our employees like Superman, and give them super powers, is to allow them robot technology so that they can much more productive, much more efficient, much higher quality.

HORSLEY: Robots, advanced materials and energy efficient processes will all be on the menu for Mr. Obama’s advanced manufacturing partnership.

Before traveling to Pittsburgh, Mr. Obama stopped in New York City for a series of political fundraisers. One was focused on the city’s gay and lesbian community.

Mr. NEIL PATRICK HARRIS (Actor): President Obama will be coming out soon.

(Soundbite of cheering)

Mr. HARRIS: Out on stage. Calm down, people.

HORSLEY: Actor, Neil Patrick Harris, was master of ceremonies, and he praised Mr. Obama for helping to end the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, and for promoting other gay-friendly initiatives.

The president disappointed some in the audience when he failed to endorse same-sex marriage, but he urged marriage supporters to keep the pressure on, including the pressure on him.

Pres. OBAMA: Look, that’s the power of our democratic system. It’s not always pretty. There are setbacks, there are frustrations. But in grappling with tough and at times emotional issues in legislatures and in courts and at the ballot box – and yes, around the dinner table, and in the office hallways, and sometimes even in the oval office – slowly but surely we find the way forward.

HORSLEY: Slow and unsure describes the effort in Washington to close the federal budget deficit. After their golf game a week ago, the president and House Speaker John Boehner, met privately at the White House Wednesday night.

But House Republican Leader Eric Cantor withdrew from budget negotiations the following day, and Republicans are still reluctant to consider tax increases as part of any deficit reduction plan.

Mr. Obama says trying to close the budget gap with spending cuts alone would eliminate important investments.

Pres. OBAMA: I’m not going to sacrifice clean energy at a time when our dependence on foreign oil has caused Americans so much pain at the pump. That doesn’t make any sense.

(Soundbite of applause)

Pres. OBAMA: In other words, I will not sacrifice America’s future.

HORSLEY: The White House says it advocates a balanced approach to deficit reduction. Mr. Obama also tried to strike a balance in Afghanistan, ordering a faster troop withdrawal this week than some in the military wanted, though not fast enough to satisfy some congressional critics.

The President plans to pull 10,000 U.S. troops out of Afghanistan this year, and another 23,000 by next summer.

President BARACK OBAMA: This is the beginning, but not the end of our effort to wind down this war.

HORSLEY: After a painful decade, the president said, the tide of war is receding. That tide’s left different impressions on different people, both Democrats and Republicans. As usual, Mr. Obama tried to navigate between the waves. Instead of isolationism or military overreach, he said, America must chart a more centered course.

Scott Horsley, NPR News, the White House.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR’s prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

Enlarge J Pat Carter/AP

President Barack Obama shakes hand with a group of supporters after a Miami fundraiser on June 13.

J Pat Carter/AP

President Barack Obama shakes hand with a group of supporters after a Miami fundraiser on June 13.

This week marks a milestone in the presidential race. At midnight Thursday, the second quarter ends, and the campaigns have to tally up their first financial reports of the election cycle.

The filing deadline isn’t until July 15, so it’s now high season for speculation about who’s got enough campaign money and who doesn’t.

President Obama was back in New York City this week, where at three fundraisers in one evening, he revived for donors their 2008 vision of what America could be.

“That’s why I need you to campaign for me again in 2012. Our job is not done. We’ve got to fight for that vision,” he said.

The Obama operation has a vision too: $60 million by Thursday.

“They are looking to raise a very large amount of money quickly at this point,” says political scientist Tony Corrado of Colby College in Maine.

Corrado says the president ought to be able to do it. He notes that as a non-incumbent, Obama set a new standard — $745 million — to get elected.

“He is an established fundraiser,” Corrado says. “He’s the president of the United States. And he has been emphasizing fundraising events where donors are giving the maximum amount of $2,500, or at least $1,000.”

Enlarge Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney greets a volunteer at his “National Call Day” fundraising event at the Las Vegas Convention Center on May 16.

