Government skies: another sequester dupe
The subversion of the fair share philosophy extends to pain as well. As Levin expressed during Wednesday evening's program, 'we have an incompetent federal government and an imperial President that is out of control.' This administration is purposely crippling the FAA, causing the air traffic control situation to worsen, so that we feel the pain of selectively-imposed cuts to blame on the sequester. All of this would be avoidable, if the federal government made cuts accordingly. Instead, Obama chooses to wield cuts to things, like travel, that directly affect all Americans.
WSJ: As travellers nationwide are learning, the White House has decided to express its dislike of the sequester—otherwise known as modestly smaller government—by choosing to cut basic air traffic control services. We wrote about this human- rights violation on Tuesday in “Flight Delays as Political Strategy,” but the story gets worse the closer we look.
Start with the Federal Aviation Administration, better known as the Postal Service without the modern technology. Flyers directly fund two-thirds of the FAA’s budget through 17 airline taxes and fees—about 20% of the cost of a $300 domestic ticket, up from 7% in the 1970s. Yet now the White House wants to make this agency that can’t deliver what passengers are supposedly paying for even more dysfunctional.
Ponder this logic, if that’s the right word: The sequester cuts about $637 million from the FAA, which is less than 4% of its $15.9 billion 2012 budget, and it limits the agency to what it spent in 2010. The White House decided to translate this 4% cut that it has the legal discretion to avoid into a 10% cut for air traffic controllers. Though controllers will be furloughed for one of every 10 working days, four of every 10 flights won’t arrive on time.
The FAA projects the delays will rob one out of every three travellers of up to four hours of their lives waiting at the major hubs. Congress passed a law in 2009 that makes such delays illegal, at least if they are the responsibility of an airline. Under President Obama’s “passenger bill of rights,” the carriers are fined millions of dollars per plane that sits on the tarmac for more than three hours. But sauce for the goose is apparently an open bar for the FAA gander.
A 4% FAA spending cut somehow delays 40% of flights? Yet, there's room for exceptions...
TheWashingtonTimes: The chief of the FAA told Congress today that Washington-area airports will largely escape the effects of the air traffic controller furloughs — a blessing for lawmakers who fly out of the nation’s capitol.
A blessing? Sounds like a willful decision to me. However, the same is not afforded to the mere taxpaying public. Folks, you're smarter than this.
A rational government would use the sequester to improve on this sorry record. But instead this White House is responding to the FAA’s failures by making the flying experience for millions of Americans even more unfriendly. It is actively creating even more delays, cancellations and missed connections in order to incite a public outcry on behalf of bigger government.
All of this deserves to backfire, and it will if Republicans break from their circular immigration firing squads and explain what Mr. Obama is doing. For all of its rough edges, the sequester is proving to be educational. It is showing Americans how broken so much of government is, and it is revealing how our politicians refuse to distinguish between essential services and needless waste.
What it all boils down to is this President not getting the blank check that he desires, so he's going to make you feel the pain, hoping you relent and pressure your representatives to genuflect to his will. This is creeping tyranny, folks. Don't allow this President and his administration to hold you hostage. Do not submit.
