Taking On Gingrich's View of Mass Transit Fortunately for New York's mass-transit riders, they enjoy a status so lofty that the threatened loss of $1 billion a year in federal transportation aid should unsettle them no more than would a sudden shortage of beluga caviar. Surely they could make do with sevruga. More in a moment on the money peril, which is expected to be part of a House vote this week. First, let's look at the overprivileged New Yorkers who take trains and buses to work every day, or as Newt Gingrich calls them, the "elites." This is a doozy that you may have missed. Mr. Gingrich, campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination, held forth the other week on housing policy. In the process, he felt a need to sneer at "elites" in Manhattan - defined by him as people who live in high-rise buildings and "ride the subway." "Elites" is a word that many Republicans toss out casually as a synonym for "liberal." It was used without a smidgen of irony by Mr. Gingrich, who apparently doesn't qualify for the elites with 2010 federal tax returns showing a tidy income of $3.1 million and with a $500,000 line of credit at Tiffany & Company. But perhaps he was on to something. Any poor slob can hop into a taxi. We who ride the subway - especially those of us who are pampered with reduced-fare MetroCards - know what it is like to belong to an elite class. You can just feel a sense of entitlement surging through the packed trains during rush hour. So it wouldn't be a surprise if the powers in Washington are now thinking, "There the elites go again, whining about losing some money for their glamorous mass-transit network." At issue is a Republican-drafted transportation bill that the full House is about to consider. One component would eliminate a guaranteed source of funds for public transit through a federal tax on gasoline. This money, part of the Highway Trust Fund, has been around for three decades under a law signed in 1983 by that wild-eyed socialist, Ronald Reagan. All these years, four of every five dollars in the fund have been spent on highways, tunnels and bridges. The other dollar goes to subways, buses, trolleys and commuter lines. Of late, the formula has produced $8 billion a year for mass transit, with more than $1 billion of the total, about 13 percent, channeled to New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Even then, New York has arguably been shortchanged. That 13 percent? Figures compiled by the American Public Transportation Association show that New Yorkers account for 67 percent of the country's daily subway riders, 45 percent of its suburban commuters and 24 percent of its bus passengers. Now the House bill would spend all the trust fund money on roads, bridges and the like. Federal aid for mass transit wouldn't necessarily disappear. A one-time payment of $40 billion would cover five years. But then future money would have to come out of the general fund, left to the mercy of the political winds. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, those winds are hardly favorable to New York or any other city that believes in public transportation. That's why the House bill was denounced last week by New York elected officials, who were joined by the transportation authority's new chairman, Joseph J. Lhota. "The proposal would substitute a reliable funding source with an undetermined, and wholly unreliable, commitment," said Mr. Lhota, who, by the way, used to be a deputy mayor under another wild-eyed socialist, Rudolph W. Giuliani. There is a lot of uncertainty, including the fate of the House bill. And even if it is passed, it may be irreconcilable with a sharply different Senate version. One thing is certain, though: a transportation network with dependable revenue is essential - for those who ride it, for businesses that want their workers to arrive on time, and even for those who are wedded to their cars. Think of the parking lots that the roads would become if many more people felt they'd be better off driving than taking a train or a bus. Besides, when the trains run smoothly, we elites who ride them can focus on more important matters, like what we might purchase with the huge lines of credit at Tiffany's that we all undoubtedly have.