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney greets a volunteer at his “National Call Day” fundraising event at the Las Vegas Convention Center on May 16.

The Republican money leader most likely will turn out to be former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. He started his bid with a telethon. Friends and supporters worked their Rolodexes while Romney talked to Facebook.

“They’re collecting checks of $10, $5, all the way up to $2,500. And it would mean a great deal to me if you’d be willing to make a contribution,” he said.

Nancy Bocskor, a veteran Republican fundraiser, says Romney has financial depth.

“Mitt Romney’s ability to put together a core group of committed fundraisers, and they raise more than $10 million in one day, is remarkable,” she says.

So this time, he won’t have to write personal checks to the campaign. Running in 2008, Romney put in $45 million.

As yet, none of the other Republicans have signaled dramatic strength in fundraising.

Just last week, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty was explaining why some of his top aides aren’t being paid. On former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s campaign, two top fundraisers quit.

There are also some late starters, who likely won’t have meaningful fundraising to report.

Jon Huntsman, former governor of Utah, is rich enough to pay for a substantial part of his campaign himself. He says he won’t.

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann will file a report for her House campaign committee. Last year, she tapped a big grassroots base and raised $13 million — a record for House candidates, but chicken feed in a presidential campaign.

Especially this one.

Political analyst Charlie Cook has been examining campaign metrics since the 1980s. “You know, in the early stages of a campaign, there are only two metrics to look at. One is polls and the other is money,” he says.

Poll numbers are really hard to affect, he says. But money?

“That’s one of the metrics that you can theoretically have some control over, if you really bust your tail and raise a lot of money,” he says.

But raising a lot of money is harder than ever this year because the expectations have been raised so high.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

SCOTT SIMON, host:

The House rebuke of the U.S. role in Libya may signal a new note being heard among Republicans. A growing number of prominent Republicans, including several candidates for president, are calling for a speedier withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and question U.S. involvement in Libya. The course of candidates calling for America to stay home plainly upsets the last Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, who told ABC’s “This Week.”

Senator JOHN MCCAIN (Republican, Arizona): This is isolationism. There’s always been an isolation strain in the Republican Party, the Pat Buchanan wing of our party. But now it seems to have moved more center stage so to speak.

SIMON: Joined now by another Arizona member of Congress, Congressman Jeff Flake joins us from Capitol Hill. Thanks so much for being with us.

Representative JEFF FLAKE (Republican, Arizona): Hey. Thanks for having me on.

SIMON: And how do you feel about that term isolationist?

Mr. FLAKE: Well, I certainly don’t think it applies to me or very many of my colleagues. I think we have to differentiate between the readiness to, I guess, or the willingness or desire to use military force with other actions that might be more appropriately defined as isolationist.

SIMON: You’ve called to the U.S. to keep a much smaller presence in Afghanistan and certainly circumscribed action only, if any, in Libya. Explain your thinking, sir.

Mr. FLAKE: We’ve completed much of our mission there. We certainly, we routed the Taliban early on, we’ve now killed Osama bin Laden and we’re now engaged in what is termed counterinsurgency policy. But I don’t think it really is. It’s more nation-building than that. So, I’ve called for a change to counterterrorism that would require much smaller footprint and I think be just as effective or perhaps more so.

SIMON: Would your thinking be different if there weren’t the domestic budget pressures we observe now?

Mr. FLAKE: No. No, I don’t believe so. When you look at Afghanistan and you look at what we’re doing there, it’s hard to imagine that the situation will be much different 10 years from now, even if we could afford to spend what we’re currently spending. So, no, certainly you can’t divorce, you know, our economic situation from the argument but I think I’d feel the same anyway.

SIMON: Is this a new direction from the Republican Party?

Mr. FLAKE: No. I think frankly it returns much more to our roots.

SIMON: And we’re going to have to note that a number of your fellow Republicans, great number, obviously, historic number of freshmen, many of them backed by the Tea Party – you don’t agree that this might signal a shift in the views of the Republican Party over the past decade?

