Metro Jacksonville

It's ok for Corporations to unionize, as in ALEC:
http://alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed

But for workers to assert their rights in a coordinated effort is taboo for Republicans.

Long live Corporatism at the expense of THE PEOPLE!!

Quote


PolitiJax: John Mica offers no clue for when FAA workers could return


Posted: July 28, 2011 - 12:00am  |  Updated: July 28, 2011 - 5:56am


By Matt Dixon



Employees with the Federal Aviation Administration may be out of work for a while.

U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., said this week he had no idea when an FAA reauthorization bill would pass. Mica, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is locked in a feud with the Senate over a provision that would make it easier for airport workers to unionize.

Mica has said he won't allow that provision to pass, while Senate Democrats are refusing to allow anything to pass without that provision.

The FAA shut down non-essential operations Friday because no reauthorization bill was approved. Flights have not been affected, but construction at airports has stopped.

Airlines have not had to collect FAA-mandated taxes on airfares since Friday, but the airlines raised their rates that day, so consumers have not seen a decrease in airfare.



Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2011-07-28/story/politijax-john-mica-offers-no-clue-when-faa-workers-could-return#ixzz1TOpNMg4V

Yep, its all the Repub's fault!   Metro Jax Forum, the hangout for latee sipping liberals whose sole purpose in life is perusing the headlines for something negative to say about Republicans.  When one is found, they rush back here and post it so that they get immediate "atta boys" from other lattee sipping liberals of similar mindset. Yea, all Republicans are evil and hate the little guys!  Feel better?  Get a life.

Quote from: RMHoward on July 28, 2011, 08:01:15 AM
Yep, its all the Repub's fault!   Metro Jax Forum, the hangout for latee sipping liberals whose sole purpose in life is perusing the headlines for something negative to say about Republicans.  When one is found, they rush back here and post it so that they get immediate "atta boys" from other lattee sipping liberals of similar mindset. Yea, all Republicans are evil and hate the little guys!  Feel better?  Get a life.

It's very important to know WHY the little guys are being squeezed: it's the hugely disproporationate power of corporatism and the ultra-wealthy enabled by the Republican electorate.

We need to protect our children from further abuse by the ever greedy power elite.

No such thing as "equal opportunity and prosperity for all", when the power elite steals it from everyone else just like they do in third world countries!!

Wake up "The People"!

The Treasury is looking into ways to recoup the $200 million a week in taxes that the federal government isn’t collecting while the FAA shutdown continues, and 70,000 construction workers and 4,000 federal employees are now sitting idle, with no paychecks!!!!

Thank you, Republican Job Cutters!  ::)

QuoteLaHood Speaks to Reporters on FAA Shutdown at White House

By Andrea Bernstein|July 28, 2011 â€" 2:42 pm



White House Briefing Room (Photo: Andrea Bernstein)

How urgent does US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood think the FAA shutdown is?  Urgent enough that he joined White House Press Secretary Jay Carney for the daily press briefing of White House reporters.

Among the newsiest parts of the briefing: (Full transcript at end of post)  LaHood urged  congress to pass a “clean extension,” of the FAA reauthorization bill.  While LaHood, an able politician himself and a former GOP congressman, didn’t single out any political parties in his remarks, anyone who’s been following this story knows that the Republican-led congress specifically did not pass a clean extension, but instead added a provision that would eliminate subsidies for certain lightly used airports.

LaHood also said he’d spoken to airlines (though he did not name them) to rebuke them for raising fares to make up for the tax that is not being collected while the FAA is shutdown, that the Treasury is looking into ways to recoup the $200 million a week in taxes that the federal government isn’t collecting while the shutdown continues, and that 70,000 construction workers and 4,000 federal employees are now sitting idle, with no paychecks.

http://transportationnation.org/2011/07/28/transcript-lahood-speaks-to-reporters-at-white-house/

It looks like the real fight is over subsidies to certain airports.  Here is a complete article from thehill.com:

Partial FAA shutdown looms over debate
By Pete Kasperowicz and Keith Laing - 07/20/11 08:00 PM ET
 
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) might be forced to shut down some of its operations if Congress does not pass a funding extension by Friday.

The Republican-controlled House passed such an extension Wednesday, but Democrats who control the Senate are opposed to certain provisions of the bill, putting Senate passage in jeopardy.


The House bill passed on a 243-177 vote in which 13 Democrats voted with Republicans.

The GOP bill would extend airport and airway taxes that help fund the FAA until Sept. 16. Without the extension, these taxes will expire on Friday and the FAA might curtail certain operations to meet the shortfall.

