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With the debt-ceiling bill likely headed for the White House this afternoon, Congress has one important piece of pressing, unfinished business it should address before leaving town: the Republicans’ FAA fiasco. Unfortunately, the resolution will likely be at least a month away.
Congress appears ready to head off on summer vacation without resolving a funding stalemate that has resulted in the furlough of 4,000 Federal Aviation Administration employees and layoffs for about 70,000 airport construction workers.
The workers — including about 1,000 FAA employees in the Washington region — faced the prospect of going without a paycheck until after Labor Day. The agency also would lose an estimated $1.2 billion in ticket-tax revenue.
Like so many GOP-picked fights, this one is wildly unnecessary. In the House version of the FAA measure, Republicans included a measure to make it much more difficult for aviation and rail workers to unionize. The larger dynamic can get a little complicated, but the bottom line is this: airline industry workers are supposed to be able to hold a vote on whether to unionize. In these elections, the majority wins. Under the Republican proposal, workers who don’t participate in the vote would automatically be counted as “no” votes. The point, of course, would be to make it extremely difficult for workers to organize.
In the Senate version, the FAA is funded without the union-busting measure. The White House strongly backs the Senate’s approach.
In what passes as for a GOP “compromise,” House Republicans said they’d pass another temporary extension — the 21st in a row — while the chambers keep fighting, but only if Senate Democrats agree to eliminate funding for 13 rural airports, specifically targeting airports in the home states of Harry Reid (the Senate Majority Leader), Jay Rockefeller (chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee), and Max Baucus (chairman of the Senate Finance Committee that has jurisdiction over the aviation tax portions of the bill).
Democrats said this is ridiculous, so House Republicans allowed the partial FAA shutdown to begin two weeks ago. Then, after yesterday’s debt-ceiling vote, they started leaving town for an August recess.
The Senate can either pass the House’s temporary extension, and screw over rural airports in key states, or they can leave town, too, and revisit the issue in September.
And while we wait, this Republican game has forced thousands of industry workers to lose their paychecks, and it costing the government more than $200 million a week in ticket-tax revenue, and delaying $2.5 billion in airport infrastructure improvement projects.
All because some GOP officials want to make it harder for airline workers to form a union.
As the NYT editorial board recently explained, the FAA fiasco “should remind everyone of the costs of the Republicans’ obstructionism and their slash-and-burn budget games.”
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c u n d gulag on August 02, 2011 9:34 AM:
Maybe the Republicans should be forced to fly into every airport they want to close.
Let's see how THAT works out. :-)
martin on August 02, 2011 9:39 AM:
As the NYT editorial board recently explained, the FAA fiasco “should remind everyone of the costs of the Republicans’ obstructionism and their slash-and-burn budget games.”
Or it should remind everyone of the effectiveness of their slash-and-burn budget games. So far, they are winning.
SadOldVet on August 02, 2011 9:39 AM:
My observation is that the corporately owned media never present this as being about anything other than a squabble of the defunding of the rural airports?
When the publik hears that it is only about shutting down some small rural airports, why shouldn't they support the repukes?
chi res on August 02, 2011 9:41 AM:
The Obama administration should lay off all 1,000 FAA employees in Dayton, Ohio, and Orlando and Daytona Beach, Florida.
sjw on August 02, 2011 9:41 AM:
And again the Obama administration deals with Republican bullying in a forceful way ... Tell me you're not embarrassed by this!
Obama is a 98-pound weakling.
mellowjohn on August 02, 2011 9:47 AM:
and, of course, the airlines (most of them, anyway) are pocketing the $$$ that would be collected in taxes.
artsmith on August 02, 2011 9:50 AM:
Perhaps the Senate should add an amendment declaring that every person who does not vote in the presidential election should be counted as a Democratic vote.
stormskies on August 02, 2011 9:58 AM:
Right and about 45% of our country will continue to vote for these Repiglicans. So where does the real problem lie: in the Repiglican politicians themselves, or in fact American population who continues to vote for them ?
Perspecticus on August 02, 2011 10:03 AM:
In that other than Benen, the only other folks to even observe the shutdown lo those weeks ago were Hot Air and a handful of other rightbloggers who celebrated by announcing that "FAA shuts down and nobody notices" (http://hotair.com/archives/2011/07/23/faa-hits-partial-shutdown-nobody-notices/). Factually this was accurate as everybody knows that government employees and contractors are not people, so their jobs are not worth considering.
hank on August 02, 2011 10:07 AM:
> slash-and-burn budget games.
Does the FAA draft still forbid the FAA from regulating transport of lithium batteries?
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/153181-lithium-battery-air-transport-a-point-of-contention-in-faa-debate
Josef K on August 02, 2011 10:09 AM:
From sjw @9:41 AM:
Obama is a 98-pound weakling.
More like he's keeping to long-term habits and trying to be 'statemenlike', negotiating his way through this.
Its quite frustrating to watch and endure.
cmdicely on August 02, 2011 10:19 AM:
As the NYT editorial board recently explained, the FAA fiasco “should remind everyone of the costs of the Republicans’ obstructionism and their slash-and-burn budget games.”
Or it should remind everyone of the effectiveness of their slash-and-burn budget games. So far, they are winning.
