GOP To FAA: Drop Dead

This is the real story.

FAA braces for partial shutdown

By Pete Kasperowicz - 07/22/11 01:02 PM ET

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is expected to furlough about 4,000 of its employees on Saturday, as the Senate on Friday failed to approve a controversial House-passed extension of taxes that help fund the FAA.

Those taxes expire at midnight Friday, and FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt has already warned that without an extension, furloughs would start Saturday.

"We are going to be forced to furlough valuable FAA employees unless this situation is resolved quickly," Babbitt said earlier in the week. "These employees do everything from getting money out the door for airport construction projects to airport safety planning and NextGen research."

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has stressed that essential personnel related to airport and air safety would not be cut. "I want to reassure the flying public that, during this period, safety will not be compromised," he said.

This week, Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said the partial shutdown would halt all activities funded out of four accounts. This includes a $3.5 billion fund for infrastructure projects that he said supports 150,000 jobs per year.

Rockefeller also said the FAA estimates it could operate air traffic and support services through mid-August, but said operating this way would likely require the FAA to reduce services to smaller regions so it can focus on "primary traffic."

Despite LaHood's statement, Rockefeller added that operating this way can quickly have safety implications, and also slows technology upgrades.

The House on Wednesday approved an extension of FAA taxes until Sept. 16, but that extension included language that would prohibit federal subsidies from going to three small airports in Montana, Nevada and New Mexico because tickets there are subsidized at more than $1,000 per ticket.

The House extension includes language eliminating subsidies to 10 small airports because they are within 90 miles of a medium or large airport. However, this language is also in a Senate-passed bill.

As a result, House Republicans argued Wednesday that the failure of the Senate to take up the House bill by Friday would mean a partial FAA shutdown would be the fault of Democrats who are protesting the addition of language that affects just three small airports.

"It will be the responsibility of the other body who does not take this up and pass it," House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) said. "They will be furloughing people and putting people out of jobs."

Mica said Friday that it is "unbelievable" that the Senate left Washington without extending FAA taxes. "In light of the nation’s pending financial disaster and soaring deficits, they couldn't find a way to cut even a few million dollars by accepting this minor request to reduce outlandish subsidies," he said.

LINK

FAA braces for partial shutdown - The Hill's Floor Action

Thank you Mudwhistle. This is the article I first read. I don't agree with the practice of highjacking one initiative in order to force changing an existing process. If the subsidies of the three minor airports need review, do so but initiate a conversation outside of the business at hand.
 
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GOP To FAA: Drop Dead


The Republican House went on vacation without reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration, furloughing 4000 federal workers and stranding tens of thousands of workers who can’t continue already-started construction projects. They are holding reauthorization hostage to provisions that would weaken workers’ collective bargaining rights. This is going to cost $1.2 billion in lost passenger tax revenue. Even Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is blasting the GOP’s negligence.

“We’re getting ready to leave for a month. We should not shut down the FAA because of a rider put on the extension of the FAA legislation that has not been negotiated,” Hutchison said.


“It is not honorable for the House to send an extraneous amendment” on a funding extension, she said.

This is an outrage. Ironically, those same assholes who refuse to fund the FAA because they don't like the subsidies going to small commuter airlines, also rejected removal of subsidies for the Fat Cats private jet fleets.

They are a fucking joke, and this will NOT be lost on the public. (Read: Voters.)
An estimated 70,000 construction jobs are now lost due to teabagger radicals.
 
GOP To FAA: Drop Dead


The Republican House went on vacation without reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration, furloughing 4000 federal workers and stranding tens of thousands of workers who can’t continue already-started construction projects. They are holding reauthorization hostage to provisions that would weaken workers’ collective bargaining rights. This is going to cost $1.2 billion in lost passenger tax revenue. Even Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is blasting the GOP’s negligence.

“We’re getting ready to leave for a month. We should not shut down the FAA because of a rider put on the extension of the FAA legislation that has not been negotiated,” Hutchison said.


