FAA On Travel Delays: Get Used To It 720
coondoggie writes "The term sequestration has certainly become a four-letter word for many across the country — and now you can count business and regular traveling public among those hating its impact. The Federal Aviation Administration today issued a blunt statement on the impact of sequestration on the nation's air traffic control system, which this week begain furloughing about 10% of air traffic controllers for two days or so per month. It reads as follows: 'As a result of employee furloughs due to sequestration, the FAA is implementing traffic management initiatives at airports and facilities around the country. Travelers can expect to see a wide range of delays that will change throughout the day depending on staffing and weather-related issues. ... Yesterday more than 1,200 delays in the system were attributable to staffing reductions resulting from the furlough.'"
U.S. Democrats and Republicans spent the day using the FAA's statement as political fodder rather than working on resolving sequestration.
Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, duh (Score:1, Insightful)
no, it really is due to drama queen-ism by the obama administration, a 2% haircut to budget is nothing
Sequestration is what the pubs want (Score:1, Insightful)
they have been trying to 'choke the beast' at any cost since Reagan.
they've turning into bunch of hateful nothing thinking loons.
Re:Well, duh (Score:1, Insightful)
Hmm. Amusingly, it appears the slashmods went full retard again: Suggesting that our elected officials are incompetent? Something about 80% of americans believe, is apparently "trolling". And firing them so that more competent people can be moved into those positions and actually fix the problem? Trolling.
Yeah. I'm really losing respect for this website... ever since it was bought out, it's become a craven hole of repugnant hipsters.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, duh (Score:3, Insightful)
The Republicans want cuts because otherwise we are in a death spiral. These aren't even real cuts. They are cuts in increases in spending. Democrats for their part both invented this (white house), agreed to it(congress), and denied it later so that brainwashed fucks like you would blame it all on Republicans. It is all theater, and the cuts only hurt because the gang that wants infinite spending is committed to making it so.
Some math ... (Score:3, Insightful)
If 10% of workers are furloughed for 2 days a month, that works out to a workforce reduction of about 1% (figure 20 working days a month, 2/20 * 0.10 = 0.01). Somehow I don't think that staffing at the FAA is that close to the limit; these delays are probably affected more by the elimination of overtime. A huge proportion of the hours worked at federal agencies are billed as overtime, either because of short staffing or really lenient scheduling policies that allow workers to trade shifts to maximize income.
I feel like there was probably a way to absorb the cuts with less impact, but when you have tens of thousands of voters a day at your mercy, why not try and get that budget plumped?
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
having said that, to put it simply, there is no excuse that for example kerry is giving 250 MILLION to eqypt, while we have issues at home. I dont know about the rest of you, but i for one cannot take the idea that americans have enough money to give to other countries, even when we cant open the white house the school kids, and we cant take care of our own people.
Why is the Federal Government paying for this? (Score:2, Insightful)
Shouldn't this just be added to your ticket price? I don't see why the Federal government should be paying anything to keep local airports open.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
see how easy it is when we blame X or Y instead of dealing with the problem known as Z??
Two separate fights (Score:4, Insightful)
There are two fights here: The R and D are arguing over who's going to be correct, and they're using the usual dirt to try and make their points. The actual departments are attempting to secure the funding they want/need for the programs they run. They can always do "more" with more money. It's true of government just as it is with a business. I can always provide more, and more complete, and more personal service if you pay me more money. If you pay me less, I'm going to short you on certain items. I'll try to make them peripheral, but I guarantee if you stop paying my invoices I'm going to cut the flow to the high profile services first. Simple business.
Re:Well, duh (Score:5, Insightful)
I know know about the rest of you guys, but to me, if i spend 10 bucks today and only 12 bucks tomorrow when i thought i was going to spend 15, thats still an increase, not a cut! sadly the government, both republican or demorcratic, thinks otherwise/
Sequestration my butt (Score:1, Insightful)
There's roughly 27% less departures than in 2011, but the budget is 40% larger. The 4% decrease in current dollars, or roughly a 36% increase in funding is causing delays from 2011 levels?
Yeah. Right. I have a bridge I'll sell you.
Re:Damned if they do, damned if they don't... (Score:5, Insightful)
Airport costs should be paid entirely out of ticket sales and associated fees for services, NOT tax money.
They're paid out of taxes on plane tickets.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy solution that will never be applied:
Dismantle the TSA. Use the money saved to cover the air traffic control system's costs, and apply the remainder to actually effective (and much more affordable while simultaneously being less humiliating) safety strategies like bomb-sniffer dogs, police on planes, armed pilots and locks on the cabin door.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference is that dems showed willingness to compromise- they admitted cuts as well as tax increases were neded, and were even willing to discuss cuts to social security. The republicans were not even willing to discuss more revenue. There is no equivalence here, one side is worse than the other.
