Republican presidential hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., speaks to employees during a plant tour at Sukup Manufacturing, Monday, Sept. 19, 2011, in Sheffield, Iowa.

(Credit: AP Photo)

WATERLOO, Iowa - Back in her hometown Monday, Republican presidential contender Michele Bachmann waxed nostalgic for an era when people were responsible for purchasing their own insurance, rather than being tethered to an employer for coverage.

"When I grew up here in Iowa, we owned our own health insurance. We didn't necessarily have it from our employer," she said.

Asked in a round-table with workers at OMJC Signal, a family-owned public-safety equipment manufacturer, how small businesses can afford health care for their employees, the Minnesota congresswoman said they shouldn't have to buy it.

President Obama gestures while speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House, Sept. 19, 2011.

(Credit: AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

In the year 2021, the White House budget office projects the deficit will total $565 billion, just 2.3 percent of total economy. That compares to 8.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product that this year's $1.3 trillion deficit amounts to.

(Credit: CBS/AP)

The Pentagon is quietly preparing for the official end of its policy banning openly gay men or women from serving.

The military has begun accepting applications from openly gay recruits, the Associated Press reports, but won't act on them until the "don't ask, don't tell" policy (DADT) is officially repealed. The policy officially ends one minute after midnight on Tuesday.

"No one should be left with the impression that we are unprepared. We are prepared for repeal," Pentagon press secretary George Little said Monday, the AP reported.

Meanwhile, Army leaders on Monday prepared a memo to their generals, the Washington Post reports, saying that "from this point forward, gay and lesbian Soldiers may serve in our Army with the dignity and respect they deserve."

Updated 8:05 p.m. ET

NEW YORK - Texas Gov. Rick Perry got an unexpected welcoming party when the GOP presidential candidate arrived in Harlem today: Longtime Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel.

The wily Democrat, who has represented the largely black and Latino neighborhood for 42 years in the House, startled reporters waiting for Perry when he turned up outside Papasito's Bar, where the governor was scheduled to meet local business readers. Wearing a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin, the congressman insisted that he "had no idea it was a Republican event."

Tongue remaining firmly in cheek, he continued that he felt he should be on hand because he understood that "one of the community leaders had invited a distinguished guest - to my city and specifically to my congressional district."

Rangel made plain, however, his view of that "distinguished guest."

"I think that the Republicans have a major problem with their candidates," he said of the GOP presidential field.

President Barack Obama makes a statement about his proposed federal defict reduction plan in the Rose Garden at the White House September 19, 2011 in Washington, DC.

(Credit: Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

After the marathon negotiation to raise the nation's legal borrowing limit resulted in a stop-gap creation of the so-called "Super Committee" of a dozen lawmakers to work out a compromise on deficit reduction, some pundits said the panel would have too much power.

President Obama on Monday might have just taken their power away.

As he unveiled his $3 trillion deficit reduction plan, he pledged to veto any legislation that takes the part of his plan changing Medicare that does not also include his proposal to raise taxes on the richest Americans.

Since half of the panel--the six Republicans--has pledged not to raise taxes on anyone under any circumstances, compromise is even more difficult today than it was at the panel's creation.

Texas Governor Rick Perry

(Credit: William Philpott)

NEW YORK - Rick Perry, on a two-day swing to raise campaign funds here, also appears to be hoping to rob the Democrats of votes.

The Republican presidential candidate is scheduled to meet Monday afternoon in Harlem with Hispanic leaders.

Some members of the Hispanic community have been disenchanted with President Obama because he has failed to deliver on his promise to enact a sweeping immigration reform bill.

(Credit: CBS/AP)

Democrats in Congress today were energized by President Obama's deficit reduction plan, which in part calls for higher taxes on the wealthy, and called on Congress to get to work on Mr. Obama's proposals right away.

Mr. Obama today put forward a plan to reduce the deficit by about $3 trillion over 10 years. The plan is intended to pay for the president's $447 billion jobs package, as well as to start paying down the nation's long-term deficits and debt. About $1.5 trillion of the budget savings in Mr. Obama's plan comes from raising taxes on the wealthy, closing tax loopholes and other tax changes.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., a vocal advocate for reducing income inequality, released a statement applauding President Obama's plan, which she said demands "that millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share."

"The battle lines are drawn in this crisis, and President Obama is taking a clear stand behind our nation's seniors and middle class Americans," Schakowsky said. "Congress must get behind the President's proposal and make sure we do not attempt to reduce the nation's deficit on the backs of the middle class and seniors."

Updated at 11:50 a.m. ET

Taking a defiant tone against Republicans unwilling to raise taxes in order to close the deficit, President Obama today unveiled a $3 trillion long-term deficit reduction plan that relies heavily on raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

"This is not class warfare -- it's math," Mr. Obama said from the White House Rose Garden, addressing GOP critiques of his plan head on.

"The money has to come from some place," he continued. "If we're not willing to ask those who've done extraordinarily well to help America close the deficit... the math says everybody else has to do a whole lot more, we've got to put the entire burden on the middle class and the poor."

The core of Mr. Obama's deficit reduction plan is $1.5 trillion in new taxes. About $800 billion comes from repealing the Bush-era tax rates for couples making more than $250,000. The plan also closes certain corporate tax loopholes and limits certain tax deductions.

(Credit: CBS)

Unemployment within the black community is bad enough that members of the Congressional Black Caucus would be protesting at the White House, if not for the fact that the first African-American president is in office, according to the CBC chairman.

"If (former President) Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House," Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., said in an interview with McClatchy newspapers.

Cleaver explained that the group is sensitive to the vitriolic rhetoric sometimes used against the president. "There is a less-volatile reaction in the CBC [to the president's policies] because nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president," he said.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.)

Even before President Obama unveiled his $3 trillion proposal to cut the deficit with $1.5 trillion in tax hikes for the rich, Republicans on Capitol Hill were declaring it dead, with a key lawmaker labelling it "class warfare."

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, who earlier this year had unveiled his own budget blueprint which famously proposed turning Medicare into a voucher system, said Mr. Obama is too focused on his own re-election.

"He's in a political class warfare mode and campaign mode. And that's not good for our economy," Ryan said on Fox News Sunday.