all? whitney houston was beautiful and talented with music in her soul and her blood line. sheep was the daughter of a gospel singer, cousin to dionne warwick, areit na franklin her godmother. she had a voice that could range five octaves cross over from gospel, r&b and rock. career blossomed in the '80s, skyrocketed in the '90s. multimillions of albums sold, leading roles in "the body guard" and multi millions in income. a tumultuous marriage and drug addiction. >> i'm my best friend or worst enemy. >> houston divorced and got clean, she said, and try a comeback releasing an album in 2009, going on tour. but time and trouble had taken an obvious toll ♪ whitney houston never got her comeback but as the news swept over last night, music industry giants called in to cement the legacy of that voice. >> this is going to be one of these times where you're going to remember where you were when you heard the news, it's that significant. >> she had that voice, that could just turn a story, a melody into just magical, magical notes. >> there will never be another voice like that. >> people should not die young. >> scheduled to attend a pregrammys party thrown by her menner to, clive davis, whitney houston was pronounced dead in her beverly hills hotel room. she was 48. a short life for a huge talent. ♪ didn't we almost have it all ♪ ♪ when love joining me now, cnn's deborah feyerick, outside the new hope baptist church in new jersey where whitney houston sang as a child. and nichelle turner deb, nothing like a hometown in morning and that sounds like where you are. >> reporter: absolutely. this is where whitney houston found her voice. she said she used to sing for god. a sense of deep grief amongst the parishioners, they're currently in a service. we spoke to the pastor a little while ago. take a listen. >> family shared whitney with the world but whitney was a mother, a daughter, a sister, and that's the focus that we want to keep in front of everyone today to continue to lift the family up and respect -- respect this time of grief. >> reporter: have you spoken with houston? >> yes she needs our prayers of support. >> reporter: no funeral arrangements determined but parishioners here are remembering her today and they are keeping clearly the entire houston family in their prayers, candy. >> thank you, deb feyerick from new jersey. out to california and l.a. talk to me about last night. i know you were at the hotel. >> reporter: yeah, i was at beverly hilton hotel where clive davis did continue on with his pregamy party. i have to tell you, candy, i've done so many red carpets and the mood is light,over yale, last night was odd. everyone was somber, no talk other than whitney houston on the red carpet. so many people just describing what she meant to them. one of the people that i spoke with, gladys knight, who is very close to dionne warwick, whitney houston's cousin, told me about many occasions where her and dionne warwick actually went to whitney and did sort of what she describes as interventions, telling her we know you're struggling but we need you, we need you to get through this. she said that she thought whitney heard her and thought she was trying to beat her demons, as she called them. >> thanks to nischelle turner. we do not yet know of the cause of death. we are awaiting that. for more on the story, we're going to turn to a senior writer for "people" magazine and hillary rosen, former chief executive officer of the recording industry association of america. jody, first to you, the natural thing to go to is thinking perhaps drugs had something to do with this but we know from officers on the scene who said there was no obvious sign of anything that might have caused death which to me says no drug paraphernalia, can you tell us anything about the last couple of years for whitney houston and whether she had, in fact, beat. her demons, or had she slipped back, do you think? >> whitney's had her ups and downs over the last several year. last may she checked into an outpatient treatment program, it was clearly something she was still struggling with. we saw pictures of her from a party on thursday night where it looked like she was having maybe too good of a time there, you know. we don't know if she was drinking or anything else. but you know, it seems like this is something that she continued to struggle with. >> and hillary, let me talk to you, because you bring both the hollywood and washington, you're our nexus today, because we all know whitney houston is a singer. but you also know her as someone who had some political causes. >> well, she did. she was one of the earliest activists anti-apartheid when mandela became president, she travelled there several times. she raised money for his foundation. she was involved in aids and pediatric aids and did benefits and the united negro college fund. i remember when nelson mandela came to washington for the state dinner president obama hosted for him, a grand affair and everyone was so excited that he was coming here, not only as a free man but president he requested whitney houston be his state dinner entertainment speaker, performer. and i was in the back of the room. she sang "the greatest love of all" which of course is that anthem to self-love, something that this young woman never really maybe grasped enough of. >> joey, just quickly, can you give me any kind of indication, i mean, can you compare this to other early losses in hollywood? i know larry king talked about others that have died so young, judy garland one of them. does this compare to michael jackson or a judy garland? >> absolutely. i mean, this is someone who was the biggest pop star when she was in her prime. she was unbelievable. and not only as a singer, but also you know in movies. she had hit movies and so you know, this is definitely one of those cases where you know she will be remembered for her music even if, you know, she did die from perhaps drugs. >> thank you so much for joining us this morning. hillary rosen, as always, thanks. please stay with cnn as we bring latest on breaking news as it happen. but after the break, white house chief of staff, jacob lew joins us talk about the firestorm over the white house's contraception policy.t. but you said it was greek. mmhmm. so is it greek or is it yoplait? exactly. okay... 