Re:Sequestration is what the pubs want (Score:5, Insightful)
It's along those lines, yeah, though I think the strategy is morphing a bit.
That term, "starve the beast", is associated with Grover Norquist's idea that if Republicans managed to hold a hard line on taxes, by pushing for tax cuts and demanding party discipline over refusing any tax rises, it would starve the government of money, and it would be forced to shrink, even if people didn't want to vote for program cuts.
He underestimated the government's ability to borrow, however, so what actually happened for quite some time was that taxes were cut while spending simultaneously rose. That backfired by actually increasing the popularity of many government programs for two decades or so. People got the programs and low taxes, which is what everyone wants! A number of GOP types are still trying to make that strategy work; the manufactured fights over the debt ceiling, and the sequester here, are an attempt to "starve the beast".
However not all GOPers think that's a good strategy anymore. The new twist over the past few years is trying to reduce confidence in government by deliberately running it badly. The idea is that people will vote for a smaller government if they think government doesn't work well, and the best way to make them think government doesn't work well is to make it not work well.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
School districts do this to when levies don't pass. They immediately cut athletic programs and bus service.
Re:Sequestration is what the pubs want (Score:4, Insightful)
Right, because the idea that "there is not infinite money" makes me a hateful nothing thinking loons. I'm sure you will be +5 insightful for your brilliance in stating that there is, in fact, infinite money, and so even a 2% reduction in the rate of budget growth (it's not a cut when it's more money than last year) can only be an act of purest evil. Naturally.
And the fact that we're already in debt by over $148,000 per taxpayer? Duh, only a hateful nothing thinking loon would think it ever going to be a problem paying that back - why I'm sure everyone reading this post could donate $148,000 right now, and clear that right up!
And the fact that the unfunded entitlement liabilities exceed all the wealth in the entire US combined? Hey, no problem - we'll just seize all assets in America, make half the payments, then seize all the money again and pay people the rest! I can see no flaw in that plan.
[citation for number in sig]
Obama on Social Security (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference is that dems showed willingness to compromise- they admitted cuts as well as tax increases were neded, and were even willing to discuss cuts to social security. The republicans were not even willing to discuss more revenue. There is no equivalence here, one side is worse than the other.
To the best of my knowledge, that is true. The only tax the republicans were willing to raise was the payroll tax. If there were any other tax increase proposals that the republicans even considered negotiable I would definitely like to hear about them.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of it like healthy eating.
Sure, you can just cut out the sodas, the fast food, the candies.
But if you want to be really healthy, odds are you need to get some better food as well.
Or just realize that there's only so much you can cut, before it starts doing more harm, and that to pay for it, you have to increase revenue.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
both parties are at fault. It takes the entirety of congress to agree to fuck over the public, not just a single party.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not how the bill was written: agencies were given no discretion at all as to what and where they could cut.
The sequester is part of the Budget Control Act of 2011 [loc.gov], but it's not the first time sequestration was used. It was first used in 1985, with the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act.
The Congressional Research Service published a report on the sequester (PDF link [washingtonpost.com]) that provides a very good overview of what sequestration means:
Sequestration is as across-the-board as you can get. Every "program, project and activity" that's not exempt from the sequester gets cut by an equal percentage. That's the way the bill was written, and that's the bill that was passed by Congress and signed into law by the President.
Sequestration was meant to be as blunt and distasteful an alternative as possible, to give the supercommittee (remember them?) and Congress incentive to come up with a deal.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the pubs never intended to compromise or balance the budget. They just want to choke the beast no matter what the people actually want or need.
Actually, that's only what they want when the Democrats are in the White House. When it's the Republican's turn to drive, they go spend crazy.
It's a choice between tax-and-spend vs. tax-less-and-spend-more.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
I love how in your comment you specify that there are "specific programs" that could be cut without elaborating on what those actually are.
War spending. If you're going to force me to state the fucking obvious, there you go.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:1, Insightful)
sequestration is bunk (Score:4, Insightful)
sequestration didn't cut squat, it just cut the amount of increase in the budget. instead of a 6% increase in spending they only got a 4% increase.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:4, Insightful)
+1, Insightful
if you think the US Government works for the best interests of its citizens, you're hopelessly naive
Re:Which programs? (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, look at the airline security theater, don't you think that its in American Airlines, United and Delta's best interest to provide enough security to remove the threat of hijackings but not need a full cavity search? Instead, we have the FAA providing asinine rules on what you can and can't take on board a plane, rather than delegating those decisions to the airlines. Because of the FAA restrictions, flying is pretty terrible, because of that fewer people are flying, because fewer people are flying airlines have to cut costs which makes flying even worse, which makes fewer people fly and so on. If airlines (or airports) could be in charge of their own security, we'd be safer (we'd be looking at actual security and not security theater) and flying would be a much more pleasant experience.
