of congress packed up and went on vacation. so now 4,000 faa workers are not being paid. tens of thousands of others involved in airport construction and maintenance are also off t job. and some $25 million are being lost every day in taxes because there is no one there to collect. that is more revenue lost in one hour than you will probably pay in your lifetime because congress members cannot reach an agreement agreement. weill tear into this developing dispute in just a moment, but here are some other stories we're watching tonight. the last pharaoh. for 30 years hosni mubarak was the lord of the nile. today he was wheeled into a cairo courtroom in a hospital bed and kept in a cage. egypt gets its show trial, but is the middle east a safer place? and the book of mormon. it's not just a broadway musical. for millions it's a road map to salvation. mitt romney follows it religiously. one ex-latter day saint says that should disqualify him from being president. then, we finally got a debt ceiling deal, but fareed zakaria says the price was too high. >> we highlighted to the world, to global markets, to ourselves is that washington doesn't work. >> better hold the champagne. a lot going on tonight. back to the rapidly growing crisis in funding for the faa to kick things off. it's normally a routine matter to extend this funding. this has happenedany times before. but this time it h turned political. kate bolduan joins us now from capitol hill with some of the reasons why a simple extension has turned into a war. kate, what's going on? >> reporter: and it's not a simple explanation. i will tell you that, tom. but we'll try to break it down for you. it comes down to a couple of things. one of the reasons behind this battle comes down to a long-fought battle over unions. democrats generally support union efforts. republicans generally do not support union efforts. in this faa bill that's been trying to be worked out through congress, house republicans want to reverse a new -- a recently -- a recent change to federal rules that would make it easier for unions to organize in rlines. republicans want to reverse that, saying that it's unfair. democrats are opposing, saying that this faa funding bill is not the place to be taking up this matter. the other part of this has to do with federal subsidies for air travel to rural states. this happens for many states but they're targeting three states, which include a very important state, nevada, which is the state of the senate majority leader, harry reid. republicans want to eliminate these federal -- these air subsidies for air travel to these states, to these certain airports because theyay it's wasteful spending. democrats are objecting. and republicans say they're just protecting their pet projects. so as you can see, the finger pointing is continuing. democrats are saying they should just do a clean extension until they get these issues hammered out. republicans are objecting. now, republicans say democrats in the senate should just approve what the house has sent over, which is eliminating those federal subsidies. democrats are objecting. and th's why we are where we are right now. >> kate, this looks so much like the debt fight we just had. >> reporter: absolutely. >> is there any sign ofhow this logjam might be broken? >> reporter: it's unclear right now. and at the moment, as i said, all throughout the debt debate until the final moment, it doesn't look like anyone is blinking quite yet. the house and senate, they could -- this showdown could be over pretty quickly if, and it's a big if, everyone agrees. house and senate rules allow for both chambers to pass a measure very quickly, pass legislation very quickly, and most members wouldn't even need to come back to washington to do it since most of them have already left. but that would require agreement. and clearly, that has not happened yet. >> so in effect, they'd have to phone in their votes. i wasn't even sure they could do such a thing. >> reporter: not so much phone in, but there's a thing called they go into these pro forma sessions which they're in session, they stay in session in order for the president to not really do recess appointments before we get any deeper into that, but they could go through a process of unanimous consent where they could kind of ask for unanimous consent. if no one objects, which they'd have to reach an agreement on that, then it could move forward. there are a couple other ways they could do it but that wok the quickest way for them to do p. >> oh, kate, i'm so glad you're there to figure this out because -- >> i hope i'm making any sense. >> yeah, you are. the process doesn't make much sense. kate, thanks so much for joining us. >> thanks, tom. >> no matter how congress decides to tackle this mess, they're going to have to do it. that according to secretary of transportation ray lahood, who lashed out at the vacationing lawmakers in a white house briefing earlier today. i spoke with secretary lahood just moments ago. >> mr. secretary, the president is demanding that congress come back and end this stalemate. did you think this would ever reach this point? >> well, the last few days that i've been talking to members of congress and leadership in congress i had a glimmer of hope that it could get resolved. but after the senate went home on their vacation yesterday, that's when i wondered if it could get done or not. >> when you saw the members of congress leaving town, what did you think? what did you feel? >> very disappointed. members of congress should not be on vacation when over 70,000 people are out of work, through no fault of their own, through the fact that congress can't work together through the fact that congress is not either willing or able to compromise on a bill that they were able to work out on 20 different occasions by passing a clean extension for the faa bill. i am very disappointed and i'm very upset that 70-plus thousand people are not going to get a paycheck. these are people that can