Same thing, really. It should remind people that elections have consequences, and if you don't like the consequences when Republicans get in office, you shouldn't vote for Republicans and, beyond that, you should maybe expend extra effort (whether in the form of volunteer time, money, or talking to other voters person-to-person) to ensure that Republicans fail to get elected to office.
Analytical Liberal on August 02, 2011 10:21 AM:
NPR did a brief story this morning on this issue, and there was absolutely no mention of the Rethugs union-busting poison pill. Rather, the whole Congressional debate, according to NPR, was over the funding for rural airports. We have NO allies... NONE... in anything approaching mainstream media. Right-wing memes and frames are the only game in any town in America. Makes me sick!!
cmdicely on August 02, 2011 10:27 AM:
Obama is a 98-pound weakling.
The US has a Constitutional system that is weighted in favor of the legislative over the executive power, and designed for the specific purpose of creating multiple points at which any action can be blocked, as on obstacle to tyranny. In practice, this means if a faction controls a majority of one house of Congress and is willing to let the country fall to pieces to get their way, they can simply block action on any issue and hold the country hostage.
Its not a sign of personal weakness in a President of the opposite party that they are unable to force action through this, as the only way to do so by force is via an extraconstitutional coup, which isn't strength its tyranny.
The remedy (within the Constitutional order of government) for an borderline insane majority in either house of Congress is grassroots political activism that makes those in that majority question the viability of their action and, if it fails to achieve change that way, makes it impossible for that majority to remain a majority past the next election.
If the threat of the legislative majority is so grave that extraconstitutional action is warranted, that's not the special purview of the President, its the responsibility of the people collectively to act in their own self-defense.
toowearyforoutrage on August 02, 2011 10:31 AM:
Not that cutting jobs is a good idea in this economy, but did the Dems not offer to "sweeten the deal, by cutting an equal number of rural airports in Republican districts?
stormskies on August 02, 2011 10:34 AM:
Analytical Liberal is absolutely right of course. Our corporate media is just that: a corporate media. And they hire and buy the souls of those who work on their behalf. As employee's of these corporations these bought souls simply do the bidding of the corporations that hire them. And then they are rewarded by becoming members of the 'media elite'. From there they become members of the 'beltway media' who serve as the 'gatekeeper's' of the 'news, and how that 'news' is then 'presented' to the typically stupid american population. They serve as megaphones for the Repiglican = corporate party because they are in fact employee's of the corporations that own our media.
So we end up with all the corporate cum sluts like Brian Williams who is 'rewarded' with 15 millions dollars a year to read for 20 minutes every day what is prepared for him to read. He get's driven to work in limousines, lives in a gated community with it's own security services, and has his corporate asshole wiped by his servants. Meanwhile the teachers of our kids makes about $50,000 a year and is now made into the scapegoats for our economic problems. Cum slut Williams then mouths the 'shared sacrifice' bullshit on his nightly propaganda show while doing nothing at all to be part of that 'shared sacrifice'. Imagine this: if cum slut Williams just sacrificed one week of his paydays that would in fact pay for five teachers full time salaries.
But of course he won't .. and the corporate media's propaganda will continue ....
jpeckjr on August 02, 2011 10:43 AM:
As I understand it, air traffic controllers are considered "essential" for public health and safety, so they are still on the job.
I say we lay them off too. Do it today, so it will disrupt the travel plans of members of Congress.
Don't close the airports, though. Let the private air travel sector decide for themselves if flying in unregulated free market air space is worth the risk.
We could save a lot of money by ending the govt role in air travel safety, you know.
Captcha: loaccese month. Yeah, call it "low access to air space month"
Joe Friday on August 02, 2011 10:49 AM:
So why isn't Obama forcing the Congress back into special session to deal with this issue of public safety ?
Remind me again that this crowd in the White House is really from Chicago.
GC on August 02, 2011 10:56 AM:
Ever notice that the GOP doesn't manage to pass anything, just shoot stuff down? That's all you can expect. That doesn't build up, it tears down. Should be quite apparent by now.
Krowe on August 02, 2011 12:10 PM:
@Chi res
As someone who flies between Dayton and Orlando for business, I'd remind you that it's not just congresscritters who get hurt by such retaliation. And I'm sure the same is true for patrons of those rural airports in Reid et. al.'s states.
The old African proverb sounds specially applicable to American politics:
When the elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.
Zach W. on August 02, 2011 12:28 PM:
If anyone claims the Republicans care about jobs, debt, and the economy as a whole they must do so a level of cognitive dissonance that would be akin to believing gravity doesn't exist. Their entire agenda is union-busting, deregulation/ending government, and tax cuts, period.
4,000 workers furloughed? 70,000 workers laid off? Who cares, we must fight unions! The layoffs and furloughs caused by their intransigence represent about a quarter's worth of job growth at the current rate the economy is going. Its OK though, they are all fat-cat guvment employees. Oh, and those people never spent any money in their local economies either, so this is just an isolated incident... Nothing to see here. And besides, what good could 1.2 billion in tax revenue do for the country?
This is a perfect illustration of GOP priorities. It is also a perfect illustration about what corporations would do if their taxes were lowered. They would keep the money! DUH! In a lot of ways, its their fiduciary responsibility to keep it; you know, maximize profits for shareholders...