“It is not honorable for the House to send an extraneous amendment” on a funding extension, she said.

The big problem is the FAA is unionized and what is really the issue at hand is that union dues and taxes aren't being paid to the Democrats.

I heard about this yesterday. Seems the White House and the Senate dropped the ball on this.....and now they're trying to lay the blame on the GOP which only controls one third of one third of the government. It's like attempting to lay fault of everything that goes wrong on 11% of all of the people involved.....which is normal for Democrats.


I see math is not your strong suit.

The House controls the purse strings.
 
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GOP To FAA: Drop Dead

The Republican House went on vacation without reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration, furloughing 4000 federal workers and stranding tens of thousands of workers who can’t continue already-started construction projects. They are
holding reauthorization hostage to provisions that would weaken workers’ collective bargaining rights. This is going to cost $1.2 billion in lost passenger tax revenue. Even Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is blasting the GOP’s negligence.

“We’re getting ready to leave for a month. We should not shut down the FAA because of a rider put on the extension of the FAA legislation that has not been negotiated,” Hutchison said.


“It is not honorable for the House to send an extraneous amendment” on a funding extension, she said.

lol. Gas prices have more than doubled under the current administration when gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico was suspended, and no makeup such as drilling at ANWR was requested to fill the potential poorhouse prompter.

Republicans had no say in this administration's pox on the oil patches of America, plus the administration has done nothing to make energy affordable for the masses in whose behalf it says it makes superior decisions.

Let's see some superior decisions in favor of the little guy with regard to lower gasoline prices. It's back to four bucks in some areas of this nation.

Hmm, we have cars running at 40 miles a gallon & looking at 50. Gas prices are part of the free market economy, not the White House Executive branch. No drilling is needed, but if you want to drill, drill in your back yard!!

How about cash for clunkers and an incentive to buy new hybrids? Maybe you can tell me, how do I get the contaminated oil out of my gulf lobsters?


Keep that oil pumping. I took my old Cadillac DeVille out today, didn't feel like unhooking my boat from the pickup. I haven't driven it in months.

Only getting 9 miles to the gallon but what a ride.
 
Anybody notice how many aircraft have just been dropping out of the skies since the FAA was shut down?
It only takes one midair to ruin your entire day.

Pilots fly airplanes so, unless their union goes on strike, they'll continue to fly, but without Air Traffic Control (ATC), it will be like all the street lights and traffic signs in a large city evaporating overnight. It'll create huge delays, but not necessarily any accidents.

That's absurd - the ATC system is manned, the people layed off are desk jockeys.

Who have families, mortgages, car payments, asshole.
 
GOP To FAA: Drop Dead

The Republican House went on vacation without reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration, furloughing 4000 federal workers and stranding tens of thousands of workers who can’t continue already-started construction projects. They are
holding reauthorization hostage to provisions that would weaken workers’ collective bargaining rights. This is going to cost $1.2 billion in lost passenger tax revenue. Even Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is blasting the GOP’s negligence.

“We’re getting ready to leave for a month. We should not shut down the FAA because of a rider put on the extension of the FAA legislation that has not been negotiated,” Hutchison said.


“It is not honorable for the House to send an extraneous amendment” on a funding extension, she said.

lol. Gas prices have more than doubled under the current administration when gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico was suspended, and no makeup such as drilling at ANWR was requested to fill the potential poorhouse prompter.

Republicans had no say in this administration's pox on the oil patches of America, plus the administration has done nothing to make energy affordable for the masses in whose behalf it says it makes superior decisions.

Let's see some superior decisions in favor of the little guy with regard to lower gasoline prices. It's back to four bucks in some areas of this nation.

So what caused gas prices to skyrocket even higher in 2008? God you people are dumb. Know your facts or get lost.
 
It's all good. Lets stop maintaining and building things.