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[ major nutrition ] ensure. nutrition in charge! ♪ ( whirring and crackling sounds ) man: assembly lines that fix themselves. the most innovative companies are doing things they never could before, by building on the cisco intelligent network. johning me here in washington, white house chief of staff, jacob lew. let us start out with what has royaled some in the catholic community. i know has really set the white house off in trying to get things situated. and that is this idea that catholic universities, catholic hospitals, should have to pay for contraception for its employees as part of the health care plan. the president comes back with a compromise, says well the health insurance companies will contact the women in these facilities and offer contraceptive services and the women can accept or not accept, and the health care -- the health care provider, aetna, whatever, will pay for it. is that where we are now? >> let me tell you where we are, can candy. the president has two principles very important. one all women have a right to all forms of health care, including contraception. secondly, in greatest tradition of the we have to respect the religious liberties of people with very different views. where i think where this policy has come out the initial announcement of a policy said it would take some time to work through details because of the concern that arose, we speeded up the process. on friday the president announced we think a very good resolution of the problem. it's gotten the support of a wide range of organizations, from catholic charities and the catholic health association, to planned parenthood. it respects both core principles and we think it's a good solution. >> it did not win the support of the u.s. conference of catholic bishops, which put out a statement friday and said, today's proposal, being the compromise proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions and threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions. you are an on arenbserve aren'ti know, anything made you think twice when it first ewent out. >> the solution puts no religious institution where it has to pay for or facilitate the provision of the benefits they find objectionable. is the issue should women have access to all form of preventive care, including contraception, we believe the answer is yes. >> can you say with a straight face that the insurance company's going to pick up the cost of this? >> somebody who has done budgets for a lot of years, when people say something doesn't cost money, i ask them how could that be, this is the exception to the rule. if you price two insurance plans one of them with contraception, the other without, the plan without contraception costs more than the one with it. so this will not cost the insurance companies money it will not put religious institutions in a place where they -- >> why is that? >> because the toasttalle cost care is higher than without contraception. >> why don't health insurance companies everywhere offer free contraceptive services? >> i think there won't be as much resist tooance to this fro insurance companies because of what i just said. look to examples in other states where it's worked, it's worked pretty much the way i've describe. there is an issue, the issue, do women have a right to contraception? we think the answer is yes. should religious institutions have sensibilities protected? the answer's yes. i'm a person of faith i care we're a country that respects faith. this is a challenge to reconcile two important principles and the president found a way to reconcile those. there are others who don't have the same objective and they have to speak for themselves. >> as far as the white house is concerned, is this done? >> we think we've put out a solid plan. >> no more compromising? >> we've put out a plan where the president intended to go. >> there is room or is not? >> this is our plan. >> let me move you on to the payroll tax cut. coming up to the end of the month. how certain are you that congress is going to pass a year-long extension of the payroll tax cuts and the other things that come with it the unemployment insurance? >> i think that it's clear that the economy's doing much better but it needs to have that additional push that comes from the payroll tax. we saw in december that it didn't work out so well to have a big, ugly fight over the payroll tax. we can avoid that. we have enough time for congress to get its work done. you know, we all care about having economic growth and having unemployment go down and employment go up. this payroll tax is important. this can be solved, congress needs to get its work done. >> will it be solved? >> i believe it should get involved. and i know there are people working hard even this weekend trying to solve it. >> let me show you a recent abc news poll about the president's handling of the federal budget deficit. and we will get to the budget, which we know is coming out tomorrow in a bit. i want to ask you in general, this poll shows that 38% of the americans approve the way the president's handling the deficit and 58% disapprove. why is that, do you think? >> we've come through one of the worst economic periods in modern history. when the president took office we were losing jobs at rate of 750,000 a month. we're now at a point we're gaining jobs at a rate of 250,000 a month. it's a swing of 1 million jobs. >> this is about the deficit specifically. >> in order to get to the point where we are, it has required us to do things that you wouldn't have done under other circumstance. the recovery act that did involve some spending, having federal programs that automatically kick in, revenues were down because of economic growth was lower. we -- we share the concerns of the american people we need to focus on the deficit. we'll talk about the president's budget which is $4 trillion of deficit reduction which asks everybody to do their fair share. we have a plan. but it's not surprising to me that the american people are looking at the deficit today and saying they'd like some action. we agree with them. >> let me, before we get to that and it will be after the break, let me ask you about egypt. newt gingrich said in a recent speech that there are americans held hostage in egypt. we do know americans are not being allowed to leave because of the egyptian military government said it may want to prosecute them. they compared it to the iranian hostage crisis. what are you doing? as far as the administration's