The last FAA authorization bill was approved in 2004 and expired in 2007. Since then, the FAA has been operating on short-term extensions. If this extension passes, it will be the 21st since 2007.

Senate Democrats and the White House have called for a “clean extension” bill for FAA funding, saying that differences between the parties on how to reform the FAA should be worked out in broader legislation.

However, in the House bill, Republicans included language that would prohibit federal subsidies for passenger airfare at 10 small airports because they are within 90 miles of medium-size or large airports. The bill would also ban federal funding to three airports where passenger fares receive more than $1,000 per ticket in federal subsidies.

The 10 small airports that would lose their subsidies because they are too close to medium or large airports are in Athens, Ga.; Morgantown, W.Va.; Jamestown, N.Y.; Bradford, Pa.; Hagerstown, Md.; Jonesboro, Ark.; Johnstown, Pa.; Franklin/Oil City, Pa.; Lancaster, Pa.; and Jackson, Tenn.

The three airports that would have subsidies cut off because the per-ticket subsidy exceeds $1,000 are in Ely, Nev., Alamogordo/Holloman AFB, N.M.; and Glendive, Mont. Subsidies there are $3,720, $1,563 and $1,358, respectively.

The subsidies have been granted in the past because certain remote airports, although deemed essential to the rural areas they serve, do not have enough traffic to make them self-sufficient. The GOP bill would still grant the subsidies to small airports located farther than 90 miles from larger airports.

Alaska, due to its size and its many remote areas, is exempt from having its airport subsidies cut.

Senate Democrats object to the added provisions in the House bill and have demanded that the House send the Senate a “clean” extension.

On Wednesday, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) said Republicans would not change their bill.

House Republicans have pointed out that the 10 small airports affected by the 90-mile rule, which is subject to waivers, are also in the Senate FAA reauthorization bill, so that the only provision Senate Democrats are objecting to is the one regarding the three per-ticket subsidy airports.

Mica said Senate Democrats would be blamed for an FAA shutdown if the Senate does not accept the bill, and openly talked about the chances of a partial shutdown.

“Certainly I don’t want the FAA to close down at midnight on Friday night,” Mica said. “And that won’t happen. Essential services will continue; air traffic controllers will be at their job. There may be some people furloughed.

“But it is not my fault,” he continued. “It will be the responsibility of the other body who does not take this up and pass it. They will be furloughing people and putting people out of jobs.”

The White House said Wednesday that the provisions added to the bill by the GOP should wait for a long-term bill.

“The administration strongly supports passage of a clean extension of Federal Aviation Administration programs, as the Congress has done 20 times without controversy, in order to allow bipartisan, bicameral negotiations to continue on a full reauthorization,” the White House said in a statement of policy.

Negotiations between the House and Senate over a larger bill to fund the FAA for multiple years, which FAA officials say they desperately need, broke down after several months.

The chambers’ competing versions of the bill are far apart. The Senate measure would provide $34.5 billion over two years, while the House would provide $59 billion over four years. Additionally, the House measure includes provisions that would make it harder for airline and railroad employees to unionize, drawing a veto threat from President Obama.

The administration on Wednesday named several programs at FAA that would be jeopardized if the extension is not passed by Friday.

“Without timely passage of a clean extension, all of FAA’s capital accounts (Grants-in-Aid for Airports, Facilities and Equipment, and Research, Engineering, and Development) would be shut down, and approximately 4,000 employees would be furloughed. FAA’s ability to award new grants, including for infrastructure upgrades at airports across the country, as well as to move forward with vital testing and implementation of the Next Generation air traffic control system, would come to a stop,” the White House said.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said lawmakers should save their disagreements for another day.

“Congress needs to stop playing games, work out its differences and pass a clean FAA bill immediately. There is no excuse for not getting this done,” LaHood said in a statement released by the Department of Transportation. “Important programs and construction projects are at stake. This stalemate must be resolved.”

Transportation Committee ranking member Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) said Republicans should be blamed for failing to appoint conferees to reconcile House and Senate versions of a longer-term FAA extension.

Democrats oppose House Republican language that would make it harder to form air and rail unions, but Rahall said nonetheless that conferees should be appointed.

“What is the Republican leadership waiting for?” he asked.

Mica rejected these and other arguments during House debate, and said Democrats need to choose between allowing a partial FAA shutdown and accepting House language limiting subsidies to 13 airports.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It seems to me that "the people" (at least the ones who pay taxes) would be better off if the Senate Dems approved the bill that was sent to them.   The "corporations" have been benefitting from the status quo.   