little afford to go without a paycheck. these are people that have to make a car payment, a house payment. they're thinking about their kids going back to school and buying school supplies. they're thinking about a lot of things. and they'reery worried. congress should not be on vacation when the people are out of work. because they can fix it. congress can fix it very simply. come back to washington, leave your vacation, fix it for these 70-plus thousand people, and then you can have a vacation. >> talk to me about those 70,000 people. is there any threat to safety right now because those people are not on the job? >> flying is safe, tom. flying will never be compromised. safety will never be compromised. flying is very fe. we actually have people from the faa working on their own money because they're safety inspectors, because they're dedicated to their jobs, out inspecting airports, out inspecting planes, making sure that safe -- flying is the safest it can possibly be. >> hold on, mr. secretary. you're saying that we, the most powerful government in the world, in the richest country in the world, essentially have our own workers volunteering to do work because we can't figure out how to pay them? >> that's exactly right. we have very dedicated safety people at the faa. and they're operating on their own credit cards because they believe that safety is of utmost importance to the flying public. now, congress needs to recognize the dedication of these people. the dedication of them doing their job. and also the plight of hard-working construction workers who need a paycheck to make their house payment, to make their car payment, to take care of their children. come back and fix it. come back from your vacation. come back, congress. take care of it. then you can go on vacation. >> is there anything that your department or the administration itself should have overall done differently or could have done differently to head this off? >> tom, we've been working 24/7 on this. i've been meeting with leadership. i've been meeting with staff. the president is engaged in this. he's been on the phone to leadership. he mentioned it at the cabinet meeting today. he's very concerned about 70-plus thousand americans without jobs. and you've heard all the speeches around here. you've played a lot of them on cnn, where politicians are talking about jobs, creating jobs, how do we get people back to work. not by sending people away from construction sites. not by saying to faa employees you don't count, your job's not important. congress needs to not only talk the talk, they need to walk the walk. and the way to walk the walk is to walk back to -- get back to washington off their vacations, get this taken care of. >> two questions here. one, will these people be paid eventually? i mean, if they can hang on and this can be settled, do they get paid eventually or do they actually just lose income in this? >> the faa employees will -- we're going to work very hard with congress to make sure that they are paid. and that these safety officials who are using their own credit cards are reimbursed. we also believe that on these construction sites people are losing money that obviously they're not going to be paid until they go back to work rebuilding towers or taking towers down or working on these important projects. >> second question, you're clearly in the backwash of this huge debt ceiling debate and all the divisive feelings and all the anger about that. how much do you fear that that makes a deal on this relatively smaller issue really difficult to come by now? >> well, i think people can really segment these kinds of issues. and the reason i say, that tom is -- >> well, washington hasn't been so good at segmenting things lately, as you might have noticed. >> the truth is that congress on 20 other occasions during very spirited debates on other issues have been able to pass extensions of the faa bill. they've been doing it now for almost five years, during times when we've had huge debates about debt and deficit and other issues. so they've done it before. they've done it 20 other times. we want them to do it now. >> last question in all of this. when you became the transportation secretary, did you ever dream that this would be the kind of thing you would deal with? because this is such a basic operational thing. >> well, this is a horrible situation for faa employees. it's a horrible situation for construction workers. it's a horrible situation for americans. members of congress represent americans. this is not the way to treat fellow americans. this is not the way to treat fellow citizens. this can be solved. and it needs to be solved. for our fellow americans. for our friends and neighbors who are working on construction projects. and for faa employees who work very hard and are very professional. >> transportation secretary ray lahood. thanks for being here. >> thank you, sir. no matter how you feel about this issue politically, it's important to remember all over this country all we've been talking about for so long now is jobs and the need to have jobs. and right now tens of thousands of people who by all rights should be on the job are being forced to hit the unemployment lines. one of them is neil bolen. he's a 24-year veteran of the faa and father of two. he joins me from atlanta. glad to have you with me tonight, neil. this stalemate's more thain week old already. some people talk about it dragging on through september. nuts and bolts here. do you have enough money to get through that time? how are you going to make ends meet? >> really my credit. just like every other engineer's going to -- >> really? >> -- and construction workers and everybody else that's expecting to be at work. we're going to be running our credit, running ourselves into debt, selling assets. unlike our congressmen and senators, who are on vacation. nice congressional junket. i'm sitting here watching the grass grow. >> do you have the feeling this is true of many of your