That should work out well in the long run.

For sure.
They don't want to leave their children and grandchildren in debt, but they are fine with leaving their children and grandchildren with collapsing bridges, unsafe food, and chemically tainted water.

LOL Pure BS

We have spent and spent and spent on infrastructure.

Where? When?

Docudharma:: Infrastructure Report Card -- and the Crumbling of America
 
This is $200B in tax not collected, which is now being returned to ticketholders after the media blew the whistle that the airlines were just keeping the windfall. Here's the list of projects by the way.

FAA Stop Work Orders that have been issued

Not the end of the world.

It most certainly is for the people whose livelihoods depend on jobs from those contracts. You can bet your sweet ass that if this were a private issue where for some obscure reason 70,000 people suddenly were out of work in Alabama and it could be blamed on Washington, all the righties saying "not the end of the world" would be loudly proclaiming that IT IS.

Time to just admit this was one giant fubar by those idiotic "new" House members who think they now rule the roost.
 
GOP To FAA: Drop Dead


The Republican House went on vacation without reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration, furloughing 4000 federal workers and stranding tens of thousands of workers who can’t continue already-started construction projects. They are holding reauthorization hostage to provisions that would weaken workers’ collective bargaining rights. This is going to cost $1.2 billion in lost passenger tax revenue. Even Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is blasting the GOP’s negligence.

“We’re getting ready to leave for a month. We should not shut down the FAA because of a rider put on the extension of the FAA legislation that has not been negotiated,” Hutchison said.


“It is not honorable for the House to send an extraneous amendment” on a funding extension, she said.

Its all aobut jobs jobs jobs....rememeber.
 
CLEAR CHANNEL Political News, Monday July 25, 2011
"You know what's holding up the FAA program?" Coburn asked on "Meet the Press." "It's essential air services where the American people are paying $1,000 a ticket in subsidy to people that are riding from airports with six passengers on a plane when they could drive an hour-and-a-half and get an airplane, and we wouldn't be paying the $1,000."

"So it's continued waste and duplication in the federal government, and [Republicans] won't approve the FAA because [Democrats] continue to want to subsidize irresponsible and wasteful behavior," he said.

House Republicans cut the $16.5 million in subsidies from a bill that would extend the FAA's operating authority. Senate Democrats refused to accept the cuts.

It is notable that Senator Tom Coburn is holding up the funding single handedly>
 
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They don't want to leave their children and grandchildren in debt, but they are fine with leaving their children and grandchildren with collapsing bridges, unsafe food, and chemically tainted water.

LOL Pure BS

We have spent and spent and spent on infrastructure.

Where? When?

Docudharma:: Infrastructure Report Card -- and the Crumbling of America

Revue the budget of this admin and the last. Add in state spending and the argument becomes extremely weak.

Are we getting our bang for the buck? That answer is a simple NO. Ill try to look up some figures for you when I get a chance. I can tell you a few stories of completely wasted man hours and dollars just from my state alone.
 
Mr. Boehner, you said you would focus on jobs, but this is ridiculous. I assumed you meant CREATING jobs, not layoffs. Seriously, is this the GOP jobs plan? Causing thousands to be laid off because the GOP wants to make it more difficult for airline workers to unionize? GOP, do you hate unions and worker's rights so much that you're willing to keep hard-working people from earning a paycheck?

FAA shutdown imperils billions in projects - The Washington Post

They don’t take tickets, hand peanuts to passengers or control airliners in flight, but the people furloughed a week ago by a funding stalemate in Congress are key players in the future of aviation.

They are thousands of construction workers in Warrenton, Richmond, Baltimore, New York, Memphis, Los Angeles and elsewhere, many of them expanding airports to handle anticipated increases in air travel. More significantly, hundreds of engineers working on the multibillion-dollar air-traffic-control system expected to revolutionize air travel have been sidelined.