Mr. FLAKE: Perhaps over the past decade. But I would argue that probably returns us to more of where the Republican Party has been traditionally; the party that is not isolationist by any means, but is perhaps a little more skeptical of the ability that we have to change the world in ways that we perhaps think we can.

SIMON: What about the argument, Mr. Flake, that when you see widespread mass murder perhaps on the verge of happening in a place like Libya, it is in the interest of the United States to apply power to prevent that from happening.

Mr. FLAKE: I certainly think that that is a compelling argument. And Senator McCain makes that in a very compelling way. But there are compelling arguments that can be made in that same vein in Syria right now or in Yemen or elsewhere. And I think you have to be judicious in where you apply military force and some of us think that we erred in Libya.

SIMON: Are you concerned that in the campaign to come President Obama might be in a position to accuse the Republicans of being weak on defense?

Mr. FLAKE: Well, there are some on the Republican Party that think we’ve always got to be more hawkish than the president. And I don’t think that’s the case. I think Republicans have traditionally been and will remain more committed perhaps to national defense. But that doesn’t mean that we should engage in every battle that is out there. And if there are areas where we think it’s imprudent to move ahead overseas then I hope we Republicans do the right thing.

SIMON: Congressman Jeff Flake who represents the sixth congressional district of Arizona. Thanks so much for being with us.

Mr. FLAKE: Thanks for having me on.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR’s prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio.

It’s been called the worst job in the country. And once you get it, unpopularity is practically certain. But it seems there’s never a shortage of presidential candidates. Presidential historian Alvin Felzenberg talks about what it takes to make it into that small group.

Many obstacles still lie ahead for supporters of same-sex marriage, and eventually they will need Congress or the Supreme Court to embrace their goal. For the moment, though, they are jubilantly channeling the lyrics of “New York, New York” after the Empire State became the most populous state to legalize same-sex marriage.

“Now that we’ve made it here, we’ll make it everywhere,” said prominent activist Evan Wolfson, who took up the cause of marriage equality as a law student three decades ago.

With a historic vote by its Legislature late Friday, New York became the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage since Massachusetts led the way, under court order, in 2004.

With the new law, which takes effect after 30 days, the number of Americans in same-sex marriage states more than doubles. New York’s population of 19 million surpasses the combined total of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Iowa, plus Washington, D.C., where same-sex marriages are legal.

The outcome — a product of intensive lobbying by the new Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo — will have nationwide repercussions. Activists hope the New York vote will help convince judges and politicians across the country, including a hesitant President Obama, that support of same-sex marriage is now a mainstream viewpoint and a winning political stance.

“New York sends the message that marriage equality across the country is a question of ‘when,’ not ‘if,’” said Fred Sainz, a vice president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay advocacy group.

Response From Conservatives

The New York bill cleared the Republican-controlled Senate by a 33-29 margin, thanks to crucial support from four Republican senators who joined all but one Democrat in voting yes.

Groups rallying against gay marriage have vowed to unseat the politicians that helped pass it.

The conservative National Organization for Marriage has announced a new campaign to punish Republicans who supported gay marriage and to try to overturn the law.

New York sends the message that marriage equality across the country is a question of “when,” not “if.”

- Fred Sainz, vice president of the Human Rights Campaign

Dean Skelos voted against gay marriage in New York, but the Family Research Council is furious with him anyway. In a statement, the conservative group said Democrats pushed gay marriage through, but as the Republican Senate majority leader, Skelos is responsible for allowing that to happen.

Skelos told NPR why he decided not to block the bill.

“Because I believe in democracy,” he said. “I believe legislators are elected to make their own choices to vote — to vote their constituents, to vote their conscience.”

Skelos says it is important that the new law protect people who object to gay marriage from lawsuits — such as churches that don’t want to hold gay weddings, or clergy who don’t want to perform them.

Gay rights activists have been heaping praise on Cuomo for leading the push for the bill, seizing on an issue that many politicians of both parties have skirted. Yet the Senate vote marked the first time a Republican-controlled legislative chamber in any state has supported same-sex marriage, and several prominent Republican donors contributed to the lobbying campaign on behalf of the bill.