We've got a terribly bloated military focused on offense rather than defense. Because of this, we end up creating more enemies which makes us be less safe in the long run. We're spending billions of dollars on unneeded overseas military bases. Sure, it might make sense to have a base or two in a foreign country, especially in some of the "hotter" regions of the world, but do we really need over 10 bases in Japan? Do we really need bases in Spain, Italy, the UK, Bulgaria, Bahrain, Singapore, the UAE, and many, many, other countries? No.
We've got a messed up welfare system, a screwed up financial system, a mess with farm subsidies and just about everything the government touches turns into a bureaucratic hellhole.
No, we're not going to get rid of the national debt by cutting PBS, we're not going to save much money by closing the Washington Monument for tours. But there is a ton of waste, but its in the stuff that the politicians don't want to touch (welfare, the military, farm subsidies, financial sector, etc.) because the public is either ignorant about it or enjoys getting free money at the expense of everyone else.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
It's nothing more than an enormous "fuck you" to the American public.
Yes it is, and one years in the making. The end game here is the end of Social Welfare. The GOP absolutely can not abide Social Welfare existing
Social Security? Unemployment? This things are seen as an evil cancer destroying our society. And the GOP in Congress (declared themselves exempt from the Sequestration) will not stop until these programs are abolished.
However, Corporate Welfare is good, and will be increased in upcoming years while today's 30 somethings are forced to house and feed their unemployable parents who have moved in with them in their studio apartments.
Re:Some math ... (Score:2, Insightful)
ALL of the workers are furloughed for 1 day of each pay period (10 workdays). That is a 10% reduction of the workforce. As to the ridiculous assertion that "A huge proportion of the hours worked at federal agencies are billed as overtime", please cite your sources. In one sentence, you say you don't think FAA staffing is that close to the limit but in the next you talk about short staffing. Doesn't make much sense.
Re:Two separate fights (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a part-time government employee in addition to a full-time private-sector one. Every time I'm at my government job I'm looking for a way to do more with less, because that's good stewardship of the money I'm being paid (and paying).
"Firefighters First" (Score:4, Insightful)
This is known as the old "Firefighters First" trick.
You could lay off your cousin who does nothing. Or you could close the fire department. Close the fire department and ask taxes to be raised.
Also known as the "Washington Monument" ploy.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:3, Insightful)
You have got to be kidding, or have your head all the way up your ass. The GOP is the party that refuses to compromise in this round of budget cuts.
I don't understand how republitards are complaining about government cutbacks. Numerous GOP politicians, all retards but still, have claimed the government doesn't create jobs anyway. They're the ones constantly complaining about bloat. Well dumbfucks, this is what things would look like in the world you want to have.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
That's one philosophy, but on the other hand I don't see how the needs of a modern 21st century superpower can be handled by a confederacy. Hell, a confederacy didn't work the other 2 times it was tried so I think it belongs in the shitpile of history.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
NO, spending went up. Just not by as much as the wanted.
Re:Sequestration is what the pubs want (Score:5, Insightful)
Well yes it does make you a hate non thinking loon. If the debt were so important, where the FUCK were you before we invaded Iraq? Or passed Medicare Schedule D, otherwise known as that massive giveaway to big pharma?
Why it is republicans are only concerned about the debt when democrats are in charge? When the GOP is in charge, you get massive bloat and spending.
Re:Easy Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Privatize everything. Its the only way to save air travel and bring airlines back to profitability.
Which is the same thing, in the private sector, as saying, "Outsource everything. The companies we send our jobs to will always have our best interests at heart."
Look, we've tried the whole government outsourcing thing. It doesn't work; the companies we outsource to just hire substandard workers and do less work while charging the government ever increasing fees to do what once was done efficiently and well. It's the reason we don't have private police or fire departments anymore. Sure, the TSA needs some serious reforms, but privatizing the whole thing will leave us with a bigger mess than we have now.
Re:Two separate fights (Score:4, Insightful)
Cut your janitorial staff (they're almost certainly contractors, anyway) and make people take out their own trash. Management can vacuum up. We're talking about a 1% budget cut, not 20%.
- Medicare
- Social Security
- Military
Problem is they're all sacred cows, so your only other choice is to raise revenue.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
both parties are at fault. It takes the entirety of congress to agree to fuck over the public, not just a single party.
Even so, the negotiation between D and R was rather one-sided. Democrats kept proposing spending cut/raising taxes compromises and Republicans laughed at them because "tax increase > 0". You cannot negotiate with someone who won't actually budge from their position for any reason.
I am not exactly a fan of Democrats, but the sequestration blame goes mostly to Republicans.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing is the Dems wanted to increase spending and raise taxes on "the rich" with no real cuts and no real decrease in spending. The point above is still valid. With government sucking up more and more money all the time there is absolutely no reason or way to justify giving them even more to piss away.