Those engineers, many of them working out of the Federal Aviation Administration’s test center, are among the 4,000 FAA workers furloughed as nonessential when funding expired July 23.

“While there is no immediate impact to air-traffic-control operations, many of the FAA furloughs have occurred in Next Generation Air Transportation System and air-traffic-control program upgrades,” said Marion C. Blakey, a former FAA administrator who is now president of the Aerospace Industries Association. “Significant delays in these programs would undermine the economic and environmental benefits they are expected to provide.”

Airlines, which are jittery about the need to invest billions in the program commonly called NextGen, have been looking to Congress to pass a long-term authorization bill that would impose performance deadlines on the FAA to deliver the program.

Blakey worries that contractors working on other FAA construction programs would face a cash-flow crunch that would force them to lay off more workers.

The shutdown has affected projects of all sizes, including a $9,000 electrical project in Portland, Maine, the construction of new air-traffic facilities in multiple cities and the massive development of NextGen. The FAA says it has issued 219 stop-work orders for almost $11 billion in projects.
 
The left changed the rules for unionizing. Hows that working out for you?

First of all I was wrong about the cuts the GOP wanted to make, it was for 16.5 million and already $200 million has been lost. By the time Congress gets back to work the cost of this stand off will be $1.5 billion. That's the math.
Now the unionizing thing. The unions want airline and railroad employees to conform to the voting procedures that everyone else uses and a format approved last year by the National Mediation Board. They want all the votes that were cast to count but not to count votes that weren't cast (the GOP wants the votes not casted to count as a "no").
My opinion, well it depends on the interruption of democratic process. I haven't heard of a democratic process where someone who decides not to vote has their vote still count. But I also don't think anyone should be forced to join a union. So it's more or less an issue of Semitics.:eusa_eh:

First, The GOP want the rules left as they were. So democrats decided the issue of unionizing federals employees was more important then revenue.

Its that simple.

And in the meantime, because of some ideological anti-union bullshit, yet another crisis emerges that affects real people in real time right now. When will this current batch of Republicans start doing something for the people, for the country, instead of doing damage just for another opportunity to grandstand about how great they are now that they've stood their ground against Obama and the Democrats?

And by the way, folks, for the past month, literally NOTHING has been taken up in either chamber because of the debt crisis issue and all the phony horseshit accompanying that. That meant around 525 elected officials were standing around picking their noses. Once that issue was resolved (another joke), the House could have just passed the goddamned FAA extension without all the political posturing (again) and avoided this crisis.
 
Yup all those FAA people are BAAAAAD people. Just goes to show that the politicians dont care who they hurt as long as they show their power. This is all about worker vs anti worker.
 
GOP To FAA: Drop Dead


The Republican House went on vacation without reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration, furloughing 4000 federal workers and stranding tens of thousands of workers who can’t continue already-started construction projects. They are holding reauthorization hostage to provisions that would weaken workers’ collective bargaining rights. This is going to cost $1.2 billion in lost passenger tax revenue. Even Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is blasting the GOP’s negligence.

“We’re getting ready to leave for a month. We should not shut down the FAA because of a rider put on the extension of the FAA legislation that has not been negotiated,” Hutchison said.


“It is not honorable for the House to send an extraneous amendment” on a funding extension, she said.

The big problem is the FAA is unionized and what is really the issue at hand is that union dues and taxes aren't being paid to the Democrats.

I heard about this yesterday. Seems the White House and the Senate dropped the ball on this.....and now they're trying to lay the blame on the GOP which only controls one third of one third of the government. It's like attempting to lay fault of everything that goes wrong on 11% of all of the people involved.....which is normal for Democrats.

The Republicans were the ones who attached all these riders to an otherwise clean bill. Because of the urgency of the situation, to avoid precisely what happened, the FAA funding could have been reauthorized by the House (who controls the money) with one sheet of paper, as it has for decades.

Republicans have been the obstructionists for moving forward on anything for nearly four years.
 

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