we begin this evening with two important political disputes. one of them a fascinating family feud. president obama out on the west coast fundraising. his team believes those efforts will be helped by the news he supports same-sex marriage. behind the scenes at the obama white house, a rift with the vice president for forcing the president to speed up that announcement. jessica yellin has just learned new details. the vice president just trying to make up by going into the oval office and saying, i m sorry. that s right, john. i have learned from senior administration official, the vice president, went in and apologized not for the position he took but for putting the president in a tough position. the president with a very understanding rely as i m told saying essentially that he knows the vice president is speaking from the heart. you can imagine that conversation. and in addition, the vice president s office has put out an official statement which fits inside a twitter r
got to look at this like green jobs, which is what the president wants to promote and expand. how are transit jobs green jobs? well, in this one, 60 people on the bus as opposed to 60 cars. far less of a toxic footprint is so to speak. we re laying off urban transit workers and cutting back on buses and trains. in 1994, up to 10% can be used for buses and trains but not operating services. that means you in fact can have buses and trains but nobody to drive them. if we were to take a new look at urban/suburban transit, this is the time to invest in trains, which we can make in detroit, by the way. to invest in new rail, which can be made in birmingham and pittsburgh and gary as opposed to making them in japan. this could be the heart of the
jobs, jobs, jobs, green jobs revolution. let me go back to what you were saying about the way transit funds are distributed. the way the law stands now, is that if your city population is less than 200,000, you can use federal dollars for operating costs. but if your population is bigger than 200,000, you can only use those federal funds for capital projects. in other words, building subways, expanding rail lines and things like that. you can t use it to pay transit workers. look at a city like chicago. let me explain the situation facing many large urban areas. the bus service is down 18%. rail operation is down 9%. more than 1,000 employees laid off. those numbers we re getting from the chicago tribune. in places where people most rely on transit and where the operation and the productivity of a city most relies on transit, you re getting squeezed because of state and local budgets. yeah.