colleagues there? do you have the feeling a lot of people have some kind of reserves to draw on, or like a lot of people in this country sort of limited savings right now? >> limited savings. i've been at the agency for 24 years, and a nice nest egg, it's now disappearing. i was expecting to have that for retirement. it's disappointing that the congressmen are throwing me under the bus. me and all the other engineers and other faa employees and the 70,000 construction workers. i'd rather go on vacation. i called them, my congressmen and my senators, on thursday, friday, monday, and tuesday. monday and tuesday they went on vacation, the congressmen. where are you at? >> how do you feel when you're watching the debt ceiling debate go on? you know, there are little rumbles of this dispute underneath it, but it was always, you know, way back in the newspaper, sort of a buried story if at all. if you thinking that this was going to happen or did you think once they get the debt ceiling done they will know how important this is and they will tend to it? >> most of us believe that the debt ceiling, come the 2nd of august, these guys will be at work, they'll take vacation on the 5th, they'll argue for a couple, three days, and we'll be back at work, hopefully they'll pay us back. there's no guarantee of that. our secretary of transportation, ray lahood, is doing a great job of pushing our issue. but we're still not getting paid. and the silliness of it is the congressman and senators argued and gnashed their teeth and carried on about saving a few hundred million dollars, or hundred billion dollars, and then they lose 1.2 in the first month. >> sure. look, one of the things we've been hearing is that the secretary said that he didn't think that safety was being compromised here. and yet i can't help but wonder, if this drags on and on, it's, as they often say about airline problems, it's a series of small mistakes that add up into a big problem. and some things not being attended to by you being here and all these other people being here instead of on the job. >> well, there's a lot of that. a lot of the engineers' projects are falling behind. it's going to cost us a lot of money to get them restarted. there's a lot of new stuff that we're not getting built. but the safety of the existing national airspace is -- will remain. the maintenance workers are there. the air traffic controllers are working there. totally surprised that we've got safety inspectors working for free. i know they're incredibly dedicated. but i was told i can't volunteer to work. and yet we're out there saving the flying public, inspecting and being safe, while hoping that the congress will pay us back. >> tell me a little bit about your family, neil. how old are your children? that sort of thing. >> i've got a 16-year-old and a 15 -- 14-year-old. we've got football practice right now. school's coming up next week. >> medical expenses. all that kind of thing. >> all that's going to come up. touchdown club fees coming to us. we've got a lot of bills coming out. and unemployment doesn't cut it. >> let me ask you this, neil. aside from whatever political views you may have about this and who's to blame and who's not to blame, or anything like that, i'm just wondering, you know, as much as you have seen and i have seen for months and months and months here, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk from everybody in washington about how we need jobs, we need to protect jobs, i must say i'm flabbergasted that this kind of issue is on the table that is directly affecting jobs. how do you feel when you see this? >> i just look at politicians and think, don't you have a job? aren't you enjoying your vacation right now? while 74,000 of us are -- well, we're sitting in the heat, eating peanut butter and jelly. we're not going to the movies. we're not paying income taxes. we're buying 99-cent videos to keep the kids entertained. it's incredibly sad that the politicians can enjoy their vacation while 74,000 folks not at work. and i listen to cnn and listen to the leaders in congress, the senators and the congressmen that are still here, and they're like jobs, jobs, jobs. just rhetoric. >> let me ask you one last question here. if you had your best guess here, do you have any idea when this is going to be resolved? and how do you plan your life if you don't know? >> my guess on the resolution is sometime after september 7th, when they're supposed to come back from recess. which is, what, the 10th? give them three days to argue about it. and then where's my -- then i'll be able to start planning. >> well, sure. and that's going to represent to you a very significant loss of income. >> six weeks. >> i think a lot of families in this country would have a hard time making it. >> six weeks zero money income. the pittance that unemployment provides. i've got a friend who's trying to close a house. and they're at the unemployment office with our faa colleagues. she can't close her house on the 19th because she really can't go to the bank and say yeah, i've got a job. >> that's going to be a ripple effect through the whole economy. neil bolen, thanks so much for joining us. best of luck to you and your family. we may check in as this thing goes on. we'll see what happens. what about those congressmen and women who did not vote to fund the faa? one of them joins us in the studio. and he voted against the whole debt deal too. some questions and hopefully some answers when we come back. stay with us. ♪ know who makes the day sunny? my mom and sunny d! i love the taste. mom loves the vitamin c. and now it has 40% fewer calories than most regular soda brands. sunnyd! ♪ make today a sunny day! collect sunny d labels to get free books for your kids' classroom. go to sunnyd.com [ martin luther king jr. ] i still have a dream that one day on the red hills of georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. i have a dream today! 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