concerned, is it all right for the egyptian government to be holding these americans inside the country? >> let's be clear. the situation is in egypt is quite serious. we have made clear, we're having conversations, general dempsey is there this weekend, it important to resolve this country to couldn't trip to compare this to the i rain yan hostage crisis does a disservice to americans in iran truly held hostage. this is a situation that can be resolved. there's time to resolve. our country's working very hard. >> are you close to getting them the of the country? >> i don't want to speak where efforts are going but all efforts are being made. >> more with jacob lew. later, rick santorum got a rousing reception at cpac but lost the straw poll vote to mitt romney. ...and a touch of sweetness. you'll be delighted to discover how good they taste. get your free sample of quaker oatmeal squares on facebook. get your free sample of quaker oatmeal squares imagine if you could always see life [music] in the best light. every time of day. outdoors, or in. transitions® lenses automatically filter just the right amount of light. so you see everything the way it is meant to be seen. maybe even a little better. experience life well lit, ask for transitions adaptive lenses. >> we are back with white house chief of staff jacob lew. i want to put up for our views are what we know about some of the things that are coming out of this president's budget plan tomorrow and that is $350 billion in short-term job spending, $476 billion in spend on infrastructure, $60 billion for schools and retaining teachers, first responders. we just got finished talking about the deficit and saw the low numbers of the approval numbers for the president on dealing with the federal deficit. this looks like another stimulus plan. >> this is a budget that takes both the short and the long-term view. i think that there's broad agreement from all of the commissions that were out doing work on the budget to most budget experts that, over the next period of time, we still need to pay attention to sustaining economic growth and creating jobs. that's why it's so important to pass the payroll tax before the end of february. it's why it's so important that we jump start our investment infrastructure. >> it takes a look at short and long term. long term $4 trillion of deficit reduction, adhering to the rules part of the budget agreement last year $1 trillion of savings in the annual appropriations. and has another $1 trillion of savings part of the august debt bill agreement. and there's $2 trillion of additional savings on top on of that. comes from very tough policies in almost every area, from mandatory programs to revenues. >> also comes from more spending, some of the funding? >> the savings come from the tough decisions, the savings come from having a policy that's based on the principles the president outlined in kansas and outlined in the state of the union. >> the toughest cut? >> a lot of tough cuts ranging from consolidating field offices and closing them down, places like the agriculture department to consolidating training programs. >> does that sound like a tough consolidating agriculture department? >> i think when you look at $1 trillion of savings over ten years, that's a lot of money. $1 trillion doesn't have to come -- we have to make sure as we make reductions we do it in a smart way. we cut some things and increase other things. for example, while cutting things that we can do without, we're increasing what we put in over the period of time into research and development so we can build the economy of the future and make sure we have an economy that can last. >> do you think it looks like a stimulus plan? >> i think it's -- >> it's the sort of thing you certainly had. >> most americans understand a crumbling infrastructure is not the way to build an economy that can last. we need to make sure we have a manufacturing base in the country. we need to make sure we have american workers with skills for the jobs. we need to make sure that we have an energy policy that will leave us in a place where we can generate our own energy and not dependent. need to have a policy true to american values and everyone needs to pay their fair share and have a fair shot. >> i want to read for viewers something harry reid, the democratic and majority lead, in the u.s. senate said, we do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year. it's done. we don't need to do it. talking about last year's two-year agreement and saying it's already done. this budget, i can assure you, you know, because you've been in this town for a long time, is going to be attacked as a political document. this is a budget that promises 2 million more jobs if it's passed. so that come september the president can go out there and say, if they'd only pass my budget we'd have 2 million more job but was the darn republicans are standing in my way when in fact the democratic leader in the senate says we don't need a budge. let's be clear. what senator reid is talking about is a narrow point. in order for the senate to do its only work on appropriation bills they need to pass a certain piece of legislation which sets a limit. they did that last year. that's what he's talking about. he's not saying that they shouldn't pass a budget. but we also need to be honest. you can't pass a budget in the senate of the united states without 60 votes and you can't get 60 votes without the bipartisan support. unless willing to work with democrats in the senate harry reid is not able to get a budget passed. i think he was reflecting the reality of that that could be a challenge. but let's be chelear, there's te and desire to work together. we put a lot of things out there, ranging from authority to reorganize the government so we have a government for the 21st century, not 19th and 20th century, home financing proposal so americans, republicans, democrats alike can refinance homes under water. there's a lot that we can and should do together on a bipartisan basis this year. >> last question, what's the economy going to look like in september? what will the unemployment rate be? >> we have been heartened by the economic news of last two, three months. >> falling? >> unemployment has been falling, job growth is strong. >> do you think it will continue to fall and be lower in september than now? >> i can't predict each month will be as good as last few but we