but if you went to cory booker and said, mr.ayor, we know you have the union problems, but how would you like more federal money to hire more police officers? i think his answer would be yes. >> why didn't we just do that with gm? why didn't we do that with detroit and just say, you know what? you guys keep running your companies the way you're going to run your companies, and we're going to go ahead and flood you with money. because that's the same thing that's happening here. >> because public safety wasn't an issue there. they're categorically -- >> you can't always hide behind public safety. hold on a second! are you saying that police and firefighters and teachers shouldn't pay anything into their health benefits? >> no, no one's saying that. >> that is connected! so connected! >> these problems simultaneously. right now we have a down economy and the vice president's making a very simple point. he's saying, you know, there are a whole bunch of problems. if you want to fix the tax code, there's a whole lot of issues here. r

cory booker, the mayor of newark, new jersey, is cutting the city's budget for toilet paper.hich explains their new slogan, "newark, yes, it could smell any worse." [ laughter and applause ] why would you -- get this, you guys, a papa john's delivery guy called the cops on a man who was using medical marijuana. yeah. [ scattered boos ] pizza guy called the cops on a stoner. it's all part of papa john's new business plan, trying to put themselves out of business. [ laughter ] the guy's totally stoned, he's probably going to order like 4 or 5 pizzas. oh, wait a sec. [ light laughter ] i just saw this, 100 people in queens were arrested for identity theft after an investigation called, "operation swiper." incidentally, operation swiper is also the plan to get toilet paper back in newark. [ laughter ] i'm going to try to get it back. [ cheers and applause ] ♪ hey -- [ light laughter ] -- did you hear about this? -- just have to fist pump, right? >> steve: yeah, you know. >> jimmy: it happens. did you hear about this? a team of american scientists just traveled to russia to search

. >> i was on another national television show a couple of weeks ago, cory booker, a great guy, mayor of newark. he told the story of a school he had to visit and a principal was bemoaning the fact that they had two young teachers that had to be laid off, to protect teachers that had been there longer, but may not have been as good. our system rewards longevity, some longer-term serving teachers do a fantastic job, some don't. why wouldn't we be more focused on rewarding the best teachers based on learning gains of the students? >> do the teachers' unions get this, do you think, or is this still, again, a very old-fashioned sense of what a union should be doing? >> this is like one of those fights in the previous segment, i believe, that it's the transition from kind of the old '70s way of doing things to the 21st century way of doing things. some teacher unions get it, a lot don't. they're comfortable with doing what they've been set out to do. they're organized around economic benefits for the adults. al schanker, who was a great teacher union leader, said that when children start p