To be honest, I do agree with the Democrat position in the union organizing debate.  The Republicans are proposing to count employees who do not vote in unionizing elections as a "NO" vote.  Current rules only count actual votes, be they "YES" or "NO".  Obviously, the current practice is the correct one.  Dems should change that provision only and send the bill back to the house.

I am afraid that Senate Dems won't do that though, because Harry Reid, Jay Rockefeller, and Max Baucus inserted those airports into the funding stream years ago for political and personal purposes.

So both parties need to step up and do the right thing.

As LaHood says, a clean bill means:

-  No cut in small airport subsidies

AND

-  No ideologically driven language that would make it hard for workers (tax-payers) to unionize.

ALEC already wields far too much power, they don't have to be protected from unions!!

From your article:

QuoteAdditionally, the House measure includes provisions that would make it harder for airline and railroad employees to unionize, drawing a veto threat from President Obama.

The administration on Wednesday named several programs at FAA that would be jeopardized if the extension is not passed by Friday.

“Without timely passage of a clean extension, all of FAA’s capital accounts (Grants-in-Aid for Airports, Facilities and Equipment, and Research, Engineering, and Development) would be shut down, and approximately 4,000 employees would be furloughed. FAA’s ability to award new grants, including for infrastructure upgrades at airports across the country, as well as to move forward with vital testing and implementation of the Next Generation air traffic control system, would come to a stop,” the White House said.

and

QuoteTransportation Committee ranking member Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) said Republicans should be blamed for failing to appoint conferees to reconcile House and Senate versions of a longer-term FAA extension.

Democrats oppose House Republican language that would make it harder to form air and rail unions, but Rahall said nonetheless that conferees should be appointed.

“What is the Republican leadership waiting for?” he asked.

Mica rejected these and other arguments during House debate, and said Democrats need to choose between allowing a partial FAA shutdown and accepting House language limiting subsidies to 13 airports.

Just another "my way, or the highway" hard-ball tactic of Republicans, that shuts doen ALL negotiations!!!

The art of compromise isn't part of the Republican lingo. Besides the FAA authorizarion has been extended 20 times before, without problems...........the current tea party environment is wreaking havoc on our country everywhere you look!!

Yep, if we are not careful that Tea Party might save this country if they are not stopped. 

Get off your anti Republican kick.  BOTH parties are wrong in part here.  We shouldn't HAVE to "extend" legislation twenty times.  The Senate Dems have a bill submitted to them.  They should change the union part and send it back to the House.  It is that simple.  Subsidizing those airports is just political largess.  The union vote issue has an obviously correct answer.  The Dems, by tabling the bill, are not negotiating OR cooperating. 

How can you support these airport subsidies?  How does that support or empower "the people"?  Or, like many "progressives", are you just repeating the rote of the party?  Come on, Comrade, have a little intellectual honesty.

Quote from: NotNow on July 30, 2011, 11:02:04 AM
We shouldn't HAVE to "extend" legislation twenty times.  The Senate Dems have a bill submitted to them.  They should change the union part and send it back to the House.  It is that simple.  Subsidizing those airports is just political largess.  The union vote issue has an obviously correct answer. 

The Dems, by tabling the bill, are not egotiating OR cooperating. 

Dems did not table the bill........it was the Republicans (ie John Mica) who refused to call a reconcilliation conference to reconcile House and Senate versions.

Subsidies for small airports in Alaska and Hawaii are important.

In the past, subsidies for small rural airports also had their place, but to subsidize airports that are primarily used for recreational air flight is ridiculous.

However to pick this fight now, at the expense of $200 million a week in taxes that the federal government isn’t collecting while the FAA shutdown continues is wrong. That fight should have been taken on one year ago or how about during the Bush years?

Right now we cannot afford to loose $200 million a week and almost 100,000 people without a pay-check!!

Holding Dems over a barrel without calling for a reconcilliation conference is abuse of power during a crisis!

QuoteTransportation Committee ranking member Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) said Republicans should be blamed for failing to appoint conferees to reconcile House and Senate versions of a longer-term FAA extension.

Sigh....if you would check the facts you would see that none of the affected airports are in Alaska or Hawaii.  Alaska is specifically exempt.  The Dem controlled Senate has the bill...tabled.  That is where the hold up is.

The fight dates back to 2007.  The replacement bill HAS been reconciled except for a couple of provisions, including these.  It is time for Congress to do what they are paid to do and make a decision. 

I didn't say Alaska or Hawaii were going to be affected by the Republican bill........they were wisely excluded from the cuts.