Jim Alesi was one of the four Republican senators who supported the bill — after voting against gay marriage just two years ago in a decision he says was political.

“Even though there are only four Republicans who voted for it, the bill would never have passed if it hadn’t been brought to the floor by the Republican majority,” he told NPR’s Rachel Martin.

Gay Marriage Expands

For those engaged in the marriage debate nationally, recent months have been a political rollercoaster.

We’ve won every free, fair vote of the people. Backroom deals in Albany are not an indication of what people in this country think about marriage.

- Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage

Bills to legalize same-sex marriage failed in Maryland and Rhode Island. However, Illinois, Hawaii and Delaware approved civil unions, joining five other states — California, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington — that provide gay couples with extensive marriage-like rights.

Adding those eight states to the six that allow gay marriage, more than 35 percent of Americans now live in states where gay couples can effectively attain the rights and responsibilities of marriage. Just 11 years ago, no states offered such rights.

For now, gay couples cannot get married in 44 states, and 30 of them have taken the extra step of passing constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. Minnesota’s Republican-controlled Legislature has placed such an amendment on the 2012 ballot.

Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, predicts victory for the amendment to ban gay marriage next year in Minnesota, and said this would belie the claims that the same-sex marriage campaign would inevitably prevail nationwide.

“We’ve won every free, fair vote of the people,” Brown said Saturday. “Backroom deals in Albany are not an indication of what people in this country think about marriage.”

Obama Asks Activists For Patience

Efforts may surface in some states to repeal the existing marriage bans, but the prospect of dismantling all of them on a state-by-state basis is dim. In Mississippi, for example, a ban won support of 86 percent of the voters in 2004.

Thus, looking long term, gay marriage advocates see nationwide victory coming in one of two ways — either congressional legislation or a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that would require all states to recognize same-sex marriages.

“The way you do that is creating a critical mass of states and a critical mass of public opinion — some combination that will encourage Congress and the Supreme Court,” Wolfson said. “By winning New York, we add tremendous energy to the national conversation that grows the majority.”

Shorter term, gay rights activists and their allies in Congress would like to repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal recognition to same-sex marriages. The act is being challenged in several court cases, and Obama ordered his administration in February to stop defending the law on the grounds it is unconstitutional.

Democrats in Congress have introduced a bill to repeal the law, while the Republican leadership in the House has pledged to defend it.

Obama, when elected, said he supported broadening rights for gay couples but opposed legalizing same-sex marriage. More recently, he has said his position is “evolving,” and he asked gay activists at a New York City fundraiser Thursday for patience.

NPR’s Neda Ulaby contributed to this report, which contains material from The Associated Press.

New York lawmakers narrowly voted to legalize same-sex marriage Friday, handing activists a breakthrough victory in the state where the gay rights movement was born.

New York will become the sixth state where gay couples can wed and the biggest by far.

“We are leaders and we join other proud states that recognize our families and the battle will now go on in other states,” said Sen. Thomas Duane, a Democrat.

Gay rights advocates are hoping the vote will galvanize the movement around the country and help it regain momentum after an almost identical bill was defeated here in 2009 and similar measures failed in 2010 in New Jersey and this year in Maryland and Rhode Island.

Though New York is a relative latecomer in allowing gay marriage, it is considered an important prize for advocates, given the state’s size and New York City’s international stature and its role as the birthplace of the gay rights movement, which is considered to have started with the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village in 1969.

The New York bill cleared the Republican-controlled state Senate on a 33-29 vote. The Democrat-led Assembly, which passed a different version last week, is expected to pass the new version with stronger religious exemptions and Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who campaigned on the issue last year, has promised to sign it. Same-sex couples can begin marrying 30 days after that.

The passage of New York’s legislation was made possible by two Republican senators who had been undecided.

Sen. Stephen Saland voted against a similar bill in 2009, helping kill the measure and dealing a blow to the national gay rights movement.

“While I understand that my vote will disappoint many, I also know my vote is a vote of conscience,” Saland said in a statement to The Associated Press before the vote. “I am doing the right thing in voting to support marriage equality.”