Cut spending. Real honest cuts. Only after cuts are passed and in effect should any increases in revenue be discussed.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
When's the last time the GOP cut spending? I'm guessing that would probably be during Ford's administration or earlier as I can't recall them ever doing so during my lifetime. And during every single time they've been in control spending has gone through the roof.
But, what's worse is that the spending hasn't been on anything which benefited the average citizen, it's mostly on things that benefit the rich. The actual working class makes less now than they did 30 years ago, even as the rich have gained even more.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:4, Insightful)
No they did not. They wanted tax increases on income.
That's an important difference because it protects the wealth of rich New England Democrats.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is that if you don't show to the tax payers what they're losing they might not object. The bottom line is that it's hard to really appreciate what years of underfunded infrastructure is until a bridge falls down. But, if people have to wait an additional 20 minutes for their plane to depart they'll notice that.
Taxes are not evil, what's evil is using tax breaks to break the American worker.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
Except what's actually happening here is that I need a baked potato and a side of beans to survive, I'm *planning* on eating five double cheeseburgers, instead . . . and I only *get* two double cheeseburgers. That doesn't mean I cut my calorie consumption by 60%.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should he spend less? How about YOU (in the form of government) spend less and stop treating him and other people like a fucking open-wallet, you fucking self-absorbed piece of shit?
People don't have a problem with contributing to society for the greater good. It's when they are being constantly and increasingly milked and seeing what's taken from them treated trivially and with absolutely no sense of responsibility. The government is like a grown child that should have moved out of the house, but is instead still mooching off mom and dad or other family members, and is totally irresponsible and ungrateful for the shit they're getting from the people they're mooching off of.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
It's amazing how ignorant people are of how much they actually pay in taxes.
State income tax. Federal income tax. Sales tax. Property tax (including automobiles, etc). Don't forget all the other assorted fees that you pay, not realizing "fee" is just a nice word for "tax".
Oh, and you might as well consider things like Social Security as a "tax", because it'll either be gone before you can claim it in forty years or if you have a decent career, it won't be afforded to you in forty years, I'm sure.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Which programs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Security was done by the private sector, it was shoddy as hell and 9/11 was a direct result.
Wrong.
9/11 had nothing to do with airport security. It's this sort of thinking that perpetuates the TSA gong show.
9/11 succeeded for two reasons -
1) Prior to 9/11, airline crews were trained to cooperate with hijackers - So the suicidal hijackers were able to easily take over the planes. Confiscating water bottles and groping grannies wouldn't have made a lick of difference here.
2) Intelligence failures. The intelligence services failed to cooperate and failed to detect and prevent the terrorist hijackings.
Neither had anything to do with nude-o-scopes and confiscating nail clippers.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
Dismantle the TSA.
I think you misspelled "DHS".
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it only takes one party in control of 41% of the Senate to grind government to a halt.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't give me any crap about how the republicans subsidize the rich and the democrats don't. If anything, I'd go so far as to say the democrats are the worst offenders of that as they enact corporate welfare more than anybody. They are the ones who believe that some corporations are too big to fail, that we need corn subsidies, that the steel industry needs protection from competition (tariffs), that green energy manufacturers need loan guarantees even if they have no indication of a sustainable business model (fisker, solyndra, many others.) They believe that government destroying used cars and then handing money to dealerships for new ones is a good idea. They also (most of them, including Obama) subscribe to the Keynesian model which posits that government spending on private sector works spurs economic growth.
Also, social programs don't do anybody any long term favors. The give a man a fish and teach him to fish analogy comes to mind.
I don't care whether you're a democrat or not, but to paint that party as innocent as you just did is just plain foolish.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
Bush did pass the drug benefit bill when he was running for re-election, which of course was also a big payout for the drug companies.
Not merely a payout, it was a fucking money avalanche because it forbade the government from using it's purchasing power to negotiate prices downward. So not only are more drugs being sold (because previously some people couldn't afford them had to go without) but the prices have every reason to go up.
Its like the one factor that could have resulted in cost-savings was explicitly blocked by the bill. When something like that happens it confirms all the worst stereotypes about the republican party. It would be kinda like finding out Obama really was born in Kenya.
Re:Two separate fights (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't know about Medicare, but that's not true of Social Security - because the taxes earmarked for SS, rather than being accumulated in piggy bank until needed, have been "invested" in special Treasury bonds. Unless Congress pays off those bonds, using funds from the discretionary side of the ledger, then SS has no cash to pay out.
So yes, SS contributes directly to both the deficit and the debt. It's only "self funding" in theory.
And as the boomers continue to retire (and living much longer than predicted when they paid into the pool), it's only going to get worse.
Re:Sequestration is a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)