I merely tried to explain that along with you, I agree that small airport subsidies can be rolled back since they do not serve the pupose for which they were once intended. Same is true for the farm subsidies that 23 congressmen including Michelle Bachman benefited from.

Quote from: FayeforCure on July 30, 2011, 09:48:49 AM
The Treasury is looking into ways to recoup the $200 million a week in taxes that the federal government isn’t collecting while the FAA shutdown continues, and 70,000 construction workers and 4,000 federal employees are now sitting idle, with no paychecks!!!!

So what are we fighting over, and is this fight costing us more than the small airport subsidies that we are fighting to eliminate?

Yup, we already lost more in the almost 2 week FAA shutdown than the entire year of subsidies amount to. In fact after a week of the FAA being shut down the treasury already lost the amount that we were trying to save by eliminating those subsidies!!

QuoteCreated in 1978 to ease the transition of rural airports and small communities to a deregulated airline system, the so-called EAS was supposed to expire in 10 years. But more than 30 years later, it's still with us and costs taxpayers nearly $200 million a year.

Read more: http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/2011/07/27/budget-fight-hits-faa-and-essential-air-service#ixzz1TbhkeNR1

Sooo then we agree?  The subsidies should be removed by the Dems and the union vote procedure changes should be removed by the Reps.  See how easy this is if we remove the political bias?

And to your last point, we have been paying that $200 Million a year for a LONG time.  It is time to stop.

Quote from: NotNow on July 30, 2011, 12:41:03 PM
Sooo then we agree?  The subsidies should be removed by the Dems and the union vote procedure changes should be removed by the Reps.  See how easy this is if we remove the political bias?

And to your last point, we have been paying that $200 Million a year for a LONG time.  It is time to stop.

Yeah, if only we could run the government ourselves  ;D

Still it is the wrong time to pick this fight:

QuoteThe Essential Air Service is such a perfect microcosm of our current governance woes that it even led to the partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration over the weekend, a squabble over tax revenue, and partisan bickering over blame.

Let's handle that last bit first because it is a bizarre sideshow worth a moment of our time. Parts of the FAA shut down on Friday night because the House and Senate couldn't reconcile competing versions of a temporary extension of the agency's budget. That wouldn't be notable except for the fact that the FAA hasn't had a permanent budget since 2007. Without much ruckus, however, the House and Senate have passed 20 interim spending measures to keep the agency handling crucial operations (air-traffic control), collecting air taxes, and running ephemera like the Essential Air Service.

But in the currently poisonous Washington climate, temporary reauthorization No. 21 got hung up over some EAS spending cuts and a Republican attempt to reverse a recent National Mediation Board ruling that makes it easier for airline unions to organize. With no budget extension, about 4,000 FAA employees were laid off and, among other things, the FAA's authority to collect some taxes on airline tickets expired. That led virtually all airlines to raise fares by the exact amount of the expired taxes, but not before some alleged travel "experts" took to the media over the weekend proclaiming a one-time windfall of fare reductions. Rather than admit they got it wrong, the "experts" then erroneously claimed that the airlines were grabbing tax revenues for themselves.

Now back to the Essential Air Service. According to Department of Transportation records, about 140 communities and airports receive federal subsidies. The money is paid to airlines and, in exchange, they agree to fly into airports like Macon, Georgia; Pierre, South Dakota; Thief River Falls, Minnesota; Mason City, Iowa; Jamestown, New York; Hagerstown, Maryland; and Lancaster, Pennsylvania. EAS money is also paid to communities in Hawaii, where flights are the only way off an island, and Alaska, where roads don't exist or are impassable in winter.

This bizarre grab bag of subsidies is due to expire in 2013, but that's deceptive because, as noted, the original legislation that created the EAS envisioned its demise after just a decade.


Read more: http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/2011/07/27/budget-fight-hits-faa-and-essential-air-service/#ixzz1TblCSmKx

Lets fight over it in 2013..........NOT when this country is already embroiled in such turmoil.

If only....

FAA Shutdown Cost Could Exceed $1 Billion!!!

Soooo penny wise and pound foolish at a time we can least afford it!!!

QuoteWASHINGTON -- The congressional standoff that has partially shut down the Federal Aviation Administration has some curious math.

Lawmakers risk losing more than $1 billion in revenue from uncollected airline ticket taxes in a quarrel between Senate Democrats and House Republicans who are demanding a $16.5 million cut in rural air service subsidies.

The shutdown is less than two weeks old and already the government has lost more than $250 million in revenue because airlines' authority to collect ticket taxes has expired. The entire annual budget of the rural air services program is about $200 million.

