Posted on 07/23/2011 1:23:23 PM PDT by Libloather
Impasse over subsidies results in FAA shutdown
By Star-Advertiser Staff and News Services
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jul 23, 2011
WASHINGTON » Efforts to avert a shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration failed Friday amid a disagreement over a $16.5 million cut in subsidies to 13 rural communities, ensuring that nearly 4,000 people, including five in Hawaii, will be temporarily out of work and federal airline ticket taxes will be suspended.
Lawmakers were unable to resolve a partisan dispute over an extension of the agency's operating authority, which expired at midnight Friday EDT. The agency has been without long-term funding legislation since 2007 and has operated on a series of short-term extensions.
The subsidy cut was included by Republicans in a House bill extending operating authority for the FAA, which has a $16 billion budget. Senate Democrats refused to accept the House bill with the cuts, and Republican senators refused to accept a Democratic bill without it. Lawmakers then adjourned for the weekend.
(Excerpt) Read more at staradvertiser.com ...
I work in a call center for an airline and have to work tonight on my day off due to this. All hands on deck due to two concerns.
One is that the computers will cooperate with the new tax calculation.
The other bigger concern is that we’ll get a million calls asking for a refund of those taxes. You can get a refund but you have to collect it from the IRS not the airline.
Fortunately the refund fact doesn’t seem to have gone viral online or on CNN.
Please don’t call your airline for a tax refund and I May get out of work early tonight.
So the FAA has 4,000 permanent full time workers who are non essential.
Keep planes from crashing into each other. Unless you are one of those guys who want to make the whole airway a CTAF (that would suck in IFR conditions). Now, I know that Air Traffic Controllers aren't affected by this but I just offer that as an example of when I do support a government program.
Nope, Fox News just reported that Airlines including American and US Air are increasing their rates so that the ticket prices remain the same and they can pocket the difference.
Maybe. But they don’t do it very well. Very expensive, and not very well done. Like many government programs, it needs some serious fixing.
I’m not sure what the best thing to do would be, but I don’t think it’s just leaving things as they are.
See number 12, above.
Cut all funding for it and turn over it's functions to a civilian group analogous to the IEEE.
As #12 above notes, they may do something worthwhile but do it the worst way possible.
FAA Shutdown Because Dems Want to Protect Pork
Posted By Capitol Confidential On August 3, 2011 @ 8:29 am
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has basically been shut down [1] thanks to the Senate Democrats addition to pork. 4,000 FAA employees have been furloughed until further notice. 70,000 construction workers must now sit on their hands as all airport construction has halted. And the federal government is loosing $200million a week in airline ticket taxes because they are not authorized to legally collect the tax.
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