Gay couples in gallery wept during Saland’s speech.

Sen. Mark Grisanti, a GOP freshman from Buffalo, also said he would vote for the bill. Grisanti said he could not deny anyone what he called basic rights.

The effects of the law could be felt well beyond New York: Unlike Massachusetts, which pioneered gay marriage in 2004, New York has no residency requirement for obtaining a marriage license, meaning the state could become a magnet for gay couples across the country who want to have a wedding in Central Park, the Hamptons, the romantic Hudson Valley or that honeymoon hot spot of yore, Niagara Falls.

New York, the nation’s third most populous state, will join Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington, D.C., in allowing same-sex couples to wed.

For five months in 2008, gay marriage was legal in California, the biggest state in population, and 18,000 same-sex couples rushed to tie the knot there before voters overturned the state Supreme Court ruling that allowed the practice. The constitutionality of California’s ban is now before a federal appeals court.

While court challenges in New York are all but certain, the state — unlike California — makes it difficult for the voters to repeal laws at the ballot box. Changing the law would require a constitutional convention, a long, drawn-out process.

The sticking point over the past few days: Republican demands for stronger legal protections for religious groups that fear they will be hit with discrimination lawsuits if they refuse to allow their facilities to be used for gay weddings.

The climactic vote came after more than a week of stop-and-start negotiations, rumors, closed-door meetings and frustration on the part of advocates. Online discussions took on a nasty turn with insults and vulgarities peppering the screens of opponents and supporters alike and security was beefed up in the capitol to give senators easier passage to and from their conference room.

The night before, President Barack Obama encouraged lawmakers to support gay rights during a fundraiser with New York City’s gay community. The vote also is sure to charge up annual gay pride events this weekend, culminating with parades Sunday in New York City, San Francisco and other cities.

Despite New York City’s liberal Democratic politics and large and vocal gay community, previous efforts to legalize same-sex marriage failed over the past several years, in part because the rest of the state is more conservative than the city.

The bill’s success this time reflected the powerful support of Cuomo and perhaps a change in public attitudes. Opinion polls for the first time are showing majority support for same-sex marriage, and Congress recently repealed the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that barred gays from serving openly in the military.

In the week leading up to the vote in New York, some Republicans who opposed the bill in 2009 came forward to say they were supporting it for reasons of conscience and a duty to ensure civil rights.

Pressure to vote for gay marriage also came from celebrities, athletes and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the Republican-turned-independent who has long used his own fortune to help bankroll GOP campaigns and who personally lobbied some undecided lawmakers. Lady Gaga has been urging her 11 million Twitter followers to call New York senators in support of the bill.

While the support of the Assembly was never in doubt, it took days of furious deal-making to secure two Republican votes needed for passage in the closely divided Senate.

Representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, Orthodox rabbis and other conservative religious leaders fought the measure, and their GOP allies pressed hard for stronger legal protections for religious organizations.

Each side of the debate was funded by more than $1 million from national and state advocates who waged media blitzes and promised campaign cash for lawmakers who sided with them.

But GOP senators said it was Cuomo’s passionate appeals in the governor’s mansion on Monday night and in closed-door, individual meetings that were perhaps most persuasive.

The bill makes New York only the third state, after Vermont and New Hampshire, to legalize marriage through a legislative act and without being forced to do so by a court.

Champagne corks popped, rainbow flags flapped and crowds embraced and danced in the streets of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village as New York became the sixth and largest state in the U.S. to legalize same-sex marriage.

Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the bill shortly before midnight Friday, almost 42 years to the day that the modern-day gay rights movement was born amid violent encounters between police and gay activists at the Stonewall Inn.

Hundreds who gathered inside and outside the landmark bar erupted in celebration after the Republican-led state Senate cast the decisive vote.

Scott Redstone and his partner of 29 years, Steven Knittweis, hugged. And Redstone popped the question. “I said, `Will you marry me?’ And he said, `Of course!’”

Queens teacher Eugene Lovendusky, 26, who is gay, said he hopes to marry someday.