"I'm a fiscal conservative," Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, told the Senate on Monday. "I'm trying to make the cuts that are necessary, trying to do the things that are right, but ... that just doesn't add up."

The Senate, with the federal debt crisis resolved, is expected to leave by the end of the week for its August recess. The House has already left. Unless the Senate accepts the House bill, lost revenue from uncollected airline ticket taxes could exceed $1.2 billion before lawmakers return to work a month later, senators said.

The FAA's long-term operating authority expired in 2007. Since then, Congress has been unable to agree on a long-term funding plan. The agency has continued to operate under a series of 20 short-term extensions.

The latest extension expired at midnight on July 22 after Senate Democrats rejected a temporary extension bill passed by the House that contained the subsidy cuts. Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic extension that didn't include cuts.

The lost ticket tax revenue is costing the government an estimated $200 million a week. The FAA has furloughed nearly 4,000 employees and issued stop-work orders on more than 200 construction projects.

Air traffic controllers have remained on the job. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has vowed that safety won't be compromised and travelers won't be inconvenienced




Democrats say the subsidies fight is actually a ploy to get them to accept a GOP labor provision in a separate, long-term FAA funding bill passed by the House. Republicans deny that's the case.

"Senate Democrats are also arguing that the House-passed extension is about a labor provision, but the fact is there is no labor provision in the extension," Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman, told colleagues in a letter last week.

Three times in the last 10 days, senators' efforts to pass a bill to end the shutdown without making air service subsidy cuts have been blocked by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Each time, Hatch has focused his remarks on the labor provision.

"I've been asked by our leadership to make these objections," Hatch explained Monday night. "What is important here â€" and it's not some itty-bitty little thing â€" is that you have labor regulators out of control."

To end the shutdown, he said, the Senate must agree to the House's labor provision. Then, the shutdown "would be solved in a nanosecond," he said.

The labor provision would overturn a National Mediation Board rule approved last year that allows airline and railroad employees to form a union by a simple majority of those voting. Under the old rule, workers who didn't vote were treated as "no" votes.

Republicans complain that the new rule reverses 75 years of precedent to favor labor unions. Democrats and union officials say the change puts airline and railroad elections under the same democratic rules required for unionizing all other companies.

The White House warned in March that President Barack Obama would veto an FAA bill containing the labor provision.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/02/faa-shutdown-cost_n_915854.html

The bullies demanding that the weak-spined cave to every one of their demands!!

The bullies are picking a fight when we can least afford it. Pass a clean bill!!

Interesting point of view........holding union votes to a higher standard than congressional votes:

QuoteIf Congressional Elections Followed The Anti-Union Rule Rep. Mica Proposed, He Wouldn’t Be A Congressman

By Travis Waldron on Aug 4, 2011 at 11:50 am


The Federal Aviation Administration is now in day 12 of a costly shutdown caused by House Republicans’ insistence that a measure making it harder for transportation workers to form a union be attached to agency’s re-authorization package. But if that rule were followed in congressional elections, the Republican leading the fight â€" House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica (R-FL) â€" wouldn’t even be a congressman.

The rule Mica attached to the package would make it harder to form unions by counting eligible voters who do not cast ballots as “no” votes, as opposed to leaving non-voters out entirely, as is done in the regular election process. According to the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the results of Mica’s 2010 election would have been dramatically different with this rule in effect:


Rep. Mica received support from 69% of the voters in his district who cast a ballot in his successful 2010 re-election campaign, amounting to slightly over 185,000 actual votes tallied for him.

However, if you add the over 83,000 voters who voted against Rep. Mica to 312,000 eligible voters who did not participate, then Rep. Mica would only muster 32% of the overall total â€" falling far short of the majority needed for election. Rep. Mica would lose handily to the 68% of “voters” who chose his opponent or were non-participating voters whose absence was counted as a vote for the alternative.

In fact, the CWA found that if the rule applied to all congressional elections, the United States government wouldn’t have a single member of Congress:


None of the current Members of Congress would have won election in 2010 under this standard. For each of the 435 House races in the 2010 elections, if you added the non-voting eligible voting population in a congressional district to the actual vote total cast for the opponent(s) of the current Member, then not one Member would have mustered the majority of votes needed to win election.

According to the report, only six of the 435 members of Congress would have received more than 40 percent of the vote under this type of election. Mica’s proposal is not an assault on unions â€" it is an assault on the democratic election process itself.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/08/04/287600/mica-elections-faa/