Dems accuse GOP of "hostage-taking" in FAA spat
UPDATED 4:49 p.m. ET
© 2011 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Construction equipment sits idle at the work site of a half-completed 236-foot FAA control tower at Oakland International Airport, July 26, 2011, in Oakland, Calif.
/ GettyDemocrats and the Obama administration on Wednesday stepped up pressure on House Speaker John Boehner to come to an agreement to fund the Federal Aviation Administration, accusing House Republicans of "government by hostage-taking."
Days after coming to a deal to avert the first ever U.S. default, lawmakers were unable to come to deal to temporarily fund the FAA. And that left tens of thousands of workers without a paycheck.
"Unfortunately, Republicans continue to practice the politics of confrontation and hostage-taking. And it is severely damaging our economy and the livelihoods of people across our nation," said Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the number two Democrat in the House of Representatives.
The partial shutdown of the FAA, which began on July 23, is now expected to last until at least early September, when the House of Representatives and the Senate return to Washington. And that could cost the government more than $1 billion in lost revenue from uncollected airline ticket taxes.
"This is a made-up crisis. This is government by hostage-taking ," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat.
President Obama called it a "lose-lose-lose situation" that could easily be solved with a procedural agreement.
Mr. Obama struck a softer tone than the others, emphasizing the lost revenue from uncollected fees.
"The airlines are still collecting these fees because it's priced into their tickets, but they're not turning them over to the federal government, and the federal government stands to lose $200 million a week. That would be a billion dollars at a time when we're worrying about how we pay for everything from education to Head Start. And we don't anticipate it's going to be easy to get that money back. Even though the airlines are collecting it, they're keeping it," Mr. Obama said.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the only Republican in President Obama's cabinet and a former House Republican, called on Congress to "take a little detour from their own vacation, come back to Washington, and pass" a simple extension to the existing budget authorization. Congress has done that simple extension, with no strings attached, 20 times in the past four years.
LaHood, who came to the regularly scheduled White House briefing with Mr. Obama's spokesman, stressed that the government can "continue to guarantee that safety will never be compromised."
"We have the safest aviation system in the world," LaHood said, "I can say without equivocation, safety will never be compromised, flying is safe, and passenger schedules should not be compromised by this issue."
There are about 4,000 agency employees out of work who will lose their paycheck and tens of thousands government contractors who will not be paid. Air traffic controllers are still on the payroll.
The partial shutdown is the result of a dispute over rules surrounding the ability of transportation workers to organize unions.
Schumer said the union issue is a separate matter, comparing it to a robber who holds a gun to the victim's head.
"It's as if someone puts a gun to your head and says, "Give me your money," and then you say, "Why won't you give them their money?" You leave out the whole context that there's being a gun held to your head, and that is not fair and that is not right," Schumer told reporters on Capitol Hill.
A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner blamed Senate Democrats.
"The only reason 80,000 jobs are at stake is that Senate Democratic Leaders chose to play politics rather than keep their word and pass the House bill. That's indefensible, and they should end this crisis immediately," said spokesman Michael Steel.
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Now we see how the Dems really spend OUR money. For their own PERSONAL benefit!
I am so glad to see some real responsibility in Congress.
However, I am appalled, to hear that Congress takes 23 weeks of "recess" every year. What are we doing? Paying outrageous salaries for going on VACATION??????
No.
That would make them Koch Brothers' best friend.
Which they actually are.
Elect individuals from each State to represent us in DC.
Seat them alphabetically in halls of Congress.
Don't allow them to pass any legislation on anything other than solutions to our current crises.
Once they have this mess cleared up; then they can start telling us what kind of lightbulbs etc. we can use.
Americans need to wake up to the fact that we will only get what WE THE PEOPLE want from DC by DEMANDING it from the politicians and refusing to take NO for an answer.
No one politician will have any more power or influence than another.
For awhile it may appear to be a three ring circus watching the politicians trying to get their acts together, but it couldn't be any worse than what we have now.
Republicans; and John Boehner in particular; are responsible for the near collapse of the US; holding Americans hostage to get what they want and trying to blackmail Democrats into voting "their way or the highway".
No Parties = No divisions.
Sensible people will present their individual proposals and the entire Congress will vote on it to benefit the people of the US instead of themselves.
The Tea Party and Republican are currently holding the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) hostage by not passing the FAA's budget. The Tea Party and Republican are willing to cost US taxpayers millions of dollars in tax revenue to get their way. They are willing to sacrifice peoples jobs and keep others from working to get their way. What do they want? They want to strip away the bargaining rights and union rights of the workers. Once the Tea Party and Republicans have effectively striped the workers' rights they will be ready to negotiate a FAA budget.
The Tea Party and Republican are willing to put public safety, jobs and tax income above everything else to get their way. They want to strip workers rights and are willing to put everyone in danger to get their way. The airlines are loving this because they don't have to pay the FAA taxes. However the airlines have not passed that tax savings onto the public. People are still paying the same price for their fights. The airlines are pocketing the millions of dollars in uncollected tax revenue. It's a good day to be a corporation. I would love to see who has been contributing to the members of congress that fund transportation in our nation.
The Tea Party and Republican ideology of "no new taxes" and "cut government spending" are only the first steps towards disabling the federal government's ability to govern effectively. It appears the Tea Party and Republican are attempting to sabotage the federal government at any cost; without any regard to the consequences it will bring to the American people or the United States of America.