“I am spellbound. I’m so exhausted and so proud that the New York state Senate finally stood on the right side of history,” he said.

He then repeated a chant he had screamed during a protest at a fundraiser for President Barack Obama the previous night: “I am somebody. I deserve full equality.”

Alex Kelston, 26, who works in finance in Manhattan, said he hopped in a cab and rushed to the bar when he heard the news.

“This is the place where the movement started, and it’s a way to close the loop and celebrate the full equality of gay people in New York,” he said.

The so-called Stonewall riots of June 28, 1969, helped spark the equal rights movement for homosexuals. Gay activists had pinned their hopes on a positive vote this week in New York to help regain momentum in other states in light of recent failed attempts.

Amid Friday’s celebration, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan and bishops around the state released a statement condemning the passage of the law by the Legislature, saying they were “deeply disappointed and troubled.”

“Our society must regain what it appears to have lost — a true understanding of the meaning and the place of marriage, as revealed by God, grounded in nature, and respected by America’s foundational principles,” the statement from the Roman Catholic leader read.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who lobbied for the bill, was mid-sentence at a press conference on the city budget when City Council Speaker Christine Quinn interrupted him to announce it had passed.

The room exploded in cheers from other lawmakers and staff, as Quinn — the first gay person to hold the job — embraced her colleagues and smiled, tears welling in her eyes.

“It’s hard to describe the feeling of having the law of your state changed to say that you … are a full member of the state and that your family is as good as any other family,” she said.

In a way, the decision will change everything for her and her partner, Quinn said.

“Tomorrow, my family will gather for my niece’s college graduation party, and that’ll be a totally different day because we’ll get to talk about when our wedding will be and what it’ll look like, and what dress Jordan, our grand-niece, will wear as the flower girl. And that’s a moment I really thought would never come,” she said.

“I really can’t really describe what this feels like, but it is one of the best feelings I have ever had in my life,” she said.

Bloomberg called the vote “a historic triumph for equality and freedom.”

He said he would support the Republicans who voted for the measure Friday, and that he believed their actions were consistent with GOP ideals of liberty and freedom.

“The Republicans who stood up today for those principles I think will long be remembered for their courage, foresight and wisdom,” said the mayor, a Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent. “Ten, 20, 30 years from now, I believe they will look back on this vote as one of the finest and most proud moments in their life.”

Bloomberg, a billionaire who had lobbied in Albany for the measure along with Quinn, has the personal resources to help the Republicans withstand any backlash from their own party.

Celebrities also responded, with Lady Gaga posting on Twitter that she “can’t stop crying.” The pop star has been urging her 11 million followers to call New York senators in support of the bill.

“The revolution is ours to fight for love, justice+equality. Rejoice NY, and propose. We did it!!!” she also posted.

Talk show host Wendy Williams posted to her Twitter followers as well, saying: “Yay for Gay Marriage! NY, it’s about time… jersey we’re next! How you doin?”

Meanwhile, the city’s official tourism marking agency said the bill was “good news” for the $31 billion industry that it represents.

“Now, more gay couples — and their families and friends — will have an opportunity to celebrate their special day here,” said George Fertitta, the CEO of NYC Co.

In San Francisco, where a march kicked off the city’s pride weekend, participants said they were just hearing about what had happened across the country.

“What happened tonight in New York is great, is wonderful, so long as we pick up and keep moving beyond this because a lot more needs to get done,” said 26-year-old Kate Lubeck of San Jose.

Pete Weiss of Oakland said he has a lot of good friends in New York who he thinks will take advantage of the new law.

“You’d think California would have been first, but maybe this will spread and we’ll be next,” the 42-year-old said.

Legalization of gay marriage comes as New York City celebrates gay pride, culminating in a parade on Sunday.

Michael Musto, a columnist for the Village Voice, an alternative weekly, said the timing of the vote “could not be more fortuitous.”

“It’s definitely going to be the most exuberant gay pride parade in history,” he said.

———

Associated Press Writers Samantha Gross and Cristian Salazar contributed to this report.

