Just typical.
Congress each year shuts down during August for their vacation. They did it this year too.
It’s a good thing the deficit raise was signed into law before their holiday plans were interrupted. Judging from their flagrant self-interested behavior, if a deal wasn’t reached by vacation time, it is likely we would have gone to default with each side blaming the other, and the voters left holding the bag.
That raises another question. Was the deficit deal agreement a well-rehearsed drama with spit-second timing in an attempt to make Americans feel grateful to Congressional leaders that we averted disaster? It is certainly something many Americans can believe.
The trust Americans placed in Congress is gone, perhaps forever. They are just terrorists practicing extortion.
For those who still doubt Congress’s lack of caring about the American worker, consider the FAA shutdown. There is disagreement over a provision to make it easier for airport workers to unionize, and the amount the government subsidizes airlines to provide air service to smaller airports (costing about $200 million per year).
Rep. John Mica (R-FL) is chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and will not allow that union provision to pass from his committee. After all, big business must be protected, and the workers kept in their place.
It is a well-known fact there is a national Republican effort, both in Congress and in state capitals to undermine organized labor.
So the FAA was allowed to partially shut down. This means that 4,000 non-essential employees were furloughed without pay (air controllers are still on duty) until resolution is reached, as well as 70,000 construction workers working on FAA projects.
And Congress? They went on vacation for a month until after Labor Day. Could they have had a quick temporary resolution to continue paying those 4,000 FAA workers and the 70,000 construction workers until the dispute is resolved? Of course, since they have done it 20 times previously since the FAA’s long term funding expired in 2007. But consider the Republican advantage to denying it this time: There are 4,000 plus 70,000 more unemployed workers that Republicans can lie to pin on the Democrats.
Rep. Mica and his party don’t care that a month without pay will drive some of those 74,000 workers into bankruptcy or cause them to lose their homes.
Additionally, when the FAA funding expired on July 22, 2011, the FAA lost the authorization to collect taxes on airfare. This is income to the government amounting to nearly $200 million a week. The regional airport subsidy cost less than $4 million a week or about $200 million per year.
In the month Congress is on vacation, this move will deny badly needed federal income of around $800 million, and $800 million every month it is stalled.
If Republicans are so concerned with government debt, why are they denying an income of $200 million every week?
The answer is a carefully engineered political maneuver, already being blamed on Democrats for not giving in to Republican terrorist demands.
The answer is a Congress that uses its office mainly for political gain, lying to their constituents to believe they have their interests at heart.
But it won’t work. We now all know that politicians are heartless.
Update August 5: At the urgent request of President Obama as well as the interest of the 4,000 furloughed FAA employees and the 70,000 contractors working on FAA infrastructure projects, two Democratic Senators who were still present after all others had scattered to their home states for their August vacations, allowed the issue to pass the Senate.
Senator James Webb (D-VA) called for the bill and asked that it be passed. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), the presiding officer agreed, and the bill was passed under the “unanimous consent” (all voting members present, no objections) rule. President Obama signed the bill less than two hours later, and the FAA workers were free to return to their jobs.
Right-leaning newspaper accounts and Republicans focused in their reporting on the Democratic disagreement of rural airport airline subsidies as the key issue against which the Democrats were holding fast. But that issue was a minor point in the bill, since Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has the authority to continue subsidized service to the 13 rural communities and others as he deems necessary.
Those same newspaper accounts and Republicans avoided mentioning the real sticking point of the bill. The National Mediation Board last year approved a rule that allows airline and railroad employees to form a union by simple majority of those voting.
Republicans wanted to overturn that ruling in the FAA bill and make it harder for unions to be formed by including all workers who don’t vote as “No” votes, allowing for the mass temporary hiring of minimum time workers who would be counted as “No” votes. This is part of the well-known Republican effort to undermine organized labor and worker’s rights.
House Speaker John Boehner, (R-OH), indicated to Democrats that he’d be willing to accept their FAA extension bill without the cuts to rural airport subsidies in exchange for concessions on the labor issue, but Democrats refused the offer.
Since the bill now expires in mid-September and the FAA must be re-funded, kudos goes to the Democrats who understand the concept of supporting the American worker, even if it means a temporary retreat from yet another Republican manufactured crisis.
In the debt limit standoff, Democrats capitulated to most Republican demands to avoid a default. In the FAA confrontation, Republicans played the same brinkmanship. Democrats resisted, but gave in to the terrorist demands to avoid further hardship to American workers.
The two week delay cost the government $400 million in uncollected airline ticket taxes.
Post note: What we need in Congress are bills that address only one issue at a time, e.g. an FAA funding bill should only include that one issue. A different bill should be submitted for subsidizing rural airports, and a separate bill should be submitted for overturning the National Mediation Board ruling.
By allowing the insertion of extra provisions in a bill, Congress makes it difficult to discuss and pass the real issues through both houses (which is their goal). Bills can be held in committee until the political party of the chairman allows its release, and then becomes an all-or-nothing “Yea” or “No” vote choice.
The House alone can submit budgetary bills. The FAA funding and the rural airport were budgetary. The provision overturning the National Mediation Board ruling was not. That provision had no place in the budgetary bill but was deliberately put there to be swept along with the budget authorizations and become a sacrifice for the greater good, the funding of jobs for 74,000 Americans.
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