The fact that this is costing the tax payers millions every day and thus contravenes their said wishes of reducing deficit, does not get in the way at all.
It is becoming clearer every day that these fascist supporters want the destruction of the American society.
I still want to know from the moocher class how much should be expected from a loyal American. I pay more than I made a few years ago and save the imperial government about 30k by sending my kids to private school. I would love for one of these leeches to inform me of how much more I owe.
welfare in this country. The middle-class gets no welfare. The lower class gets
some welfare, whatever the ultra-rich don't get in welfare. The welfare for the
ultra-rich is called something other than welfare, like "bush tax cuts" for example.
Welfare is welfare no matter what you call it and the middle-class is the only one
not getting any. Vote democrat or the middle-class will become peasants very soon.
How am I receiving welfare?
Even though I paid only 17% income tax, I paide more than 99% of the rest of Americans.
How am I receiving welfare?
Wrong.
Non partisan?
If you had a fact, you might be dangerous. So, I guess we should be glad you never use the whole story on anything.
--------------------------------------------
forsanity1,
you and your Democrat cohorts are welcome to read the bill for yourself.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:HR02553:@@@L&summ2=m&
dan1511 said, "... Government does not create wealth, it consumes wealth. What is wrong with keep more of your hard earned money?..."
---
Neither you nor the government "creates" anything, Dan. Instead, the network of society creates both civilization and wealth. All of us-- working together in our fullest potential-- ARE wealth, and it always has been this way.
Only the modern, industrial age concentrated production decisions in a few people-- but they no more concentrate industrial power in themselves than they concentrate the wisdom of many workers. Industry and wealth creation remains an inherently collective activity.
CIVICS 101, AGAIN
Contrary to the GOP-- which deceitfully bashes government as a "tyrant" (but spends our tax money lavishly for its friends, nonetheless)-- democratic government is an instrument of the American people to promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty. Government-by-democracy does so by taxes, in what should be a fair and completely open process.
In fact, taxation under the GOP is markedly unfair and regressive, and shows little concern for the American public interest. Under Bush and the aftermath of the GOP-sponsored recession, the wealth gap between the richest five percent and the rest of America widened dangerously.
While the GOP complains about taxes more than any party, the GOP expanded American national debt four times over (from deficit spending and obligating debt) under both Reagan and Bush. Most of the $14 trillion current national debt is legacy GOP deficits, with interest.
GOP PATRONAGE
Not surprisingly, there is an explanation for wild GOP deficit spending-- GOP patronage. For 150 years, the GOP has served the wealthy and represented them in congress. The GOP's sanctimonious whining about taxes is Exhibit A of its payoff to GOP donors. In return for huge, continuing donations from plutocrats like David Koch, the GOP struggles to write and rewrite public law to tax the wealthy less, and tax the rest of America more.
That patronage is especially obvious in Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to trim federal spending-- it "saves" some $4.3 trillion over a decade, primarily in cuts to social spending, but few cuts to the huge and bloated Pentagon budget. Worse, the Ryan plan gives almost all of the $4.3 trillion "saved" back in tax breaks to a relative few-- the wealthy and/or corporate America-- not to pay off the national debt. So much for the alleged GOP concern about deficits, and a national debt literally created by GOP deficit spending.
GOP-sponsored taxation is not only unfair and regressive, but a brazen public subsidy to a wealthy minority. Subsidizing the wealthy is as absurd as delivering coal to a coal mine, so to avoid public outcry, the GOP political payoff must be disguised in signature GOP deceit as a "tax break"-- as though the wealthy actually needed a "break" when they pull every tax dodge to make sure they pay a lower tax rate than their hired help.
And such tax breaks are costly-- the Bush tax break given those making more than $250,000 yearly adds $1 trillion per decade to the national debt. But what Americans are not told is they will end up paying for these GOP tax breaks-- they will pay not only their own taxes, but also will pay what the wealthy and industry do not.
Put another way, the great mass of American taxpayers (94.5 percent) actually pays the share of taxes not paid by GOP fatcats, placing the wealthy and corporate interests on a public subsidy-- as incredible as it may seem.
SPENDING OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY
Even GOP presidents-- especially GOP presidents-- like to spend taxpayer money.
To make that point even clearer, only Carter and Clinton worked to bring the national debt toward a more favorable relation to GDP. All the GOP presidents made it worse-- that is, they loved passing tax cuts for the wealthy few, passing that IOU to the national debt, and pushing most of us deeper into debt by borrowing our own money to fund it. In effect, ordinary Americans-- 95 percent-- pay more heavily so that a wealthy few slip by without paying their fair share.
And now, having pushed the country into great debt, and crashed the economy (once again), the GOP complains about social programs, and stimulus spending for economic recovery? This is deceitful rhetoric that even NY Times conservative columnist David Brooks labeled "insane". But there are terms far more apt-- the GOP is indicted by its own acts as maliciously and shamelessly unpatriotic.
Topics of Interest--
The National Debt Clock, and Savings Clocks-- http://zfacts.com/p/gross-national-debt.html
The National Debt, Who Created It, and Why-- http://zfacts.com/p/461.html
The Economy-- What's Wrong, How to Fix It-- http://zfacts.com/p/330.html
Social Security-- Is There A Crisis?-- http://zfacts.com/p/784.html
Voodoo Economics-- Who Still Believes It, Today?-- http://zfacts.com/p/voodoo.html