Planned Parenthood of Indiana expects to start offering services to Medicaid patients again Saturday after a federal judge ruled the state is not allowed to cut off the organization’s public funding for general health services solely because it also provides abortions.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt’s ruling Friday blocked parts of a tough new abortion law and granted Planned Parenthood of Indiana’s request for an injunction on the state’s move to defund the organization. The decision sides with federal officials who said states cannot restrict Medicaid recipients’ freedom to choose their health care provider or disqualify Medicaid providers merely because they also offer abortions.

Indiana attorney general’s office spokesman Bryan Corbin said the state likely will appeal.

Planned Parenthood of Indiana has been without Medicaid funding since May 10, when Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels signed the law that cut off about $1.4 million and made Indiana the first state to deny the organization Medicaid funds for services such as breast exams and Pap tests.

Planned Parenthood, which serves about 9,300 Indiana clients on the state-federal health insurance plan for low-income and disabled people who receive Medicaid, was forced to stop seeing Medicaid patients this week after private donations that had paid those patients’ bills ran out.

Planned Parenthood officials said Friday night they anticipate being able to offer services to Medicaid patients again beginning Saturday, and will file for reimbursement as they did before the law took effect.

“This decision will have immediate, positive consequences for our patients and our organization, the state’s largest reproductive health care provider,” said Planned Parenthood of Indiana President Betty Cockrum.

The state had argued that federal law forbids Medicaid from covering abortions in most circumstances and that the program indirectly funds the procedures because Planned Parenthood’s financial statements show it commingles Medicaid funds with other revenues. The state has argued Medicaid might subsidize some of the overhead costs for space where abortions are performed.

A recent federal Medicaid bulletin said states may not exclude qualified health care providers merely because they also provide abortions. Pratt noted in her ruling that the federal government had threatened to withhold some or all of Indiana’s Medicaid funds because of the new law, which could total more than $5 billion annually and affect nearly 1 million residents.

“Thus, denying the injunction could pit the federal government against the State of Indiana in a high-stakes political impasse,” the judge wrote in her ruling. “And if dogma trumps pragmatism and neither side budges, Indiana’s most vulnerable citizens could end up paying the price as the collateral damage of a partisan battle.”

Daniels’ office said the governor did not have an immediate statement on ruling.

Marcus Barlow, a spokesman for the state’s Family and Social Services Administration, said that while the injunction is in effect, Planned Parenthood will be able to provide services and apply for Medicaid reimbursement as it did previously. He said the agency was unsure if it would push for an appeal of the decision or whether Planned Parenthood would continue to get funding during any appeal period.

“We’re still deciding on what our next step will be,” Barlow said.

Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Kate Shepherd said the organization believes it can continue to get funding under Pratt’s ruling even if the state files an appeal because the injunction would stand unless it were overturned by another judge.

Pratt’s ruling also addressed other provisions in Indiana’s law that require doctors to tell women seeking abortions that a fetus can feel pain at or before 20 weeks gestation and that “human physical life” begins at conception.

The judge found that because Planned Parenthood only provides first-trimester abortions, requiring its doctors to address fetal pain at or before 20 weeks gestation may be “false, misleading and irrelevant.” She issued a preliminary injunction on that part of the law as applied to Planned Parenthood only.

However, Pratt denied Planned Parenthood’s request to block the measure requiring doctors to tell women seeking abortions that “human physical life begins when a human ovum is fertilized by a human sperm.”

“The inclusion of the biology-based word `physical’ is significant, narrowing this statement to biological characteristics,” she wrote in her ruling. “When the statement is read as a whole, it does not require a physician to address whether the embryo or fetus is a `human life’ in the metaphysical sense.”

Indiana Right to Life President Mike Fichter called the judge’s overall decision troubling.

“We are deeply disappointed that today’s ruling brushes aside the will of the Indiana Legislature,” he said. “This ruling opens the pipeline for our tax dollars to flow back into the hands of Indiana’s largest abortion provider and denies women seeking abortions the right to know about an unborn child’s ability to feel pain.”