the results of sandy from the standpoint of job markets it employs a lot of people in clean up and reconstruction for some short relatively short period after the storm that s a little stimulus to the economy. does it make up for the damage of the storm? no. home improvement retailers are also seeing a surge in sales. home depot stores on long island in new york city and new jersey are slammed with customers and are now hiring 500 new employees to handle the load. this has been very devastating to areas around us the amount of homes that were impacted from it that there is a lot of restoration work that has to be done and done immediately. they re not waiting until the spring where we typically see hiring season. they are doing it now. these home depot jobs are temporary. workers get 120 day contracts but can lead to permanent positions gives 500 people a guaranteed paycheck until spring. shep? shepard: good news for the holidays. rick leventhal in staten
washington tonight. a top congressional democrat today said it is vital that lawmakers hammer out a deal and soon. shep, that s the great unknown in all of this fiscal cliff fighting. some argue the country won t be badly damaged if the country hits the fiscal cliff. republicans and democrats keep arguing into the new year. others are worried failure to strike a deal could send the nation back into a recession. i think people understand the failure to compromise and going over the cliff could really jeopardize this recovery. the good news today about more people back at work, the unemployment rate coming down, listen, that can be reversed if people lose confidence in our future. the number two senate ranked democrat mr. temperature bib argues next week will be critical in terms of president obama and speaker boehner finding a compromise. shep? shepard: democrats are still saying what they have said all along and what the president ran on this is about taxes. that is true and
endorsement of the current program. the school s attorney points out andrea she has warned i.d. badges in the past and believe concessions address her concerns. the only unique circumstance about this year is the presence of the rfid device. we have agreed to remove that we don t think it s legitimate for a student to say i m not going to wear a badge at all. we think that s a reasonable expectation. now, the next court hearing which is in about 10 days will decide if andrea can remain in school while her case proceeds. shepard: very interesting. lauren green, thank you. sure. shepard: more than seven decades have passed since pearl harbor stunned our nation. today some the survivors spoke at solemn ceremony where it happened. remembering the date which will live in infamy. next. with the spark cash card from capital one,
says the only obstacle is republicans refusing to ask the top 2% to pay more. this is a moment of truth. the clock is ticking. christmas is coming. the goose is getting fat. but in many homes across america, it s very very very lean time. after talking to reporters leader pelosi went to the white house to meet with the president over what s described as a number of issues. shepard: mike, the republicans have insisted from the very beginning that this goes well beyond the tax issue. shep, you are right, indeed speaker boehner says taxing high income people does not fix our massive fiscal mess. even if the president got the tax rate hike that he wanted, understand that we would continue to see trillion-dollar deficits for as far as as the eye can see. listen. washington has got a spending problem, not a revenue problem. and with the debt at $16 trillion and counting, boehner says the government
one woman say, quote: since president bill clinton signed doma into law, 30 states have followed suit by incorporating the definition of marriage into their constitutions. voters in these states will not accept an activist court redefining our most fundamental social institution. arguments on both cases are likely to be in march and rules likely in june. shep? shepard: we got another announcement from the supreme court today. it s going to take up another case that really could effect what we all pay for prescription drugs. right. this is about the battle between more expensive brand name drugs and cheaper generic drugs. some of the brand name companies pay the generic drug makers to keep cheaper drugs off store counters which some estimates say cost consumers $3.5 billion a year in higher drug costs. the supreme court will determine if this practice illegally reduce competition. shep? shepard: molly henneberg in washington tonight. thanks. we got some good news on the