Friday, August 5, 2011

FAA Band-Aid Solution: Political Circus to Continue in Sept

I previously wrote about the FAA shutdown here, and today Congress came out with a resolution to extend the funding - at least until September.

Oh wonderful. 74,000 families get to sit on pins and needles for six weeks, wondering if Congress will get its act together and save these women and men and children from ending up either on the rolls of welfare or on the streets.

This is why a country should never even consider cutting spending in social programs during recessions. We have conveniently forgotten the necessity of saving up for rainy days, and are getting wiped out by the flood that could have easily been prevented. Middle class families like those dependent on FAA funding are barely scraping by, and then the government (!!) tells them to use their personal credit cards so the country can continue flying safely.

I wonder how many of those inspectors had to tell their bosses, "Sorry, but mine are already maxed out." ??

The "safe" recommendation by financial planners is that a family should have six-months worth of income in a savings account. The current U.S. savings rate is negative 2%. How can Congress expect these families to protect themselves against bankruptcy with less than 2 months notice that they may be losing their jobs?

Both the Democrats and the Republicans should lose their shirts for this. The pay for the FAA employees for as long as this ridiculousness continued ought to come out of every Congressperson's paycheck, and half of their pay should go to the employees of the FAA who are affected by this until those families have a six-month income buffer or until a long-term solution can be reached.

Affect their paychecks, or vote them out of office. It's become quite clear that Congress is not worthy of leading our nation.

The only person who looks good in this: Ray Lahood, Secretary of Transportation. I encourage everyone who reads this to send letters to the President and members of Congress calling for some sort of formal recognition for this man. I saw him constantly on the TV over the last couple of days, busting his butt in getting public opinion on his side to get Congress to act to save his people. We need to reward this man, and we need to reward this kind of behaviour. This is the leadership we need to get us out of the recession.

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